Albert Park Football Club (VFA)
| Albert Park Football Club | |
|---|---|
| Names | |
| Full name | Albert Park Football Club |
| Nickname(s) | Parkites, Hillites |
| Club details | |
| Founded | 1867 |
| Dissolved | 1880 |
| Colours | White and red |
| Competition | Unaffiliated until 1876 Victorian Football Association (1877–1879) |
| Premierships | Challenge Cup: 1870 (disputed) |
| Ground(s) | Emerald Hill Ground |
Albert Park Football Club (historically styled as Albert-park) was a 19th-century Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park. The club was one of main first-rate senior football clubs during the unaffiliated era of Victorian football.
The club was established as the South Melbourne Football Club in May 1867.[1] It changed its name to Emerald-hill in April 1868,[2] then to Albert-park in May 1869.[3] It played its home games at the Emerald-hill Ground.[4]
The club quickly became one of the main senior clubs competing at the time. The best performance in its history was in the 1870 season; it was undefeated, but it finished second for the premiership behind Melbourne, which was also undefeated.[5] The club also claimed the South Yarra Presentation Challenge Cup during the 1870 season, although the claim was disputed by the other clubs: rules required that a club win four cup matches without loss to claim permanent ownership of the Cup, but the other clubs argued that Albert-park's walk-over victory against Railway should not have counted.[6]
In 1876, the club entered an amalgamation with North Melbourne, but the amalgamation ended one year later when North Melbourne was re-established as an independent club under the name 'Hotham'.[7] In 1877, Albert-park was an inaugural senior member of the Victorian Football Association.
In 1880, Albert-park amalgamated with the neighbouring South Melbourne, which had joined the VFA as a senior club in 1879, to create a new club which carried on South Melbourne's name, and retained Albert-park's red and white colours. The merged club went on to dominate metropolitan football during the 1880s, and exists today as the professional Sydney Swans club in the Australian Football League.[8] A newer, unrelated club called the Albert Park Football Club competes today in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
References
- ^ "Thursday, 23 May 1867". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 23 May 1867. p. 5.
- ^ "Thursday, 23 April 1868". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 23 April 1868. p. 5.
- ^ "Football". The Australasian. Vol. VI, no. 162. Melbourne, VIC. 8 May 1869. pp. 588–589.
- ^ "Football". The Australasian. Vol. IX, no. 224. Melbourne, VIC. 16 July 1870. p. 43.
- ^ Fair Play (23 October 1870). "Football – retrospect of the season". The Australasian. Vol. IX, no. 238. Melbourne, VIC. p. 524.
- ^ Fair Play (13 August 1870). "Football chatter". The Australasian. Vol. IX, no. 228. Melbourne, VIC. p. 204.
- ^ Peter Pindar (7 October 1876). "The Football Season of 1876 – Part 1". The Australasian. Vol. XXI, no. 549. Melbourne, VIC. p. 460.
- ^ "Chapter four – Sydney or bust: the South Melbourne Football Club's 1981 relocation saga" (PDF). p. 111. Retrieved 18 October 2014.