Australian Football

The Mount Lofty Football Club may only have been established as recently as 1978 but it already boasts an enviable tradition. This is hardly surprising when you consider the quality of its lineage, for Mount Lofty was born out of a merger between two of the Adelaide Hills region’s most notable clubs in Heathfield Aldgate and Stirling. For many years, these two clubs had been fierce rivals in the Hills competition, with Heathfield Aldgate winning no fewer than nine A Grade flags in the top division, which remains a record. However, in electing to bury the hatchet the erstwhile foes ensured that football’s already rich history in the locality would be extended and enhanced.

From 1979 to 1985 the Mountain Devils competed, with some success, in the South Australian Football Association. Initially placed in second division, they achieved promotion to first division as premiers in 1981. The premiership team was coached by former Port Adelaide player Wayne Broadbridge. Four years later, satisfied that they had made their mark in what at the time was possibly the second strongest competition in South Australia, the Devils opted to return to their roots by crossing to the HFL, where they served emphatic notice that they would be a force to be reckoned with by winning the 1986 Central Division premierships in both A and B Grade.

The Mountain Devils enjoyed something of a halcyon phase during the first decade of this century when they claimed a hat trick of A Grade premierships between 2006 and 2008. However, their most recent flag was won in the second tier Country Division in 2014 courtesy of a 16.13 (109) to 10.9 (69) grand final defeat of Nairne Bremer which was the culmination of a superb unbeaten season. The Mountain Devils now compete in Division One (as Central Division was renamed in 2016) where, in 2017, they finished eighth of nine clubs before improving slightly to come sixth a year later. Mount Lofty also fielded a side in Division Five in 2018. It came fifth out of eight teams.