Australian Football

AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game

 

KEY FACTS

Official name
Bridgewater Football Club

Known as
Bridgewater

Formed
c 1890s

Colours
Red and white

Emblem
The Mean Machine

Affiliation (Current)
Loddon Valley Football Netball League (LVFNL) 1915, 1936–1939, 1945–2024

Affiliations (Historical)
Korong Football League (KFL) 1908–1914, 1919–1935; Golden City Football League (GCFL) 1940

Senior Premierships
Korong District Central Football Association (KDCFA) - 1909, 1920, 1922 (3 total); Korong Football League (KFL) - 1931 (1 total); Loddon Valley Football League - 1938-9, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1959, 1962-3, 1974, 1976, 1980, 1984-5, 1988, 1991, 2010-11-12-13-14-15-16 (22 total)

Bridgewater

With 22 senior grade Loddon Valley Football League premierships Bridgewater is the most successful club in the competition’s history. 

The club’s success started almost immediately, with the side contesting grand finals in each of its first four seasons, losing to Laanecoorie in 1936 and 1937, and procuring the flags of 1938 and 1939 at the expense of Laanecoorie and Newbridge. From then until the 1990s the club claimed at least one premiership every decade. Its most successful era was the 1980s which spawned four flags. However, after triumphing in the 1991 grand final The Mean Machine experienced an unprecedented premiership drought which, until recently, their performances showed few signs of abrogating

In 2010, the Mean Machine qualified for a long overdue grand final and handed out the mother and father of all hidings to a Calivil United team which was making its eighth consecutive appearance in the decisive match of the year. Scores were Bridgewater 27.6 (168) to Calivil United 7.11 (53).

This was just a prelude to an unprecedented sequence of success which spawned no fewer than seven senior grade flags in a row. In the three seasons from 2014 to 2016 the side emphasised their dominance by losing just a single match out of 54 contested. The 2017 season brought a marginal fall from grace as the side finished second to Calivil United before a highly disappointing 2018 season saw them plummet down the list to seventh, a result that was repeated the following year.

Source

John Devaney - Full Points Publications


 

Footnotes

* Behinds calculated from the 1965 season on.
+ Score at the end of extra time.