The Football

In 1858, when Tom Wills, Henry Harrison, and a small group of Melbourne cricketers sat down to draft the first rules of Australian football, there was no such thing as an Australian football. The games that followed in those early years were played with whatever ball was available — typically a round rubber ball, or a misshapen version of the oval balls used in the various British codes that had already made their way to the colonies.

The sport spent its first two decades in a state of athletic improvisation. Players and clubs sourced their own equipment, often from saddlers and leather workers who also made cricket balls and harnesses. The ball had no standard size, no standard weight, and no standard shape. One match's football might bear little resemblance to another's.

What the sport needed — and what it would eventually get — was someone who understood both leather and the game itself. It found that person in a young saddler working out of a modest factory on the northern edge of Melbourne.

Thomas William Sherrin opened his leather goods factory at 32 Wellington Street, Collingwood, in 1879. He was a saddler by trade — skilled in working with leather, constructing shapes under tension, and understanding how stitching and material choice affect durability. From that workshop, he made cricket balls, boxing gloves, punching bags, and eventually footballs.

The pivotal moment came in 1880 when Sherrin was handed a misshapen rugby-style ball and asked to repair it. Rather than simply restore the original form, he redesigned the ball from first principles. His key innovation was replacing the pointed ends of the rugby ball with rounder, indented ends — a change that gave the ball a more consistent, predictable bounce on Australian conditions, and that suited the kicking and marking style already emerging in the local game.

The new shape spread quickly. Players preferred it. Clubs ordered it. Within years, the oval football manufactured by Sherrin's workshop had become the de facto standard across Victoria. The National Football League — the body that preceded today's VFL and AFL — eventually formalised what the market had already decided: the Sherrin was the game's official ball.

The company T.W. Sherrin Pty Ltd continued as a family and Australian-owned enterprise for nearly a century. In 1972, the business was sold to the Australian subsidiary of Spalding — the American sporting goods giant — marking the first change in ownership since the company's founding. Sherrin's manufacturing operations and brand identity were preserved through the acquisition, and the ball itself changed little.

In 2003, Spalding was acquired by the Russell Corporation. Three years later, Russell Corporation was itself acquired by Hanesbrands (the parent company of Fruit of the Loom). Today, the Sherrin name is owned and manufactured under licence, with production having moved offshore in recent decades — a transition that drew significant criticism from within the game, given the brand's deep Australian roots.

Despite these corporate changes, the Sherrin's status has never been in question. It remains the only ball used in official AFL matches, and its distinctive shape — the elongated prolate spheroid that no other football code has adopted in quite the same way — is as recognisable as any symbol in Australian sport.

While Sherrin has been unrivalled at the national level, Australian rules football has always been a sport of distinct regional traditions — and not every part of the country adopted the Sherrin without question. In Western Australia particularly, a separate manufacturing tradition developed that persists to this day.

Beyond Sherrin and Burley, a number of smaller manufacturers have produced Australian rules footballs for the training and junior markets over the decades — including generic leather goods makers during the sport's early expansion into Queensland and New South Wales. None has ever seriously challenged Sherrin's dominance at the elite level, and no major league outside the WAFL has adopted an alternative match ball.

The picture in the junior and community game is more varied. Synthetic training balls — lighter, more durable, and water-resistant — are widely used at the grassroots level, produced by various sporting goods manufacturers. These are explicitly separate from the match ball specification, which remains leather, hand-stitched, and Sherrin.

A match-grade Sherrin football is a piece of precision manufacturing disguised as a simple object. At its core is a rubber bladder — inflated to a specific pressure — surrounded by a lining layer that provides shape and tension. Over this sits the outer casing: four panels of treated leather, cut to precise dimensions and hand-stitched together with a waxed linen thread.

The leather panels are cut from the belly hide of a cow, an area chosen for its consistent grain, pliability, and durability. The hide is treated and buffed to create the characteristic pebbled surface that gives players grip — particularly important in wet conditions. Each panel is pre-formed before stitching to ensure the ball holds its prolate spheroid shape under match pressure.

The stitching itself is done by hand. Eight rows of stitching run around the circumference of the ball, with the seams deliberately raised to aid grip further. The valve — through which the ball is inflated — is a recessed metal nib on one of the panels, designed to sit flush with the surface and not affect the ball's flight.

Once assembled and inflated to specification, each match-grade ball undergoes quality checking before being approved for use. The AFL provides match balls for every game in advance, with balls pre-conditioned to a standard pressure and inspected by match officials before the opening bounce.

The AFL's official Laws of Australian Football specify the dimensions and properties of the match ball in detail. These specifications have remained broadly stable for decades, with only minor adjustments to account for manufacturing improvements and changing ball technology.

The AFLW uses a ball of the same specification as the men's competition. For junior competitions, Sherrin produces a range of smaller sizes — designated as Size 3, Size 4, and Size 5 — to suit players aged from under-9s through to under-17s. The full-size match ball is a Size 5.

The most visible change to the AFL football in the modern era is also the most functional: the introduction of the yellow high-visibility ball for night matches. First trialled in the 1980s and progressively refined, the yellow Sherrin is now standard for any match played under lights or in poor visibility conditions. From the stands and on television, it tracks more clearly against the sky — a simple change that has had a meaningful effect on the viewing experience.

Less visible but arguably more significant has been the gradual standardisation of ball preparation. Throughout the VFL era and into the AFL's early years, players and clubs were known to condition their own match balls — softening the leather, adjusting the pressure, sometimes treating the surface. The AFL has progressively tightened control of match ball preparation, with a standard pre-game conditioning process now applied to all match balls before they reach the field.

The question of synthetic materials has surfaced periodically. Modern training balls — particularly those designed for wet conditions or junior use — are increasingly made from synthetic leather or composite materials that are more consistent in rain and easier to maintain. At the elite level, however, the AFL has maintained the requirement for a genuine leather ball, arguing that the game's character — and particularly the unpredictability of the ball in wet conditions — is part of its identity.

The Sherrin itself has changed very little in fundamental design since 1880. The rubber bladder replaced the original leather one. The stitching thread and treatment have been refined. Manufacturing processes have become more precise. But the shape, the panel construction, the pebbled leather surface, and the distinctive feel of a Sherrin in the hands are essentially the same as what Thomas William Sherrin produced from his Collingwood workshop more than 140 years ago.

Few pieces of sporting equipment can claim that kind of continuity. The Sherrin is not just a ball. It is one of the enduring physical objects of Australian culture — handled by millions, recognised instantly, and central to a sport that defines whole communities. The saddler from Collingwood could not have known what he was creating. But the game has known ever since.