*The earliest recorded match, to date, attributed to the world game.

I'd be fairly confident that the game was played here earlier. It's either not recorded or been attributed to what we now know as "aussie rules" and various other ball games at the time. The games were virtually identical back then.

ashtongate said:

True. People talk about the Port Adelaide footy club being formed in 1870.
Problem is they weren't playing Aussie Rules then. They were playing Adelaide rules or Kensington rules, which vaguely resembled rugby with a bit of soccer added.
They didn't start playing Aussie Rules until 1877.
The 1870s is the key decade in Australian football history. Soccer could have easily taken off then- only by chance, it didn't.

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Yeah Kensington Rules was an interesting game. I feel like Adelaide have forgotten part of their own heritage there.

And I think early days Tasmania were playing their own style, and soccer emerged as number 1. Then they had a vote of which rules to play by, and the Melbourne Rules won by one vote. Something like that, it's been a while since I've had my head in it.

In Sydney I think, there was an article about Aboriginal kids playing what would be considered today as a type of soccer. The story believed that they had learnt the game from Europeans straight off the boats. I think it was very early days too, before Melbourne Rules was a thing (pre 1850s). Maybe it was before any official rules were written back in the UK, who knows? These things are all difficult to prove though.