Australian Football

Glencoe was a foundation member in 1936 of the Mid South East Football Association and has since compiled the enviable record of 15 senior grade flags, a tally which only Mount Burr, with 21, has bettered. The most recent of these came in 2007 courtesy of a 14.20 (104) 12.10 (82) grand final defeat of Tantanoola.

The club can trace its history back as far as 1910, when it engaged in informal, scratch matches against teams from nearby towns. It did not take part in any formal competition until 1927 when it fielded a team in the Mount Gambier Football Association’s B Grade competition. Between then and the club’s admission to the MSEFA in 1936 it qualified for four grand finals and won two of them. It then commenced its involvement in the new competition in the best possible fashion by downing North Gambier B in the inaugural grand final by the hefty margin of 80 points, 17.17 (119) to 5.9 (39). No further flags followed until after world war two with the 1950s and 1960s proving especially lucrative, both decades yielding four senior grade premierships apiece.

In 2008 Glencoe made an impressively determined effort to secure back-to-back premiership triumphs, but despite mounting a rousing last quarter rally in the grand final clash with Hatherleigh the side ultimately fell short by 17 points. Final scores were Hatherleigh 18.16 (124) to Glencoe 15.17 (107). This remains the Murphies' last grand final appearance. Since then they have experienced mixed fortunes, but have contested the finals more often than not. The 2017 and 2018 seasons were exceptions to this trend as the Murphies won just five out of 16 games to finish second from last in the former year before improving slightly in the latter to finish sixth with a 7-9 record. In 2019 Glencoe reached the grand final only to lose by 34 points to Kalangadoo.