South Warrnambool Football Club


The South Warrnambool Football Netball Club, nicknamed the Roosters, is an Australian rules football and netball club which competes in the Hampden Football League.
It is based in the regional Victorian city of Warrnambool and have played in the Hampden Football League since 1933.

History

Believed to have formed in 1902 the club didn't play in regular competition until 1912.
When the Warrnambool DFA decided to merge with the Corangamite FA to form the Western District FL in 1924, South Warrnambool merged with Warrnambool City to form the Warrnambool Football Club. Warrnambool won the inaugural flag. Three years later South Warrnambool reformed to provide stronger opposition to the Warrnambool team.
The admission of Hamilton caused additional traveling costs and problems with extra time away from home. Camperdown voted with its feet and left only to come back after a couple of seasons. For a while the league played zone football, a fixture for eastern clubs and one for the western clubs, with finals between the tops clubs at the end of the year.
In 1930 delegates voted to do away with zone football and have just one fixture the covered all clubs.
The Hampden Football League was formed in 1930, when the four founding clubs broke away from the Western District FL. Terang and Camperdown did not want to continue to travel to Hamilton because their players were farmers who could not spend all day away from the farm to play football, as they had cows to milk. Mortlake agreed with Camperdown and Terang and resigned from the WDFL. Cobden was left with a predicament, and requested admittance to the new league.
The Western District FL countered by admitting Portland to the competition. This incurred extra travelling costs and it was noticeable that gate takings were down. South Warrnambool were runners up in 1931 and again in 1932.
In 1933, South Warrnambool and Warrnambool joined the Hampden league, as takings at the gate had been greater when playing Camperdown or Terang that against any team in the WDFL.

Maskell medallists