Australian rules football was first played in Melbourne, Victoria in 1858, and developed over the following decades. The game was spread to other cities, but due to the large distances between cities in Australia, the game developed independently in each city. Until the 1870s, football in each city or colony was administered in an "ad hoc" manner by the participating clubs, before colony-level administrative bodies began to be established, with the Victorian Football Association (VFA) and South Australian Football Association (SAFA) formed in 1877 and the Tasmanian Football Association (TFA) in 1879.