Australian Football

Maribyrnong Park

The Maribyrnong Park Football Club came into existence in 1980 when Riverside Stars and Moonee Imperials, clubs which for many years had shared clubrooms and played on adjacent ovals, merged.

The new club’s first senior premiership was won in 1981 in the short-lived B3 Grade which ran for just two seasons.

Between 1984 and 1986 Maribyrnong Park was coached by former Fitzroy Brownlow Medallist, East Perth captain-coach, and dual All Australian, Kevin Murray.

Recent seasons have seen the Lions producing some of the best and most consistent football in their history. In 2005 they reached the B Grade preliminary final, while in 2006 they went one better, losing the grand final to West Coburg, thereby earning promotion to A Grade. However, given that they had topped the ladder with only a single defeat all year, and then trounced West Coburg by more than 10 goals in the second semi final, this was actually more than a little disappointing. Consolation of a sort came in the form of the reserves claiming a flag for the first time ever.

The long awaited senior grade breakthrough finally came in 2007 as the Lions overcame the setback of a second semi final loss to Tullamarine to score emphatic wins over Pascoe Vale by 83 points in the preliminary final and Tullamarine by 34 points in the grand final re-match. Having earlier topped the ladder with just 1 defeat from 16 matches there could be no doubt that Maribyrnong Park was a worthy premier and there was double cause for celebration in that the reserves also went top.

The 2008 season was one of consolidation following which Maribyrnong Park again achieved A Grade premiership success after downing Greenvale in the 2009 grand final by 18 points. In 2010, for the first time in their history, the Lions went back to back after again accounting for Greenvale in the grand final, this time by a 17 point margin.

In recent seasons Maribrynong Park have generally struggled somewhat, even finishing as low as ninth (of ten teams) in 2014 and avoiding relegation to Division One only by a whisker. The 2017 season brought dramatic improvement, however, as the Lions comfortably qualified for the finals and ultimately finished third. This was followed by a dip in fortunes in 2018 as the Lions dropped down the list to sixth.