Australian Football

AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game

 

KEY FACTS

Official name
Mortlake Football-Netball Club Inc.

Known as
Mortlake

Formed
c. 1880s

Disbanded
1998: merged with Derrinallum to form Western Lions

Emblem
Cats

Associated clubs
Terang Mortlake; Terang; Western Lions; Woorndoo Mortlake

Affiliations (Historical)
Sheldrick Brewing Company Trophy (SBCT) 1906–1910; Corangamite Football Association (CFA) 1911–1923; Western District Football League (WDFL) 1924–1925, 1927–1929; Hampden Football Netball League (HFL) 1930–1998

Mortlake



A Mortlake team participated in scratch matches as early as 1882, and then won back-to-back trophies in the Sheldrick Brewing Company competition in 1906 and 1907. Mortlake's time in the Corangamite FA was fruitful, winning premierships in 1919 and 1922, before the club briefly went into recess in 1926.

By 1930, Mortlake had joined the Hampden Football League as a founding club, and finished runner-up in consecutive years (1934 & 1935) before turning the tables in 1936 on their aggressor of the previous year, Warrnambool, to win a thrilling 5-point grand final. The 1960s was a period where the Cats were always thereabouts but could never reach the ultimate glory. Losing grand finals in 1962, 1966 and 1967 proved demoralising, and the decade was rounded out with a heartbreaking one-point loss to South Warrnambool in the 1969 HFL grand final.

A new decade promised newfound glory, but heartbreak would find Mortlake again, as they went down by only two-points this time to a victorious Camperdown in the 1970 decider. The Cats would finally taste success in 1975, defeating Warrnambool 11.13 (79) to 10.11 (71), but it would be their final triumph.

By the late 1990s, after decades of struggle, the club knew it had to entertain a merger. It opted to pursue Derrinallum as a prospective partner, a club based in the Western Plains league that had gone into recess for 1998 due to a player shortage. Derrinallum and Mortlake members then voted to merge in late 1998, forming the Western Lions Football Netball Club for the 1999 HFL season. However, the Lions were beaten heavily most weeks, winning only two games for the year. After being trounced by Koroit in round one of the 2000 HFL season, the Lions withdrew from the league and went into recess.

The Mortlake name would then carry on in two different forms. The majority of Western Lions players still keen to take part in competitive football moved to nearby Woorndoo, and the Mininera club opted to alter their name in March 2001 to Woorndoo-Mortlake to reflect the influx of Mortlake community members. Meanwhile, several Mortlake-based Western Lions players also held talks with Terang about a potential merger, which would allow the Mortlake name to remain in the major Hampden league. The proposal was ultimately voted up in August 2001, and the Terang and Western Lions football clubs would merge to become Terang-Mortlake ahead of the 2002 HFL season.

Terang-Mortlake, which kept the Bloods name and colours from the original Terang club, won three HFL premierships in the mid-2000s and continue to play three games a year at Farran Oval, the former home of Mortlake.


 

Footnotes

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