Australian Football

Flinders Football Club was formed in 1915 when it affiliated with the Port Augusta Football Association. It spent the ensuing couple of decades competing in this competition during which time it played off for the premiership a total of thirteen times. On seven occasions it was successful.

The 1937 season brought name changes for both Flinders and the competition in which it was participating. Flinders was renamed Central Augusta, while the PAFA became known as the Great Northern Football Association. Central Augusta quickly established itself as the pre-eminent force in this competition, contesting every grand final between 1937 and 1948. This included the wartime years because, unusually among country football competitions, the GNFA did not go into recess at any stage. Of the dozen grand finals contested, Central Augusta won five, while all but two of the losses were by narrow margins.

The 1950s brought further success, with the club annexing five senior grade premierships from nine grand final appearances for the decade. Included amongst the premierships were four in succession between 1952 and 1955.

Just as they had won the very first GNFA premiership in 1937 so the Bloods were triumphant in the competition’s last ever season of 1960. Opposed in the grand final by West Augusta, Central Augusta had six fewer scoring shots but still won with relative comfort by 19 points. The following season saw the GNFA merging with the Whyalla Football League and the Port Pirie Football League to form a new competition comprising thirteen clubs, the Spencer Gulf Football League.

From the outset, the Bloods found life in the SGFL significantly harder than it had been in the much smaller scale GNFA. Not until 1965 did they manage to qualify for a senior grade grand final, and their first SGFL premiership did not arrive until 1978. Since then there have been another seven, making Central Augusta the competition’s fourth most successful club, after the Port Pirie-based Port (thirteen flags), West Augusta (twelve) and South Augusta (eleven). Their three most recent flags were obtained in successive years via grand final defeats of Port in 2009, South Augusta in 2010 and Port once more in 2011. Over subsequent seasons the Bloods have twice got as far as the grand final, losing to West Augusta in 2013 and to Proprietary Risdon two years later.

If ever the old adage “bad kicking is bad football” was applicable it was to Central Augusta’s soul-destroying 2008 grand final effort against Port. At the first change Port led by 27 points, 5.5 (35) to 1.2 (8), meaning that the match was panning out exactly as most pundits had predicted beforehand, with the minor premier firmly in control. However, over the remaining three quarters virtually all of the action took place in the Bloods’ forward lines, with the goal umpire being troubled a total of 26 times (compared to10 at the other end of the ground). However, on the vast majority of occasions it was just a single flag that was being waved, and when the final siren went Port had ‘fallen’ in by the narrowest margin possible, 10.10 (70) to 8.21 (69). Virtually all the post-match plaudits were conferred on the Bloods, but the premiership was Port’s. Subsequent seasons have been both less dramatic and less noteworthy with the side bowing out of the flag race at the first semi final stage in both 2019 and 2020.