Australian Football

The Forest Football Club was established in 1900 and Stanley at around the same time. Prior to their merger in 1963 Forest had won a total of a dozen senior grade premierships, but none since 1951, while Stanley had been premiers on eight occasions, including most recently in 1961. Both clubs had competed for many years in the Circular head Football Association, in which the newly merged club, Forest Stanley, would continue.

Right from the outset the Demons proved extremely competitive, reaching the grand final in their debut season, and claiming the first of an eventual 18 senior grade premierships in 1965. In what has to go down as one of the most extraordinary grand finals ever to be played anywhere in Australia the Demons had 17 scoring shorts compared to their opponents’ twenty-five but won comfortably by 32 points. Final scores were Forest Stanley 9.8 (62) defeated Smithton 1.24 (30).

The Demons’ first halcyon phase came during the 1970s through to the mid 1980s. Between 1971 and 1986 they contested thirteen senior grade grand finals, winning eight of them. After that, the 1990s proved to be a less productive decade, yielding just a couple of flags, but since the turn of the century Forest Stanley have again been consistent competition pace setters, claiming half a dozen premierships in sixteen seasons. Their most recent triumph came in 2017 when they accounted for Irishtown in the grand final by 27 points, 8.7 (55) to 3.10 (28). It was the Demons' third straight senior grade CHFA flag and, as intimated previously, their 18th in total. A year later they again qualified for the grand final only to sustain a shock 37 point loss to Irishtown. The 2019 season brought another grand final reversal, this time at the hands of Redpa.