Australian Football

AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game

 

KEY FACTS

Official name
South Bendigo Football Club

Known as
South Bendigo

Formed
1893

Colours
Red and white

Emblem
Bloods

Affiliation (Current)
Bendigo Football League (BFL) 1894–2024

Senior Premierships
Bendigo Football League - 1899, 1900, 1902, 1904-5, 1909-10-11-12, 1914, 1919, 1921, 1925, 1950-1, 1954-5-6, 1969, 1974, 1990-1, 1993-4 (24 total)

South Bendigo



The Bendigo Football Association (later to be renamed the Bendigo Football League) had already been in existence for thirteen seasons by the time South Bendigo entered the fray in 1893. Since then, the club has won twenty-four senior premierships, more during its existence than any of its rivals (Eaglehawk and Sandhurst have both won more flags in total than the Bloods, but in both cases five of these triumphs came before 1893).

South Bendigo took a while to find its feet but once it broke through for a premiership in 1899 it quickly established itself as the competition’s pre-eminent team. By the time the BdFL suspended operations because of the Great War in 1915 the club already had ten flags on the board, and promptly added an eleventh when competition was resumed in 1919. The Bloods continued as a force during the first half of the 1920s, adding further premierships in 1921 and 1925, but there then followed an unprecedented spell of twenty seasons (spread over twenty-four years, with a four season break during world war two) ‘in the outer’. 

The Bloods teams which restored the club to its former pre-eminence were among the most powerful in its history. After losing the 1949 grand final to Sandhurst, South Bendigo went top in 1950, thanks to a 10.12 (72) to 6.10 (46) grand final defeat of Echuca, and 1951 against Eaglehawk after one of the most memorable premiership deciders on record. In an era when high scoring matches were at a premium, the Bloods won 24.12 (156) to the Two Blues’ 20.8 (128) - a scoreline more typical of the 1970s or 1980s than the 1950s. By contrast, the club’s next three premiership triumphs, which came in consecutive years between 1954 and 1956, were all achieved after tense, low scoring wars of attrition.

Another prolonged premiership drought followed the 1956 grand final defeat of Eaglehawk and it was the Two Blues who again provided the opposition when the drought was broken, in 1969. Only 3 points separated the teams on that occasion, with the Bloods winning 10.10 (70) to 9.13 (67).

Since 1969, South Bendigo has added another five senior grade flags. The team was especially powerful during the first half of the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1995 the side contested every grand final bar one, and emerged victorious four times.

It is now a longer than ever time between drinks for the Bloods who last went top in 1994. The closest they have come to winning a twenty-fifth senior grade flag were successive losing grand finals against Golden Square in 2009 and 2010. More recently they finished sixth in 2013, tenth and last in 2014, ninth in 2015, eighth in 2016, and sixth in 2017.

Source

John Devaney - Full Points Publications


 

Footnotes

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