 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Sports equipment |
| Founded | 1880; 145 years ago (1880) inCollingwood,Australia (as "T.W. Sherrin Pty Ltd") |
| Founder | Thomas W. Sherrin |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Australian rules footballs |
| Website | sherrin.com.au |
Sherrin is a brand offootball used inAustralian rules football and is the official ball of theAustralian Football League, designed to its official specifications. It was the first ball designed specifically for the sport.
Sherrin footballs are manufactured inMelbourne, Australia, fromcowhide-lined, machine-stitched material, but other-sized models are often made inIndia or China usingsynthetic rubber.
"The Sherrin" has become a commentators' synonym for the ball while describing play.
In 1879, Thomas W. Sherrin opened a factory at 32 Wellington Street in Collingwood.[1] The first Australian rules football was invented by Sherrin himself in 1880, when he was given a misshapenrugby ball to fix. He designed the Sherrin with indented rather than pointy ends to give the ball a better bounce. The sport known asfootball, or "footy", was rapidly increasing in popularity, and Sherrin footballs soon became the icon for being the first ball made for Australian rules football. The new-shaped ball was so quickly accepted that the National Football League of Australia eventually used the size and shape as standard.
Sherrin began production in 1897 in a workshop inCollingwood, which had produced a variety of leather sporting goods since 1880, including footballs, cricket balls, boxing gloves and punching balls. The quality of Sherrin's goods was widely regarded.[2]
The company was sold in 1972 to the Australian subsidiary ofSpalding. In 2003, Spalding was acquired by theRussell Corporation, which would become part ofFruit of the Loom three years later.[3]
Full-Size Ball (n° 5)
Models of the Sherrin football include:
The term "Kangaroo Brand" ("KB") refers to a type of Sherrin football. When T.W. Sherrin started manufacturing footballs, several models were produced (such as the "MATCH III" Sherrin), but the "Kangaroo Brand" was Sherrin's best-selling, highest-quality, and most favoured and traditional football.
Sherrin is the official brand of football used by theAustralian Football League, which has been the case since the 1880s.
At the state level, Sherrin is used in theVictorian Football League and many local competitions. The other major brand of football isBurley-Sekem, which is used at state level in theWest Australian Football League.
After a 12-month-long investigation,The Saturday Age, aMelbourne newspaper, claimed that "two of Australia's best-known football brands, Sherrin and Canterbury, have operations in India that use banned child labour." The children took an hour to make one AFL ball and were paid 7 rupees (A$0.12) per ball, amounting to $1 a day.[5][6] That claim was in direct contradiction to the company website that claimed the balls were made inScoresby, Victoria.[7]
A follow-up investigation byFairfax Media in September 2013 revealed that another brand of rugby ball was being stitched using illegal child labour inJalandhar,Punjab, for sale in Australia.[8]
