Australian Football

Kew Bears

The first club to have born the name of Kew is known to have been in existence as early as 1879, and to have participated in a number of different competitions, all of junior status, between then and 1891, when it disbanded. Whether the Kew Football Club which emerged at the end of the 1890s should be viewed as a wholly new organisation or a reincarnation of the previous club is a moot matter, and not one that can perhaps never be satisfactorily resolved. However, it is at least arguable that the amateur football club which today participates in the VAFA under the name of Kew can trace its origins as far back as 1898. It was during that year that the club was invited by the Metropolitan Junior Football Association (a direct forerunner of the VAFA) to enter its competition as a replacement for St. Francis Xavier, which had been forced to withdraw after just a few matches. The idea was that Kew would pick up the departing club’s remaining fixtures, but that these matches would be played with no premiership points at stake. The MJFA appears to have had at least two objectives in mind in doing this: first, to avoid the necessity for a bye in the weekly draw; and secondly, to test Kew’s worthiness for full admission by having it serve a kind of probation.

In 1899, having satisfied the MJFA authorities as to its viability, Kew was formally admitted to the MJFA, only to withdraw after two predominantly disappointing seasons. The club later participated in at least three, and possibly more, junior and district competitions, attaining a modest level of success, especially during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Between 1927 and 1948 Kew was a member of the Victorian Sub District Football Association, winning senior Division One premierships in 1927, 1929, 1931-2 and 1934.

Kew’s second stint in the VAFA (the competition into which the MJFA had evolved) commenced in 1949 when it was one of two clubs admitted to C Section. After taking a year to find its feet, it produced a magnificent 1950 season during which it won every match it contested, culminating in an 11.14 (80) to 2.10 (22) massacre of State Savings Bank in the flag decider. Kew thus became only the second C Section premier to earn itself the title of ‘champions’. The team was coached in 1949-50 by Alf Perrin, who would go on to earn VAFA life membership after serving on its executive with great energy and dedication for more than twenty years.

The 1950s and 1960s would prove to be successful times for Kew. In 1953 the side won its second premiership, this time in B Section, following an 11.10 (76) to 7.8 (50) defeat of Old Paradians. Key players for Kew during the 1950s included Alby Padley, Peter Lumley, Len Brayley, Noel Stokes and Ian Mort.

The 1960s brought three further premierships, in C Section in 1962 and 1964, and in B Section in 1966, but by the end of the decade Kew, in common with several other district clubs, was beginning to experience difficulties in retaining players. According to Joseph Johnson, the main reason for this was an increasing tendency of young players from inner suburban teams to move to Melbourne’s outer suburbs once they had married, attracted by the cheaper price of housing. By the 1980s the turnover of players at Kew had become so rapid and unpredictable that long term planning became well nigh impossible. In the eight seasons from 1983 to 1990 the senior side went B, A, B, C, C, B, A, B which, if nothing else, made life interesting.

During Kew’s first three decades back in the VAFA fold the club had enjoyed a charmed run as far as success in premiership deciding matches went, but since then there has been something of a pay-off. When Kew beat St Kilda CBOC by 42 points in the 1979 C Section grand final it was the sixth straight time that the senior side had achieved success in such a match, in either B or C Section. In complete contrast - or balancing things out neatly, depending on your perspective - in 2004, in D4 Section, Kew lost its sixth consecutive premiership play-off, going down to Old Westbourne by 55 points. Clearly, in objective terms, the club’s fortunes declined considerably between the late seventies and the opening decade of the new century, a state of affairs that the side’s disappointing performances in 2006, 2007 and (ultimately) 2008 only served to emphasise. 

Things were set to change, however, and In recent seasons the Bears have enjoyed as much success as almost any club in the VAFA, and more than most. In 2013, coached by ex Carlton player Ian Aitken, they claimed the premiership of Division Three thanks to a 15.10 (100) to 9.11 (65) grand final defeat of Elsternwick. This was followed a year later by an 8.10 (58) to 6.11 (47) victory over St. Marys Salesians in the Division Two flag decider. Then, in 2015 the Bears made it a hat trick of premierships when they accounted for Ormond in the Division One grand final by a 5 goal margin. Their first season in Premier C was one of consolidation as they won 7 out of 18 home and away matches to finish a highly respectable fifth on the ten team premiership ladder. Unfortunately, the Bears proved unable to build on this solid start and the 2017 season saw them plummeting to the bottom of the ladder thus succumbing to relegation back to Division One where, in 2018, they experienced modest fortunes, winning 6 of 18 matches to finish eighth (of ten).

Football is not just about the winning of premierships, and the true value of a club such as Kew, which has proudly carried the district banner for well over a century, and whose players continue to take part in the game for intangible rather than fiscal rewards, can not be easily or objectively defined. All that can safely be observed is that if the game ever reaches a point where it is unable to sustain such clubs, it will be infinitely poorer for it.