Auskick is a program designed to teach the basic skills of Australian rules football (AFL) to boys and girls aged between 5 and 12. Auskick is a non-contact variant of the sport. It began in Australia and is now a nationwide non-selective program. It has increased participation and diversity in the sport amongst children, and is now being run in many countries across the world. At its peak in the mid-1990s in Australia there were around 200,000 Auskick participants annually and this figure has since stabilised at this number. Numerous professional, semi-professional and representative players are graduates. The program is now run throughout the world, including several locally branded variations such as: "Kiwi Kick" (AFL New Zealand), "Niukick" (Papua New Guinea), "Footywild" (South Africa), "Bula Kick" (Fiji), "Viking Kick" (Denmark), "Ausball" (United States) and "Pikinini Kick" (Vanuatu) among others often sponsored by local organisations. History Auskick has its roots in the Little League which began to be played at half time during VFL (now AFL) matches in the 1960s and was revised in 1980 to make it more accessible. Little League was expanded by Ray Allsop into a state development program called "Vickick" begun in Victoria in 1985. Participation increased from 7,000 to 35,000 in 4 years. The ACT was one of the first other states or territories to introduce the program in 1991 as "Auskick". Between 1993 and 1995 former AFL player and coach David Parkin who had been coaching the territory's Teal Cup side successfully lobbied the AFL for the national adoption of Auskick. In 1998, the AFL Commission, the national governing body for the sport, began to roll it out nationally. At its peak there were around 200,000 Auskick participants annually. As the world governing body, the Commission later franchised the program to affiliated organisations around the world under various local brands and sponsors. Auskick sessions Auskick is a national football coaching network, with clinics held weekly (usually on Saturday mornings) run by volunteers. The program attracts over 100,000 primary school aged participants annually and, as such, is the largest grassroots sporting association of its kind in Australia. Each Auskick session consists of a training session and a game, with the emphasis on developing skills rather than the game result. Some of the major rule differences from Australian rules football are a ban on tackling and the restriction of players to their zone of the field, similar