Zulu choir spreads AFL word

HUNTERS and Collectors’ The Holy Grail, Mike Brady’s Up There Cazaly, the dulcet tones of the Could’ve Been Champions, the not-so-dulcet - yet unforgettable - tones of Angry Anderson belting out Bound for Glory from the Batmobile: these are the songs and artists that define the musical side of Australian football culture.

But there’s a new track listing in our footy favourites and, believe it or not, it comes from a choir, the South African Zulu Choir.

FootyWILD - the New Game that Roars is a song reflecting the growing popularity of Australian Rules football in South Africa.

FootyWILD, as the game is known over there, has more than 18,000 participants in four provinces across the nation.

Helping to spread the word of Australian football is the South African Zulu Choir, whose members are performing in regional Victoria as part of an Australian concert tour.

Choir member Andiswa Mlisana, from Durban, says conveying footyWILD through music is a powerful tool.

“For us as a people - South Africans - music has played a very big part of who we are and how we’ve been able to overcome challenges and things that we’ve been through,” she says.

“When you’re singing that song about the men coming from Australia teaching us the new game...then it carries more than just playing the game.”

Collingwood players Dayne Beams, Brad Dick, and Jaxson Barham were on hand to put the choir members through some drills at Etihad stadium following singing practice.

Dick, who toured South Africa as a teenager with the Flying Boomerangs indigenous squad, says the enthusiasm with which the people have taken to Australian football could take the game a long way.

“It was a great experience because I was only young and had never been out of the country,” Dick recalls.

“There were a lot of people there and a lot of dancing going on at half times [of the matches]. They got a lot of people down there, everyone excited to watch footy,” he says.

The Flying Boomerangs experience will be reciprocated for four South African players following the South African National Championships in the North West province of Potchefstroom in September.

The players will be invited to attend the AIS-AFL Academy camp in December at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra, followed by a week with an AFL club.