Australian Football

Picola United

The Blues’ first competitive outings came in the Murray River District Football Association in 1897. After just one season that competition was replaced by the Nathalia and District Football Association which in turn gave way in 1900 to the Barmah Central Football Association. Picola’s first premiership came in 1906 in the Picola and District Football Association. It was the first of three successive flags for the Blues, with the third coming after the competition had been renamed the Western and Moira Ridings Football Association. Picola won a second W&MRFA pennant in 1914 as a result of a 1 point challenge final defeat of Barmah.

In 1934 the W&MRFA reverted to its earlier name of the PDFA and Picola enjoyed premiership success the following year after another grand final triumph over Barmah. The victory was unexpected, as Barmah had lost just a single match all season, but the Blues improved the longer the match went on and, in the end, were worthy victors. Final scores were Picola 7.13 (55) defeated Barmah 5.5 (35) after the Blues added 2.4 to Barmah’s 1.0 in the last term.

Arguably Picola’s greatest ever teams took to the field during the 1950s, a decade that spawned seven senior grade grand final appearances for four wins. The successes came at the expense of Katamatite in both 1952 and 1954 by margins of 23 and 42 points respectively, Moira by 4 points in 1955, and Wunghnu in 1956 by 14 points.

Picola’s final senior grade premiership for almost half a century was claimed in 1967. Four years later the club’s name was officially altered to Picola United, a change which most definitely did not result in improved on-field fortunes for one of the PDFL’s proudest and longest serving members, at any rate for many years. Finally, in 2016 the Blues again achieved the ultimate success. After heading the PDFL North West Division premiership table ahead of the finals they comfortably accounted for Strathmerton in both the second semi final (by 67 points) and grand final (83 points). A year later they went back to back for the first time in over sixty years when they withstood the grand final challenge of Strathmerton with scores of 11.4 (70) to 7.10 (52). 

In 2018 the league reverted to a single division format and the Blues did well to qualify for the grand final, only to lose by 38 points to Rennie.