Australian Football

Maldon

Maldon has a fine post-war record, with its tally of nine senior grade Maryborough District Football League and Maryborough Castlemaine District Football League premierships only surpassed by Carisbrook’s fifteen. However, whereas Carisbrook has been an ever present member of the competition, the Donners spent the period between 1965 and 1979 competing in the Golden City Football League, which arguably adds substance to their achievement.

Prior to commencing in the MDFL in 1952 Maldon had been a long standing participant in the Castlemaine Football League (originally the Castlemaine Football Association). It won its first ever CFA premiership in 1894, when it was celebrating its twenty-first anniversary as a club. By the time the competition went into recess because of the first world war Maldon had already claimed five flags, and it added four more between the wars.

The late 1940s and early 1950s saw the Donners fielding arguably the strongest teams in their history. Between 1949 and 1951 they won a hat trick of CFL premierships, and followed these with a MDFL flag in their debut season in that competition in 1952. They again contested four straight grand finals between 1954 and 1957, losing the first Carisbrook before defeating the same opponent by 6 straight goals and then Dunolly twice, both times by an identical margin of 16 points.

Maldon enjoyed considerable success during the 1980s. The 1983 season brought a 20.19 (139) to 16.14 (110) grand final defeat of Primrose, while two seasons later there was a 19.15 (129) to 14.11 (95) grand final victory over Chewton. The Donners again overcame Chewton in the 1987 grand final and the following year accounted for Talbot in a thriller by a single straight kick.

Over the next couple of decades Maldon’s seniors contested three grand finals but lost them all.  In 2010 they finally broke their premiership drought when they accounted for Avoca in the grand final by 13 points, 11.12 (78) to 9.11 (65). Recent seasons have seen them finish thirteenth (2015), fourteenth and last (2016), eleventh (2017) and eighth (2018).

Maldon’s reserves have so far reached a total of six M(C)DFL grand finals, winning two of them, while the under seventeens won four flags in a row between 1990 and 1993, and have since added another three.

One of the Bombers’ most notable players was full forward Darren Rice who headed the MCDFL senior grade goal kicking list in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1991, each time with a tally of 100 goals or more.