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The Sherrin: History of the AFL Football
The Sherrin has been the official ball of Australian Rules since the early 20th century. Its history, its construction, and why the oval shape shapes the entire game.
The Sherrin is the brand name that has become synonymous with the Australian Rules football itself — in the way that “Biro” became a generic term for ballpoint pens. The Sherrin family business has manufactured the official ball of the VFL and AFL for over a century, and its construction directly shapes how the game is played, kicked, and marked.
The History
1880s — Tom Sherrin Begins Manufacturing
Thomas William Sherrin, a saddler and leather worker based in Collingwood, begins making footballs by hand. Early footballs at the time were typically rounder, closer in shape to a rugby ball or association football, often made by local saddlers and shoemakers using whatever leather was available.
1880 — The Sherrin Family Innovation
According to Sherrin family history, Tom Sherrin developed a more elongated, pointed oval shape after repairing a round ball and altering its construction — finding that the modified shape was easier to control and kick accurately. The exact circumstances are part-documented, part-family-legend, but the resulting shape became the template for the modern Australian football.
Early 1900s — Adoption by the VFL
The Sherrin company’s footballs become increasingly standard across Victorian football, eventually becoming the official match ball of the VFL competition as the league formalised equipment standards.
20th Century — Manufacturing Evolution
The Sherrin ball transitions from hand-stitched leather construction to more modern synthetic materials over the decades, while retaining the distinctive oval shape and four-panel design that defines the football’s appearance and bounce characteristics.
Present Day — Official AFL Ball
Sherrin remains the official match ball supplier for the AFL, manufacturing the balls used in every AFL game including the Grand Final, and continuing to be the most recognised brand name in Australian football equipment.
Why the Shape Matters
The elongated oval shape of the Sherrin is not incidental — it directly produces the unpredictable bounce that is one of the distinctive features of Australian Rules. Where a spherical ball bounces predictably, the Sherrin’s oval shape means its bounce direction depends heavily on which axis it strikes the ground, producing genuine unpredictability that rewards quick reactions and penalises hesitation. This unpredictability is built into the game at a fundamental level — a loose ball on the ground is a genuine contest precisely because nobody, including the players nearest to it, can be entirely certain which direction it will bounce.
The Sherrin’s shape also directly enables the drop punt’s distinctive backward end-over-end rotation — the elongated shape allows for the stable, predictable spin that makes the drop punt markable, which would be far harder to achieve consistently with a spherical ball.
The Brand Name as the Generic Term
In contemporary Australian usage, “the Sherrin” functions as the standard term for an AFL football regardless of who actually manufactured the specific ball in question — a linguistic pattern shared with other genericised trademarks. Kick the Sherrin and kick the footy are used interchangeably in everyday Australian sporting language, reflecting just how thoroughly the brand has become identified with the object itself.
Related Pages
AFL Slang & Culture — The Complete Guide
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AFL Kicking Styles Explained
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The History of Australian Rules Football
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