Australian Football

Penola Football Club claims to be able to trace its history as far back as 1865, but details of the club’s early years are sketchy, and it seems highly unlikely that the club was playing its football according to Melbourne Rules at the time.

Since world war two the club has competed in five different leagues and associations, and enjoyed premiership success in three of them. Arguably its greatest achievement was to win three consecutive flags in the powerful South East and Border Football League during the early 1950s. More recently, in 2001 the Southern Eagles broke an eleven year premiership drought by overcoming Mundulla by 25 points in the Kowree Naracoorte Tatiara Football League grand final. After losing the next season’s grand final to the same opponent, they added a second KNTFL flag in 2003. They reached another grand final in 2007 but lost to Keith. 

The Eagles' third KNTFL premiership finally arrived in 2013 when Keith were vanquished on grand final day by 22 points, 17.10 (112) to 13.12 (90). Since then the Eagles have qualified for two more grand finals, losing to Padthaway in 2014 and overcoming Kybybolite by 34 points in 2016. The 2017 season brought a third place finish.