The Cordner-Eggleston Cup is the current name of a historic private school Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 competition which has been played annually between Melbourne Grammar School

Melbourne Grammar School

Melbourne Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, located in South Yarra and Caulfield, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

 and the Scotch College

Scotch College, Melbourne

Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....

 since 1858.

The first football

Football

Football may refer to one of a number of team sports which all involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer"...

 fixture was played under experimental rules on 7 August 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne

Yarra Park, Melbourne

Yarra Park is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct - the premier sporting precinct of Victoria, Australia. Located in Yarra Park is the Melbourne Cricket Ground and numerous sporting fields and ovals, including the associated sporting complexes of Melbourne & Olympic Parks...

 making it the longest continuously running

Oldest football competitions

The world's oldest football competition is a title claimed by many.Many early football fixtures before the 1850s did not have set rules, clubs or trophies and are poorly documented.Some competitions were semi-organised fixtures, others offered trophies....

 school football

English public school football games

During the early modern era students, former students and teachers at English public schools developed and wrote down the first codes of football, most notably the Eton College...

 fixture in the world. It is also of cultural importance to Australia, as it is the best documented early football match in Australia and is believed by many historians to have played a key role in the Origins of Australian football. The first match is commemorated by a bronze statue depicting the game outside the MCG.

In recent years the match has had an increasing profile (especially due to the 150th celebrations of Australian football), has been played close to the site of the first contest at the Melbourne Cricket Ground

Melbourne Cricket Ground

The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...

 (MCG), as a curtain raiser

Curtain raiser

*A United States Air Force missile combat competition called Curtain Raiser, held in 1967*Curtain raiser - A short play or entertainment given before the main entertainment or event to fill out the bill or programme....

 to Australian Football League

Australian Football League

The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...

 matches.

The "first" match

The first game ran for three days, over three consecutive Saturdays, and each team selected an umpire: Melbourne Grammar chose Tom Wills

Tom Wills

Thomas Wentworth "Tom" Wills was an Australian all-round sportsman, umpire, coach and administrator who is credited with being a catalyst towards the invention of Australian rules football....

; Scotch chose Dr John Macadam. By the completion of the third day, the match had resulted in a one-all draw.

In recent years historians have found evidence of earlier matches between the two schools, and subsequently the origin of the game remains one of the most contested areas of Australian history. Both Melbourne Grammar and Scotch have acknowledged the ongoing research of historians.

The Cup

The cup, instituted in 1989, is a retrospective award which was named after prominent alumni from the respective schools - Dr Don Cordner

Don Cordner

Dr Donald Cordner was an Australian rules footballer who played with Melbourne in the Victorian Football League during the 1940s...

 (Melbourne Grammar) and Mr Michael Eggleston (Scotch College). Before the cup the clubs competed for honours and were recorded in the yearbook

Yearbook

A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks...

s and other sports logbook

Logbook

A logbook was originally a book for recording readings from the chip log, and is used to determine the distance a ship traveled within a certain amount of time...

s of the respective schools.

Relationship with Australian football

Australian football is the code which the match is played today, however the first match was played under experimental rules.

The AFL Commission

AFL Commission

The AFL Commission is the official governing body of the Australian Football League , the elite national Australian rules football competition....

 officially regards it as the first match of Australian football.

Historians draw a connection to the modern code of Australian football primarily through the involvement of Tom Wills as an organiser and participant as well as the fact that the match was co-ordinated by Thomas H. Smith

Thomas H. Smith

Thomas Henry Smith was an Irish Australian who had a clear role in the origins of Australian football by being one of the first people to introduce school football games to Australian public schools in 1858 and as one of the founders of the Melbourne Football Club.Smith was a founding member and...

 who was later, along with Wills, one of the founders of the Melbourne Football Club

Melbourne Football Club

The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....

 and signatory of the first known Laws of Australian Football

Laws of Australian football

The laws of Australian football describe the rules of the game of Australian rules football as they have evolved and adapted, with the same underlying core rules, since 1859....

. Wills is believed to have been involved due to his interest in establishing football in Victoria and experimenting with rules as part of his quest for a "code of laws" by which the game could be organised.

Tim Shearer of the Old Scotch Collegians Association, and a former AFL umpire, explaining to The Age

The Age

The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...

that the College is "careful to say we don't dogmatically claim this was the first game of Australian football and that there are differing views which we respect. But we do like to say that this is the first recorded game by two teams who still exist today."

To celebrate the schools' 150-year-old rivalry, the Cordner-Eggleston Cup in 2008 was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; the match was won by Melbourne Grammar.