Single Entity Teams That Have Disappeared In The Last 25 Years.

Remove this Banner Ad

DBrowJ said:
It's their second season now without a team, there was a push from their community to get a team up and running this year. The league comes under the Riverland Football League jurisdiction and they were making it hard for lyrup to rejoin.
But the independents are going out on their own governance starting in 2023, so lyrup would likely be given a chance to form. This year there are only 6 teams in the competition, Cobdogla also without representation this year. I'm sure they'd be hopeful for their team in the comp next season but at this stage it'll be wait and see whether it's 6, 7 or 8 teams.
Click to expand...

I am looking forward to seeing how the Murray Valley FNL fares in 2023.

I reckon it might revitalise football and netball in their region. There's even talk of one club shifting from a neighbouring league and early indications were at least one club was optimistic about coming out of recess.

How many teams do you expect the football set-up to be? One senior and one or two junior teams?
 
Last edited:

Log in to remove this ad.

Heardy_101 said:
Meningie Bears from the River Murray FL in SA are merging with Border Downs Tintinara at the end of this season.
Click to expand...
They've just announced their new identity as the Coorong Cats.
Think this is actually a really good job of branding for a merger. Rather than trying to fit in the 2 clubs colours and names (Crows and Bears) together they've gone for something a bit different. FB_IMG_1661520337432.jpg
 
Now that most leagues are into their finals series, I would expect to see an increase in talk about the future of some clubs, and potentially the Golden Rivers league. I would be surprised if there weren't a few disbandings or mergers made official by the end of November given the current landscape in some areas, especially in the northern half of the state.

It seems as though there will be no agreement between the five Upper Murray league clubs (possibly only four in 2023) to combine into one club (potentially the Upper Murray Eagles FC) and join the Tallangatta league, despite it being the logical option to keep football going in the region into the next decade. The UMFNL is a year-to-year proposition and all it would take to fall over is a number of players all deciding to try their luck with a Tallangatta & District, Ovens & King, Ovens & Murray or Hume league club.
 
Last edited:
MortlockWatcher said:
Don't BDT wear the Adelaide Crows home guernsey and Meningie the old Brisbane Bears design of maroon with gold V and white piping?

I'm sure they chose a new nickname and look to signify a fresh start.
Click to expand...
They do. The navy comes from BDT, and also Tintinara.

The white comes from Border Districts, but also Meningie.
 
Sadly, there are many in my area, across the Wimmera FNL and the Horsham District FNL.

In the Wimmera League, Minyip and Murtoa merged in 1995, Warracknabeal and Brim merged to become the Warrack Eagles in 2001 and most recently Hopetoun and Beulah merged in 2014 to become the Southern Mallee Giants.

In Horsham, Noradjuha and Quantong joined forces in 1997, Edenhope and Apsley merged in 1999 prior to joining, as did Jeparit and Rainbow in 1996. Natimuk and Horsham Diggers merged in 2014 to become Natimuk United. It's so unfortunate that areas like Ararat and Stawell used to have entire local competitions that have folded.

Nhill (from the Wimmera league) and Kaniver Leeor (from the Horsham Districts league) released a statment prior to this season saying they will merge, which has been speculated to happen for at least 2 years already. It will be interesting to see what league they will will play in, colours, home grounds, etc.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Lameroo and Pinnaroo's geography leaves them with a lot of travel which could become problematic.
Where do they go? River Murray FL? Murray Valley FNL (ex-Riverland Inependents)? Kowree-Naracoorte-Tatiara FL? There was even a suggestion of the Mid South East FL (Tantanoola-Lameroo is 3.5 hours one way, a fun proposition for the parents of the junior teams).

A sign of the times for the smaller towns into the future, especially in Victoria. I am sure than 15 years from now, you will see the smaller leagues now become a club, e.g. a Golden Rivers FC in the Central Murray league, a Millewa District FC in the Sunraysia league and an Upper Murray FC in the Tallangatta league.
 
The Tintinara/Meninge team is moving to the Murray Bridge league along with Karoonda/Peake i think. Murrayville going to the ex-riverland independent league, which will have some big drives for games by the look of it.

Sadly, it seems to be the way country leagues are going lately. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more restructuring to come.
 
Karoonda Districts was already a big deal in the merger pathway stakes. But now the history is borderline labrynthine!
Karoonda-Peake.jpg

Max = 5
Min = 3
Sources = 8
Total = 16 points.

Note that I've got "????" at one place to denote when Karoonda Combined changed name to Karoonda-Borrika. I don't have any evidence to suggest some additional merger happened then, seems to have been just a name change. Apparently, happened after the merger but before 1985 - but I dunno when. Also, there's some chance I only have a colloquial name for one of them, and that there was never any name change in there at all.

[Merger Ratings thread]
 
The_Sargey said:
The Tintinara/Meninge team is moving to the Murray Bridge league along with Karoonda/Peake i think. Murrayville going to the ex-riverland independent league, which will have some big drives for games by the look of it.

Sadly, it seems to be the way country leagues are going lately. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more restructuring to come.
Click to expand...

Coorong Cats (Border Downs - Tintinara / Meningie Bears) are going to the River Murray FL, as is the new Karoonda / Peake club.

I find it it interesting that Murrayville have gone to Murray Valley / Independents but the club's must've had no issue with travel given they obviously gave it the tick of approval. Same with Casterton Sandford joining Mid South East.

We saw the same situation last summer when the Mid West (Eyre Peninsula) folded after West Coast Hawks and Wirrula joining Far West (now Western Eyre), Elliston Districts (Elliston and Western Districts) went to Great Flinders and Central Eyre and Wuddina United went to Eastern Eyre and became Central Eyre United.

I suspect there will be more over summer if not over the next 1-2 years.
 
Social media is showing that the Murray Valley clubs had no input in Murrayville being admitted. Two rather peeved clubs (BSR and Sedan-Cambrai) I am guessing their main grievance is on travel grounds - but if they travel over the border only once a year then they may realise that it is not so bad after all.

I agree with your view that there will be more changes over the next two years, not only in SA but Victoria as well. Victoria is a ticking time bomb as AFL Victoria is showing no initiative in developing future plans for regions and leagues also seem to be devoid of plans. Most of the money pledged by the AFL to grassroots football is going to the NAB league, other development programmes and administrative hubs, so it pretty much all gets eaten up by AFL Victoria and the other state bodies instead of actually going to the leagues and clubs themselves.

In Victoria, I reckon we will see a number of clubs merge or fold over the next couple of seasons and as a result, leagues will begin to disappear (the Golden Rivers is on the edge now after Quambatook folded and Nullawil moved to the North Central league after this season). Ultimately, I can see the Millewa, Golden Rivers and Upper Murray leagues gone within the next 5-10 years and each year will see a handful more clubs merge or fold as a lack of juniors or a lack of juniors progressing to seniors/reserves football finally takes its toll.

Here in WA, we have been luckier in that we had a half-season in 2020 and only missed two weekends in 2021, so it has been pretty much situation normal. The biggest issue in country football here is the declining rural population, though the North Midlands and Central Wheatbelt leagues have managed to hang on a few more years than some have expected and are still going for the time being.
 
Last edited:
MortlockWatcher said:
Formed in 2014.
Back-to-back Wimmera league senior premiers in 2016-17.
Click to expand...
Yeah I knew a bit of their recent history and winning flags but my question was what former clubs make up Southern Mallee Giants? I wasn’t 100% sure. Was it Hopetoun, Beulah, Berri-Culgoa? Throw in Jeparit and Rainbow if this new merger identity was to go ahead and you have 6 towns / former clubs in the one merged team……..starting to rival the Glen Eira Saints in the VAFA if that is the case.
Would Glen Eira be the most merged club ever in Australia or do we have others that could challenge it?
 
Wild Thing said:
Yeah I knew a bit of their recent history and winning flags but my question was what former clubs make up Southern Mallee Giants? I wasn’t 100% sure. Was it Hopetoun, Beulah, Berri-Culgoa? Throw in Jeparit and Rainbow if this new merger identity was to go ahead and you have 6 towns / former clubs in the one merged team……..starting to rival the Glen Eira Saints in the VAFA if that is the case.
Would Glen Eira be the most merged club ever in Australia or do we have others that could challenge it?
Click to expand...
Ouyen United has 30 Clubs I’m told
 
Wild Thing said:
Can you find or list them for me…..I am intrigued by how clubs have formed or gone by the wayside particularly in the Mallee region.
Click to expand...
Mate I think you can do your own research here, but I’ll start you off Ouyen, Walpeup, Underbool Kiamal, Tiega, Tempy, Gorya, Patchewollock, Torrita, Lascelles
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top