Australian Football

The Geraldton Football Association came into being in 1904, with Rover Football Club - more usually shortened to Rovers - one of its inaugural members. During the years leading up to world war one Rovers generally vied with Railway for supremacy, and the two clubs continue to enjoy a fierce rivalry to this day. During the 1920s and ‘30s competition was somewhat stiffer, but Rovers still managed to add five senior premierships to their haul, giving them a total of eleven by the time the competition was suspended following the outbreak of war in 1939.

In 1961 football in the region entered a new phase with the formation of the Great Northern Football League which involved clubs from Geraldton and Northampton and their surrounds, with a team from Mullewa joining in 1963, the season that Rovers won their first senior flag in the fledgling competition.

The club commenced operations at its new home base of Greenough Oval in 1976, with clubrooms being built and opened four years later.

The 1990s proved to be an especially propitious decade, yielding no fewer than five senior grade premierships. For good measure, Rovers also won the 2000 flag, but have since been unable to add to their tally, although they came fairly close in 2011 when they lost a hotly contested grand final against Railway by 16 points. More recently they came fifth in 2014, 2015 and 2016, and third in 2017 before again getting as far as the grand final in 2018 only to go down fighting by 13 points against Brigades.