Australian Football

Black Rock

The Black Rock Football Club boasts a century-plus long history that has combined consistent achievement with some degree of controversy. The club has also found life a struggle at times, and between 1973 and 1975 was even forced to disband. Recent performances, however, have been encouraging.

Established in 1908, Black Rock spent much of its early history competing in the Federal Football Association, struggling somewhat prior to world war one before emerging as a force after it. In 1921 the side reached the grand final, but lost to Brighton Seconds. It spent the 1922 season competing in the Metropolitan Amateur Football Association, precursor of today’s Victorian Amateur Football Association, before resuming in the FFA and contesting another losing grand final in 1923.

The period from 1927 to 1929 saw Black Rock again affiliating with the MAFA, but while this proved a successful phase in the club’s history in terms of on-field achievements, it also saw the club’s name seriously tainted by frequent allegations of violent and disorderly behaviour on the part of its supporters. So seriously were these allegations taken that at the end of the 1929 season Black Rock was expelled from the Association. Had it been permitted to continue it would have commenced the 1930 season in A Section having won the 1928 C Section premiership and followed this up by losing the next year’s B Section grand final against Murrumbeena.

The 1930s saw Black Rock competing in the FFA once more with the side reaching three consecutive grand finals between 1934 and 1936 and claiming victory in the last two of them. A third flag in this competition followed after the war in 1954, but after that the club encountered difficult times which ultimately brought about the period of recess mentioned earlier.

After resuming in 1976 the Rockers affiliated with the Eastern Suburban Churches Football Association in which they were successful in procuring premierships in E Grade in 1980 and D Grade four years later. The club’s three most recent flags were both won in Division Three of the Southern Football League, in 2004, 2007 and 2015. To date, Black Rock is the only club to have won three premierships in this grade.

As a result of their 11.10 (76) to 9.9 (63) Division Three grand final defeat of Mount Waverley in 2015 the Jets, as Black Rock are nowadays known, were promoted to Division Two. Their first season at that level was disappointing as they managed just 1 win from 18 matches to finish with the wooden spoon and succumb to the drop back to Division Three where, in 2017, they finished fifth, a result that they repeated in both 2018 and 2019.