Australian Football

Meadows

A team representing Meadows was playing scratch matches against local opponents as early as the 1890s and apart from a brief (1903 to 1905) stint in the Hills Football Association it continued to do so until 1923. That was the year which saw the birth of the Hills Central Football Association, and Meadows was among the new competition’s foundation members. Over the next four decades the club contested nine HCFA grand finals, winning four of them.

In 1967 Meadows was a founder member of the Hills Football League and won the inaugural Southern Zone premiership with a 14.6 (90) to 7.11 (53) grand final defeat of Macclesfield. The Bulldogs also qualified for the 1968 and 1969 Southern Zone grand finals only to lose to, respectively, Littlehampton and Macclesfield.

The 1970s produced no premiership success but after crossing to Division Two of the Southern Football League in 1983 Meadows quickly established itself as a power, winning the 1984 grand final at the expense of O’Sullivan’s Beach, and finishing as runner-up a year later. The Bulldogs added another flag in 1994, achieved after an 11.16 (82) to 9.6 (60) grand final defeat of Kangarilla.

In 2001 the Bulldogs returned to the Hills Football League. Competing in Division Two their resumption could scarcely have been more spectacular as they promptly proceeded to win four premierships in succession, the first and only time this feat has been achieved in the history of the competition. Meadows has continued to compete in the HFL’s second tier of competition, known for some years as the Country Division, but now as Division Two once more, ever since. Recent seasons have seen them finish fourth (2013), sixth (both 2014 and 2015), fifth (2016), seventh (2017) and ninth (2018).