The South Australian Patriotic Football League or Patriotic League was a short lived
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 ...
wartime competition formed during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
in South Australia to fill the void left by the
South Australian Football League
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport.
Originally formed as the ...
(SAFL) which elected to go into recess at the time. Games held were used to raise funds for the war effort. The SAFL was opposed to the formation of the Patriotic League and refused to recognise it during and after World War I.
In the first season of the Patriotic League the competition raised between £350 to £400 for the war effort and Australian soldiers. By 1918 some Patriotic League matches were raising £1,000 per game.
The Patron of the Patriotic League, Francis (Frank) Walter Lundie, and the Delegate for West Adelaide, Albert (Bert) Augustine Edwards, were Councillors for the City of Adelaide in Grey Ward, the area mainly associated with the West Adelaide Football Club (Bert Edwards was their President). Despite being anti-conscription Labor men, they were patriots and supported the war effort.
Participating teams
Three seasons
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Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...
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North Adelaide
North Adelaide is a predominantly residential precinct and suburb of the City of Adelaide in South Australia, situated north of the River Torrens and within the Adelaide Park Lands.
History
Surveyor-General Colonel William Light of the colo ...
South Australian Railways
South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Austr ...
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South Adelaide
The South Adelaide Football Club is an Australian rules football club that competes in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL). Known as the ''Panthers'', their home ground is Flinders University StadiumSturt
* St Francis Xavier
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South Australian Police
South Australia Police (SAPOL) is the police force of the Australian state of South Australia. SAPOL is an independent statutory agency of the Government of South Australia directed by the Commissioner of Police, who reports to the Minister for ...
Mitcham
Mitcham is an area within the London Borough of Merton in South London, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross. Originally a village in the county of Surrey, today it is mainly a residential suburb, and includes Mitcham Common. It ha ...