Australian Football

Formed in 1900, the year that the Barrier Ranges Football Association, precursor of the Broken Hill Football League, adopted a district system, North Broken Hill [1] has been that competition’s most successful club. The Blue and Whites, as they were popularly known at first, reached a grand final in their very first year, but lost to West Broken Hill by three points. They lost again to Wests in 1901, but broke through for a first flag the following year.

Broken Hill was a veritable hotbed of the game during the early years of the twentieth century, and Norths, with players like Alex Conlin (later a star with West Adelaide), future Magarey Medallist Dave Low, and triple club best and fairest award winner Jack Hunter to the fore, was the most consistently successful side. Clear evidence of its prowess was accorded in 1907 when it annihilated a combined Port Pirie team by 204 points, 32.29 (221) to 2.5 (17). Two years later, in the face of the much sterner opposition accorded by top West Australian goldfields side Boulder City, Norths emerged victorious with a single point to spare, 10.12 (72) to 10.11 (71).

In 1910, having just won three premierships in a row, the club sought to test its mettle against leading teams from throughout Australia. A trip to Sydney produced a narrow loss against a combined NSWAFL side (9.11 to 9.8) followed by a highly impressive 10 goal defeat of YMCA, which was to win the Sydney premiership that year.

Visits to Ballarat and Adelaide proved less successful, however, as the players struggled to cope with completely unfamiliar ground conditions, especially at Ballarat where the oval “partook of the nature of an Irish bog”. A match against a combined Ballarat Football League side resulted in a 13-point reversal, while Port Adelaide on the Adelaide Oval proved much too strong, winning 14.20 (104) to 5.5 (35).

Perhaps fatigued by their extensive travelling, North failed in their bid to secure a fourth successive flag in 1910, but further premierships followed in 1911 and 1914.

The 1920s brought just two flags but off the field the club prospered and in 1927 it broke new ground by constructing its own clubrooms costing £600. Among the many fine players to don the blue and white during this era were the four Troughton brothers, Fred (invariably referred to as ‘Sonny’), Bob (later of West Torrens and Geelong fame), Charlie, and Vic.

North Broken Hill’s post-world war two teams were arguably the most powerful to represent the club, and but for a glaring umpiring error might easily have annexed seven premierships in succession. Victorious in 1945-6-7-8 and 1950-51, the Bulldogs as they were known by this time lost the 1949 Grand Final to Wests thanks to a goal kicked by Alby House, a former Norths player, after the final bell had sounded. Astonishingly, almost alone among those present at the ground, the umpire failed to hear the bell, and so the goal was allowed. Key players for Norths during this period included 1947 Middleton Trophy winner Alan Gillespie, Dick Codd, Perce Fitzgerald, Doug Buss, Ray Schmidt, Norm Dunlevy and Mick McInnes.

The mid-1970s was another illustrious era for the Bulldogs, with players like Steve Minnis and Ray Egan, who won no fewer than eight Middleton Medals between them, Peter Baldwin, John Garnaut and Zane Separovich helping the side to three successive premierships between 1975 and 1977.

Over the past fifteen seasons the Bulldogs have been the BHFL's most successful club, claiming seven premierships and finishing as runners-up on five occasions. In 2004 they overcame a poor ending to the home and away season to battle through to the grand final and defeat South Broken Hill, in 2007 they were too good for Wests on grand final day, winning by 29 points, 19.11 (125) to 14.12 (96), and in 2008 they held off a fast finishing Centrals side to claim victory by 17 points. The Bulldogs again contested the Grand Final in 2009, but opponents Souths proved too strong. Between 2011 and 2013 the Bulldogs emphasised their dominance by capturing a hat trick of flags, a feat they had achieved twice previously. Their next couple of grand final appearances in 2014 and 2015 both ended in defeat at the hands of Souths but the 2016 season saw them back where their supporters believe they belong, at the top of the Broken Hill football tree. Opposed in the grand final by their conquerors of the previous couple of seasons in Souths they edged to victory by 15 points, 8.8 (56) to 5.11 (41). The triumph gave the Bulldogs their thirty-eighth senior grade flag which is easily a BHFL record. A year later they again reached the grand final but South proved to have their measure on this occasion and won comfortably with scores of 16.14 (110) to 8.5 (53), a result which was repeated, this time with scores of 12.9 (81) to 9.13 (67), in 2018.