Port Melbourne Football Club


The Port Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Borough, is an Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Port Melbourne and is currently playing in the Victorian Football League.
The club currently has no reserves alignment with an Australian Football League club.
Port Melbourne is traditionally considered one of the strongest, most successful and most supported Victorian clubs outside the AFL due to its long and illustrious history in the competition formerly known as the Victorian Football Association.

History

The Borough joined the Victorian Football Association in 1886 and has played in every season since then. In 1897, Port Melbourne was left out of the group of eight clubs which formed the breakaway VFL competition, despite having regularly been about the sixth- or seventh- best performing team onfield. Historian Terry Keenan theorised that the likeliest reason for Port Melbourne's exclusion was the reputation for the poor behaviour that its players and spectators had developed over the previous decade; its rivalry with and proximity to the influential South Melbourne Football Club and the fact that the club had supported the gate equalisation measures which the breakaway clubs were trying to escape were also speculated to have contributed to the decision.
The club, and the suburb of Port Melbourne in general, were heavily associated with wharf labourers and the union movement. During a 1928 waterfront strike in Melbourne, a wharf labourer protesting the use of scab labour was shot by police; as a result, the club banned any police from playing with them. The policy remained in place until the late 1950s.
For most, the nickname of the Borough may seem strange, but its origins lie when the team was based in what was known as the Borough of Port Melbourne. The name stuck, even after the area was upgraded to the status of town and eventually city.
Port Melbourne went on to become one of the strongest clubs in the VFA, and today still attracts some of the biggest crowds to its games. The club had very strong links with the Port Melbourne community, arguably the strongest community relationship within the VFA; local juniors often held stronger aspirations to play for Port Melbourne than for the VFL's South Melbourne – which by the 1950s was perennially struggling and to which the Port Melbourne area was zoned – and even players as highly decorated as Brownlow Medallists Peter Bedford and Bob Skilton regularly returned to Port Melbourne after their VFL careers.
Traditionally the Borough's greatest rivals are the Williamstown Seagulls and the Sandringham Zebras. All three teams continue to play in the VFL to this day. Prior to the original breakaway of the VFL from the VFA in 1897, Port Melbourne's greatest rival was.
Since the AFL reserves competition merged with the Victorian Football League in 2000, Port Melbourne has been involved in two affiliations: with the Sydney Swans, and with the North Melbourne Kangaroos ; since 2006, Port Melbourne has existed as a stand-alone VFL club.
Port Melbourne has been affiliated with the Oakleigh Chargers TAC Cup team since the 1999 season. It had previously been affiliated with the Geelong Falcons, and in 1995 was part of a three-way affiliation which saw it share the Calder Cannons and Western Jets with Williamstown and Coburg.

Club Jumper

The Port Melbourne Football Club's Guernsey is royal blue with red vertical stripes.

Uniform evolution

Club Song

The club song is sung to the tune of "You're a Grand Old Flag".

2011 season

In 2011, Port Melbourne completed a perfect season, winning all eighteen home-and-away games, then three finals matches, culminating in a 56-point win against Williamstown in the Grand Final. It was the first perfect season in the VFA/VFL first division since 1918.

Team of the Century

The Port Melbourne Football Club team of the century was chosen in 2003, combining all the clubs greats from across its long history.

Premierships

The Centenary Cup was a once-off knock-out competition held during 1977, and is not counted amongst Port Melbourne's total premiership statistics.

Other Awards

Runners-ups : 1902, 1923, 1925, 1928, 1929, 1945, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1965, 1967, 1987, 1993, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012
Minor Premierships : 1941, 1947, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1966, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2014
Wooden Spoons : 1909, 1936, 2006

Post War Placings

Records