Australian Football

AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game

 

Longford

Originally settled by Europeans as early as 1813, making it one of the oldest towns in Tasmania, Longford has been home to an Australian football club since 1878. Initially contesting matches against the likes of Launceston and Cornwall on a somewhat informal basis, the club became a founder member in 1886 of the Northern Tasmanian Football Association but failed to complete the season, withdrawing from the competition in July after a disagreement with Association authorities. Thereafter, under the name South Esk, it enjoyed outstanding success in the local country championships, which it won thirteen times between 1890 and 1906.

Longford’s first premiership proper arrived in 1921 when it defeated Cressy in the inaugural grand final of the Esk Football Association.[1] Another flag followed three years later before, in 1926, the club returned to its original home, the NTFA, bringing the total number of teams in the Association to four. Despite fielding a number of outstanding players, notably ‘Hec’ Eyles who won five consecutive club best and fairest awards between 1928 and 1932, dual Tasman Shield Trophy winner Len Gaffney, prolific goalsneak Col Stokes, Bernard Taylor, ‘Ted’ Pickett and Lin Bricknell, Longford did not initially find life easy in a competition that tended to be dominated by the three long term members, City, Launceston and North Launceston. Indeed, prior to breaking through for a first ever NTFA flag in 1955 the Tigers only managed to contest the grand final on three occasions, losing to North Launceston in 1931, Launceston in 1940, and City in 1953. To call the premiership when it finally arrived long overdue would therefore be something of an understatement. Charlie Dennis’ victory in the Tasman Shield Trophy provided the club with even more reason to celebrate.

Prior to the arrival of the first NTFA premiership the undoubted high point in Longford’s history came in 1950 when the club’s then captain-coach Terry Cashion was awarded the Eric Tassie Medal while representing Tasmania at the 1950 Brisbane carnival. Cashion remains the only Tasmanian representative ever to win what, until comparatively recent times, was arguably Australian football’s most prestigious individual honour.

Football is essentially a team game, however, and the greatest year in the history of the Longford Football Club as a whole was undoubtedly 1957. Not only did the side thrash Launceston to win the NTFA premiership, it also provided the Tasman Shield Trophy winner in the person of John Fitzallen, and went on to procure its only ever state title after overcoming the challenges, first, of NWFU premier Ulverstone by 28 points, and then of TFL premier North Hobart 14.16 (100) to 12.7 (79) in “a game that was described as one of the best spectacles ever seen at York Park, before a record crowd of 12,546”.[2] In addition to the aforementioned Dennis and Fitzallen, players like Ivan ‘Ike’ Hayes and Tom Courto combined to make the Longford sides of this era among the strongest seen in Tasmanian football up to that point. A second consecutive premiership in 1958 following a hard fought 6 point grand final victory over North Launceston emphasised this pre-eminence, but hopes of a third flag in a row were scuppered by City-South in the grand final of 1959.

By the 1960s Tasmanian clubs were finding it increasingly difficult to hang on to their best players in the face of ever more persistent depredating raids from the mainland. In some cases, such as those of Hobart‘s Ian Stewart and Clarence‘s Royce Hart, players left the local football scene before they had even served a decent apprenticeship, and over time the negative impact both on the quality of play in Tasmania’s three major leagues and on the degree of competitiveness which could be mustered by Tasmanian interstate teams was considerable. As far as Longford was concerned, the main loss to Victoria during the 1960s was 1966 Hec Smith Memorial Medallist Barry Lawrence, but at least the club was able to obtain several solid years of service from him both before and after his eight year stint with St Kilda. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that, in common with ever increasing numbers of his compatriots, Lawrence’s heyday as a player was spent away from the Apple Isle.

The 1970s proved to be a barren decade for Longford as far as premierships were concerned, although players like Bruce Armstrong, Stephen Theodore, Mick Prewer, David Berne and Barry Lawrence on his return from the mainland ensured that the club’s supporters were well entertained. Berne, who won three club best and fairest awards during the 1970s as well as a Hec Smith Memorial Medal, added a couple more club champion awards in the early 1980s as the team’s on field performances began to improve. In 1983 the Tigers contested their first grand final for twenty years but went down to North Launceston by 28 points. Three years later, Scottsdale proved Longford’s superior by 21 points in what proved to be the last ever NTFA grand final. From 1987, the NTFA and NWFU joined forces to create the Northern Tasmanian Football League, but after just one season in this new competition Longford, which won only 3 of 22 roster matches to claim the wooden spoon, opted to hone down its operations by competing as an amateur side in the Northern Division of the Tasmanian Amateur League.

Initially, the Tigers found life in their new surroundings very much to their liking. In 1989 they won the premiership with an impressive 17.17 (119) to 11.12 (78) grand final victory over Rocherlea, while the club also contested the grand finals of 1990 and 1991, albeit without success.

In 1997 the amateurs competition gave way to the non-amateur NTFA, a two division competition in which Longford have competed ever since. In 1997, ‘98, ‘99, 2006 and 2007 the side contested Division One grand finals but lost on each occasion. Subsequent performances have generally  been less noteworthy. For example the last four seasons have brought seventh (2015), and sixth (both 2016 and 2017) place finishes on the nine team premiership ladder, followed in 2018 by a rare finals appearance and an ultimate finishing position of fifth..

Footnotes

1 The Esk Football Association remained in existence until the end of the 1983 season. In 1984 the competition merged with the Deloraine Football Association to form the Esk Deloraine Football Association.

2 A Century of Tasmanian Football 1879-1979 by Ken Pinchin, page 96.

Source

John Devaney - Full Points Publications

Footnotes

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