Australian Football

Hobart

Hobart may have only spent fifty-three seasons in the TFL but its success in winning nine premierships from fifteen grand finals during that time represents the commendable return of a flag every 5.9 years, a record which few clubs anywhere can match. Sadly, however, by the mid to late 1990s the club was finding itself unable to cope with the increasing economic demands which life in the expanded TFL involved. At the end of the 1997 season Hobart was expelled from the competition.

Hobart’s first season in the TFL in 1945 coincided with the re-organisation of the league along district lines. Hobart and Sandy Bay replaced Cananore and Lefroy and joined established clubs New Town and North Hobart in forming a four team competition which expanded to six clubs with the admission of Clarence and New Norfolk two seasons later.

Given the small number of opposition clubs it was perhaps not all that difficult to make an impact. The Tigers reached the grand final for the first time in 1947, losing to North Hobart by 10 points. Two years later they were again on the wrong side of the ledger, this time against New Town, but the following year they turned the tables on the Eagles with a nerve-wracking 3 point triumph.

Hobart played off for the flag on average every other season during the 1950s, winning three times and losing twice. The 1959 season was particularly noteworthy in that the Tigers held TFL grand final opponents New Norfolk to the miserly total of 2.9 (21) before going on to win the state flag for the first and only time. The following season saw back to back premierships being procured for the only time in the club’s history, but the state flag went north to NTFA side City-South.

Hobart’s 1960 premiership victory was emulated on each of the club’s next four grand final appearances, the last of which, in 1980, coincided with a memorable victory over Clarence in the grand final of the first ever statewide premiership, which was played as an adjunct to the TFL’s, NTFA’s and NWFU’s regular competitions. When the TFL itself embarked on the road toward becoming a statewide competition in 1986 Hobart’s involvement was taken for granted. The side reached a grand final in 1989, losing to North Hobart, but won comfortably in 1990 against North Launceston. The Tigers were still a force as late as 1992, reaching the grand final of that year only to succumb once more to Mark Yeates’ all conquering North Hobart combination. Five seasons later Hobart’s TFL career was all over. For season 1998 Hobart took its place in the Southern Football League, which had been formed as recently as 1996. Because league founder members Kingston had already laid claim to the ‘Tigers’ emblem Hobart elected to adopt a simple ‘HFC’ logo whilst retaining the club’s traditional colours of black and gold.

Success under the new guise was not long in coming: in 1999, with Dale Hall bagging 88 majors for the season to top the league list, Hobart scored a comfortable grand final victory over Brighton. Hobart won 20.9 (129) to 11.12 (78), a margin of 51 points. The Hobart candle might, of necessity, have dimmed somewhat, but it still burned.

In January 2001 the news emerged that the statewide TFL was no more. Consequently, for season 2001 Hobart would be joined in the SFL by four former TFL opponents: New Norfolk (which had joined in 2000), Clarence, Glenorchy and North Hobart. Meanwhile a composite Tasmanian team was granted probationary admission to the VFL, thereby further diminishing the profile of the Southern Football League and its member clubs.

Hobart reached the SFL grand final in 2003, but suffered a cataclysmic 110 point loss to North Hobart. At the end of the following season the club entered into a controversial alignment with AFL powerhouse Brisbane which saw many long-term supporters walk away in disgust. From 2005, Hobart took to the field in maroon, gold and blue playing uniforms, and became known as the Lions. Presumably the financial benefits to the club of such an arrangement were considerable, but there are costs involved as well, not least in terms of yet more compromise and dilution to the identity and tradition that so many had worked so hard to establish over the preceding half a century and more.

In 2009 Hobart became one of ten inaugural member clubs of a revamped Tasmanian State League but its stay in the TSL was a short and somewhat underwhelming one, and it rejoined the Southern Football League in the 2014 season. To date, the fortunes of the Tigers, as they are once again known, have been modest. They finished eighth (of ten) on debut following which they came seventh (of ten) in 2015, fifth (of nine) in 2016, seventh (of nine) in 2017 and sixth (of nine) in 2018.