Hume Football League


The Hume Football Netball League is an Australian rules football and netball competition containing twelve clubs based in the South West Slopes and southern Riverina regions of New South Wales, Australia. The league features four grades in the Australian rules football competition, with these being First-Grade, Reserve-Grade, Under 17s and Under 14s. In the netball competition, there are six grades, with these being A-Grade, B-Grade, C-Grade, C-Reserve Grade, Intermediates and Juniors.
Currently, a home and away season consisting of 18 rounds is played. The best six teams then play-off according to the McIntyre System, culminating in the HFL Grand Final, which is traditionally hosted by Walbundrie.

History

Prior to the formation of the Hume Football League, various football associations and leagues had been organised in the southern Riverina area since the late 19th century, including the Central Hume Football League, the Albury and District Football League and the Riverina Football Association. The latter was organised in the 1920s amongst clubs in towns that lay on the railway spur from the main Sydney-Melbourne line at Culcairn as far west as Balldale, as in the years pre-World War II, cars were still a relatively uncommon form of transport, with horses still being prevalent in the area.
Appropriately, it was over concerns about travel times that caused the formation of the Hume Football League. The league was formed in 1933 by Jindera, Lavington, Gerogery and Border United, who were disgruntled about the amount of travel required in the existing Central Hume League. Gerogery won the inaugural season, winning the deciding Grand Final against Jindera.
In 1934, Border United withdrew after one season to be replaced by Bethanga, and Gerogery won their second premiership in a Grand Final against Lavington. In 1935, Walla Walla, Walbundrie and Burrumbuttock joined from the Central Hume League, which was dissolved.
The league's roster was relatively unstable in early years as clubs transferred from one local league to another, formed or disbanded.
The Hume Football League Grand Final was held at Jindera on 3 September 1938. Bethanga’s Captain Jack Mortlock and player Jim Stapleton were felled behind play in the first quarter and sent to hospital. Back then teams only had 19 players with just one interchange player so that left Bethanga with 17 fit players for the remainder of the match. The umpire was threatened and intimidated by the Lavington players so he made no reports during the Grand Final and they went on to record an easy win. Some of the Lavington players were disgusted with the way some of their teammates behaved and were disillusioned with their victory.

Post-War

The league reconvened in 1945 towards the end of the war with the following clubs: Balldale, Brocklesby, Rand, Walbundrie and Walla Walla. As before, the league's membership continued to fluctuate in subsequent years.
After the admission of Howlong, the make-up of the league remained stable until 1970 when Boree Creek joined from the Coreen & District Football League and Osborne joined from the Central Riverina Football League. At this point the competition had ten teams.
Balldale disbanded in February, 1975, causing a bye. In 1975, Lavington fielded a team in the Hume Football League, in addition to the Tallangatta & District Football League, for two years. In 1976, a reserves competition was introduced and Boree Creek moved back to the Coreen & District Football League. After two seasons, the Lavington side moved to the Farrer Football League in 1977, with a new club, East Lavington, taking their place.

Modern Era

Since the 1970s and 1980s, increased mobility has meant that the original motivations behind the league's formation have lessened, and the league has taken in more teams from beyond its original domain, to cover more of the rural area between the regional cities of Albury and Wagga Wagga. Henty joined the Hume Football League in 1980, and Lockhart joined in 1982, both from the Farrer Football League. Rand moved to the Coreen & District Football League in 1983. Culcairn and Holbrook joined the league from the Tallangatta & District Football League in 1992 and 1999 respectively. East Lavington disbanded at the end of 1997.
At the same time, economic concerns and the effect of migration from rural areas on the number of participants, leading to difficulties fielding teams, has meant that clubs from smaller neighbouring towns are electing to merge rather than disband completely, thus in 2006 two merged entities competed for the first time, the Brocklesby Burrumbuttock Football Club and the Rand Walbundrie Football Club.
In recent years on the playing arena, Osborne has tended to dominate the competition, though the league remains fairly competitive with most clubs providing a challenge.
Due to the disbanding of the neighbouring Coreen & District Football League, most of its teams were moved to the Hume Football League, bringing the number to fifteen for the 2008 season; these were Billabong Crows, Coleambally, Coreen-Daysdale-Hopefield-Buraja United, Murray Magpies and Rennie. Rennie retained the "Hoppers" nickname, sharing it with Walla Walla.
With the increasing size of the competition, an initial proposal to split the league into two pools for the 2009 season, organised geographically into western and eastern divisions and possibly including other nearby clubs was tabled in July 2007. This may be considered as part of an overall independent review of Australian football in the Riverina.
Rennie moved to the Picola & District Football League in 2009.
Coleambally moved to the Farrer Football League in 2011.
During the 2015/16 off season both the Walla Hoppers and Rand-Walbundrie Tigers football clubs entered merger talks for 2016 Hume Football League season. Voting for the proposed merger took place on Monday 7 March. Walla Walla Hoppers members voted 100 per cent in favour of the joint venture; while The Rand-Walbundrie Tigers voted 83 per cent in favour. The merged club commenced in 2016 playing home matches at Rand.

Current Finals System

The HFL & HNA currently uses the "McIntyre system". The final series is played over four weekends, with the Grand Final traditionally being played on the third Saturday of September. Traditionally since 1976 all finals for both Football & Netball have been played at the Walbundrie Showground. Since then the only final to be played elsewhere was the 1989 Grand Final at East Lavington.

Current clubs

Previous Clubs

Seniors

Footballers from the HFL who currently play or have played in the AFL include: