Geelong (Association) Football Club was an
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
club which played in the
Victorian Football Association
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
(VFA) from 1922 until 1927.
History
In late 1921, the VFA granted the
Geelong & District Junior Football Association permission to establish a new senior club to be admitted to the Association. The new club was called the Geelong Football Club; it was typically referred to as Geelong (Association) or Geelong (A.) when required to distinguish it from the
Geelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...
of the same name which was affiliated with the Victorian Football League. The Association was keen to operate a club in Geelong, as it saw an opportunity to take some of the market share in the town which had been dominated by the League since 1897. At the time there were two high quality football venues in Geelong:
Corio Oval
Corio Oval was an Australian rules football ground, located in Geelong, Victoria, and used by the Geelong Football Club in the VFA and the VFL from 1878 to 1915, and 1917 to 1940. Sited in Eastern Park, the oval was served by trams from 1930 wh ...
, which was used by Geelong (L.), and the newly upgraded
Kardinia Park
Kardinia Park is a major public park located in South Geelong, Victoria. A number of public and sporting facilities are located in the park: a major AFL stadium, a secondary football oval, a cricket field, an open air swimming pool, a number of ...
, into which the new Geelong club moved.
The club wore purple and gold in its first season, before switching to the same navy blue and white colours worn by Geelong (L.).
The club spent six years in the competition, but with a playing list composed primarily of junior players, it never achieved much on-field success. Its best result was a win–loss record of 4–14 (achieved twice),
and it won three
wooden spoons.
By 1925, the club was struggling off-field as well as on-field. It nearly folded at the administrative level during the 1925 season – under which a new and independent committee would have taken over the playing list left behind – but the existing administration remained, and in 1926, the club moved from Kardinia Park to the Western Oval in West Geelong.
By 1927, Geelong had become a financial burden to the rest of the Association. The team was not well supported, so its crowd numbers were the lowest in the Association, with an average gate of only £18 per game in its final year; after venue expenses were deducted, there was little left for the visiting clubs, who were then forced to cover the cost of travel to Geelong. As such, the Association excluded Geelong from its senior ranks after the 1927 season, opting to admit
Yarraville
Yarraville is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Maribyrnong local government area. Yarraville recorded a population of 15,636 at the .
Yarraville i ...
in its place.
References
{{VFL
Former Victorian Football League clubs
Australian rules football clubs established in 1922
Australian rules football clubs in Geelong
1922 establishments in Australia
1927 disestablishments in Australia
Australian rules football clubs disestablished in 1927