Australian Football

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KEY FACTS

Official name
Caulfield Grammarians Amateur Football Club

Known as
Caulfield Grammarians

Formed
1920

Colours
Navy blue and white

Emblem
Fields

Affiliation (Current)
Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) 1920–2024

Home Ground
Glenhuntly Oval

Senior Premierships
VAFA A Section - 1970 (1 total); B Section/Premier B - 1925, 2011, 2019 (3 total); C Section - 1953, 1983 (2 total); D Section - 1949, 1961, 2000 (3 total); E Section - 1998 (1 total)

Championships and Trophies
GT Moore Medal – Geoff R. Ward 1961; Anthony A. Lester 1976 (2 total); LS Zachariah Medal – Robin M. Harrison 1959 (1 total); LS Pepper Medal – George B. Cassidy 1928 (1 total)

Website
cgfc.com.au

Caulfield Grammarians

Caulfield Grammar School was founded in 1881 and football very soon became a vital part of school life. As early as 1889 the school’s magazine reported on a match between teams of present and past pupils, with the latter combination perhaps representing a prototype of today’s proud and distinguished VAFA member club. During the first decade of the twentieth century another team of former pupils, known as Caulfield Collegians, competed for a time in the short-lived Colleges Football Association, winning the competition’s inaugural premiership in 1904. It was not until 1920, however, and the resumption of organised amateur football in Melbourne after world war one, that the present day Caulfield Grammarians Football Club came into being as one of four new members of the eight team Metropolitan Amateur Football Association (known since 1932 as the VAFA).

The 1920s was a boom time all over Australia for most major sports, and in Melbourne this meant especially football. By 1923 the MAFA had expanded to comprise two sections, although unfortunately for Caulfield Grammarians, their poor form over previous seasons saw them consigned to B Section, where they remained until they secured promotion as premiers in 1925.

Right from the outset, the football club boasted strong links with the school that spawned it. In 1920, the school’s headmaster William Buntine was elected as the club’s inaugural president, while the school in its turn made its facilities freely available to the Grammarian footballers.

With the exception of the B Section premiership in 1925, the club’s performances during its first three decades were undistinguished. Indeed, as the VAFA expanded, so the Grammarians tended to find themselves, sooner or later, enduring life in the lowest division. By the early 1930s there were a total of four sections, labelled A-D, and when, in 1949, Caulfield Grammarians experienced the joy of premiership success for the second time it was in D Section, thanks to a 9.10 (64) to 5.5 (35) grand final defeat of Murrumbeena.

The club has won three D Section grand finals over the years, with the others coming in 1961 (versus West Brunswick) and 2000 (by more than 20 goals against Old Essendon Grammarians). Meanwhile the four intervening decades, which featured C Section premierships in 1953 and 1983, as well as promotion from B Section as losing grand finalists in 1965, 1976 and 1985, were undoubtedly the most noteworthy in the club’s history to date. However, the perfect way in which the Grammarians managed to crown their fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1970 far outweighed these achievements. Many of the men in navy and white who entered the fray against Coburg in that year’s A Section grand final were playing in their third such play off, having endured the agony of defeat against Old Paradians in both 1967 and 1968. Coburg, as reigning premiers as well as victors in the second semi final, were supposed to be too accomplished for John Wilson’s team of honest battlers, but finals football is arguably about battling more than anything else, as the Grammarians proved with consecutive wins over Ormond in the preliminary final by 4 points, and Coburg in ‘the big one’ by 2 points. In truth, the grand final win should have been more convincing, as the final scores of 14.18 (102) to 15.10 (100) appear to confirm, but at the end of the day a premiership is worth exactly the same incalculable amount regardless of how convincingly (or otherwise) it is attained.

In addition to being the ideal way to commemorate the club’s fiftieth birthday, the 1970 grand final was coach John Wilson’s 200th match at the helm. Among the key on-field contributors to the win were eventual 1970 club champion Greg Tootell, the club’s official ‘Team of the Century’ centreman Tony Lester, talented defender John Long, and the Hore brothers. Off the field, the club’s loyal coterie support group, the ‘Fields’, helped ensure that celebrations were both energetic and prolonged.

Caulfield Grammarians remained a force to be reckoned with in A Section for another three seasons, but after contesting the preliminary final in 1973 the side’s form nosedived, and relegation to B Section came the following year. Recovery was fairly swift, however, with third place in 1975 being followed by promotion, albeit as a losing grand finalist, in 1976. There was to be no repeat of the glory days of the club’s previous stint in A Section, however, as indeed was the case during their most recent foray into the Association's top section. This came after a 17.12 (114) to 12.9 (81) B Section grand final triumph against St Bernards in 2011. The following season in A Section proved to be an unmitigated disaster as the Fields lost all 18 home and away matches to finish with the wooden spoon and a ticket straight back to B Section - nowadays known as Premier B - where they remained until catapulted down to Premier C after a disastrous 2015 season which saw them win just 2 of 18 matches. In 2016 they showed signs of a recovery, taking out the minor premiership only to crash out of the flag race with "straight sets" finals losses to Mazenod Old Collegians and Peninsula Old Boys. A year later they improved sufficiently to make it through to a grand final clash with Old Haileyburians, but they came up short by 8 goals. Nevertheless, the mere fact of having qualified for the grand final meant that the Fields would be playing Premier B football in 2018, something which they did quite impressively, ultimately making it as far as a losing first semi final clash with University Blacks. A year later they enjoyed a dream campaign which culminated in an emphatic 17.22 (124) to 4.8 (32) grand final defeat of Old Scotch.

Amateur football is about much more than winning on the field, however, and in terms of human qualities like loyalty, mutual support, shared commitment and endeavour, and the fostering of community spirit Caulfield Grammarians lose nothing in comparison to any of the other seventy or so clubs in the VAFA. The club also has an enviable record in terms of harnessing the full potential of those associated with it, not least its players. Over the years, somewhere in the region of fifty footballers have gone on to enjoy careers at the game’s top level after commencing at Caulfield. Among the most noteworthy of these have been John Schultz (Footscray), Jim Taylor (South Melbourne and Norwood), Ron Evans (Essendon and West Perth), the Kelleway brothers, Andrew and Duncan (Richmond), Stuart Maxfield (Richmond and Sydney), Stephen Newport (Melbourne and St Kilda), and Lance Wilkinson (Hawthorn). 

Source

John Devaney - Full Points Publications

 

Footnotes

* Behinds calculated from the 1965 season on.
+ Score at the end of extra time.