Australian Football

Stanhope

In terms of premiership success at senior grade level, Stanhope’s record does not appear all that noteworthy, but the club has been an important part of the football landscape in and around the Goulburn Valley region for more than eight decades.

Initially formed as a junior club in 1921, Stanhope fielded a senior team the following year in the Cooma Football Association. Over the ensuing couple of decades, the club flitted back and forth between a number of different competitions without ever appearing settled, and without achieving much in the way of success. After world war two, however, a major step forward was taken when the club was admitted to the powerful Goulburn Valley Football League, where it would spend the better part of three decades. Although no senior grade premierships were won, Stanhope was by no means simply there to make up the numbers, as was evidenced by the club’s achievement in providing the Morrison Medallist for the league’s best player on four occasions.

During the 1960s and ‘70s country football, particularly in the stronger leagues like the GVFL, gradually took on more of the practices and perspectives of a big business, making it increasingly difficult for small clubs like Stanhope to hold their own. At the end of the 1974 season the club publicly acknowledged what it had no doubt privately been aware of for some time, which was that life as a tiddler in a large pool served no discernible purpose other than to give the larger fish easy pickings. From 1975 therefore, Stanhope would be competing in the Heathcote District Football League - meaning, to extend the analogy, that it would be swimming in a medium-sized pool with fish of comparable size to itself.

Almost immediately, the move bore fruit. In only its second season, Stanhope reached a grand final against Colbinabbin, from which it emerged victorious. After more than half a century as a senior club, the Lions had at last won a flag!

Further grand final appearances followed, if not exactly thick and fast, at least regularly enough to reassure. The 1980s proved to be by some measure the most successful decade in the club’s history up to that point, highlighted by resounding grand final wins over Broadford by 16 goals in 1986 and over White Hills by 73 points the following year.

The 1995 season saw Stanhope on the move once more, this time to the Kyabram District Football League. After a slow start, the Lions emerged as a perennial competition pace-setter, contesting seven grand finals between 2000 and 2008, for wins in 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2008. The 2003 premiership was especially meritorious in that it was achieved unbeaten, and coincided with the club’s reserves side going top as well. Former Geelong and Fitzroy forward Gavin Exell was a key member of Stanhope’s 2003 premiership combination, kicking 126 goals in 20 matches to top the league’s goal kicking list for the third time. With Darryl Harrison securing the club’s first McNamara Medal for the best and fairest player in the league the Lions achieved a highly memorable ‘clean sweep’.

After successive losing grand final appearances against Tallygaroopna in 2005 and Ardmona in 2006 the Lions collected a third KDFL flag in 2007 when they trounced Ardmona in the grand final by 87 points, 18.13 (121) to 4.10 (34). The triumph came as the culmination of a near perfect season during which the side only tasted defeat on one occasion.

A year later Stanhope again went top courtesy of another grand final defeat of Ardmona, this time by a margin of 50 points, 17.14 (116) to 10.6 (66). There then followed a slight slump which saw the side bow out of the 2009 premiership race at the first semi final stage. Then, after finishing fourth in 2010, the Lions missed the finals in the next couple of seasons before bouncing back to reach the 2013 grand final in which they lost by 31 points to Murchison. Another grand final appearance followed in 2015 when they went down by 25 points to Merrigum. The Lions' strong form continued in 2016 when they ran third, 2017 when they dropped one place on the ladder and 2018 when they again finished in third place.