Australian Football

Victorian

Based in North Adelaide, Victorian played its home matches at Montefiore Hill, while its committee met at the Thistle Hotel on Kermode Street. Despite the club’s name, it was not formed by expatriates from across the border, and neither did it boast an abundance of Victorian players. In fact, it was a staunchly South Australian club, which in matches against arch rival Norwood - a club which did boast a surfeit of Victorian players - tended to see itself as upholding the honour of the colony.

Prior to the establishment of the SAFA in 1877, Victorian was one of several clubs which favoured the use of a round ball. The team was renowned for its slick inter-passing based around the soon to be outlawed ‘little mark’. In order to counter any allegations of throwing, players were instructed to drop kick the ball where possible, but other teams were much less honourable, operating on the principle that ‘if you got away with it, it was fair’.

For most of its initial eight season stint in the SAFA Victorian could be regarded as a leading team. It finished as runner-up to South Adelaide in 1877,[1] and to Norwood in 1880, having inflicted that club’s first ever defeat in September of that season.

After adopting the name of the locality in which it was based, North Adelaide, the team’s on-field performances declined markedly, and it finished bottom of the list in both of the final two seasons. The present day North Adelaide Football Club which was to emerge out of the Medindie Football Club in 1893, was a completely new organisation bearing no relationship whatsoever to Victorian.