Australian Football

Glenunga

Hyde Park Football Club was admitted to the South Australian Amateur Football League in 1961 and won an A3 Grade premiership on debut. The following year the club made it two flags in succession when it went top in A2 Grade. After that, there was a perhaps inevitable decline, and when the Rams next achieved premiership success in 1965 it came following three relegations and was therefore in A4 Grade.

The club’s 1965 A4 Grade flag was its last as Hyde Park. Since 1968 the club has been known as Glenunga, and has added another three senior grade premierships, in A4 Grade in 1985 and 1995, and Division Five, as described below, in 2017. However, the highlight of the Rams’ existence to date was their noteworthy achievement in reaching an A1 Grade grand final in 1978, albeit that it ended in defeat at the hands of Payneham.

The Rams have competed in Division Five for the past few seasons. They reached the preliminary final in 2013 and were handed promotion to Division Four, where they finished eighth in 2014 and last in 2015 as a result of which they were relegated back to Division Five. In 2016 they qualified for the Division Five finals only to falter at the first hurdle against Smithfield. The 2017 season proved to be one to remember as the Rams topped the ladder ahead of the finals before going on to claim the premiership on the strength of a 19.11 (125) to 8.6 (54) grand final defeat of Pooraka. A year later they went "back to back" by defeating Gepps Cross by 24 points in the Division Four grand final. A third straight premiership followed in 2019 in Division Three as they accounted for the grand final challenge of Old Ignatians by 21 points. Division One in 2020 proved a step too far, however, at least for the time being, with the side failing to win a single game in slumping to the wooden spoon.

Glenunga is now the only non old scholar club based in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide and has to work very hard in order to attract youngsters to the game. It has been very successful in this regard and now boasts in the region of 250 registered under-age players.