Australian Football

Diamond Creek

The Demons can boast a long, illustrious history which has seen them enjoy premiership success, in four distinct phases, in several different competitions. In 1906 the club was a founder member of the Bourke Evelyn Football League, having previously competed, without winning any premierships, in the Whittlesea District Football Association. The change of stamping ground obviously did the side good as it promptly claimed the inaugural BEFL flag followed by a second place finish in 1907 and another premiership in 1908. This was effectively the first of Diamond Creek’s four phases of success.

The second such phase occurred during the 1920s. In 1922 Diamond Creek was one of seven foundation members of the Diamond Valley Football League, the competition which, in 2007, would be supplanted by the Northern Football League. The club was a force in this new league from the outset, and went top in both 1924 and 1926.

There then followed more than half a century of predominantly mediocre showings which were finally brought to an end by the club’s first, and to date only, back to back premiership triumphs in 1981 and 1982. The 1981 season had seen the DVFL split into two divisions, with both of the Demons’ successes coming in the top flight. However, the last of the club’s four phases of success involved a trio of second division flags, in 1992, 1998 and 2005. Recent seasons have seen the Demons competing in Division Two  and regularly contesting the finals. In 2017 they got as far as the grand final only to lose by 77 points to North Heidelberg. A year later they finished fifth after failing to qualify for the finals only on a minuscule amount of percentage. The 2019 season brought another fifth placed finish with the Demons finishing just a couple of points plus percentage shy of fourth team Thomastown.

Among the most noteworthy footballers to have either commenced or played some of the early parts of their careers with Diamond Creek were Gordon Coventry, later one of the greatest full forwards in the game’s history with Collingwood, his brother Syd, also of Collingwood, who won a Brownlow Medal in 1927, another Brownlow Medallist in Don Cordner, and Max Hudghton who amassed 234 AFL games with St Kilda between 1997 and 2009.