League - Team - Death, Death, Death

[Mobbs]

Came across information recently while stopping for a brew at the Lambton Arms pub in Burrumbeet (near Ballarat).

Burrumbeet used to have its own league : The Burrumbeet Football Association. The only confirmed club I can find for this league was Waubra. This was all in the 30's.

The league, obviously, went by the wayside, but Burrumbeet continued to field a team, as they were said at one stage to compete against Ballarat Imperials (now Redan). Anyways, Burrumbeet FC went under somewhere around the mark of 1952.

So Burrumbeet used to have an entire league named after them, but now they don't even have a club. I wonder how many more localities suffered this. Lexton, Clunes and Learmonth all had their own leagues in the early days, but at least they still have teams today.

Just another angle on the rate of drop in the countryside.

(Burrumbeet wore Essendon colours, and won flags at least in 1936 and in 1937.)

 

[the croucher]

Yes, MBF, interesting point.

The town where I grew up is Lilydale in Northern Tasmania. Back in the 1920s it competed in the Scottsdale Football Association. Then just around the time that the Depression hit the Lilydale Football Association (three sides) was formed.

In about 1932 or so there was a fourth club added when a "boundary" was drawn through the township. What would become a world famous lavender farm called "Bridestowe Estate" had started in the years previous, so perhaps with workers there, a constantly changing workforce in the local timber, farming and orcharding communities it must have been felt that the town could support two sides. If you lived north of the line then Bridestowe Rovers was your team, if you lived south then you played for Lilydale.

Undoubtedly the numbers of suitable players quickly dropped away again because by mid to late 1930s there wasn't even a local association let alone four clubs, although the Lilydale Club itself somehow managed to survive.

Since WWII it has played every season, but often needed two or three attempts at an Annual Meeting before enough office bearers could be found. Having participated in the East Tamar F.A. and then the Tamar F.A., Lilydale now plays in the North-East Football Union.

 

[Woofer]

Having read many footy books there were inumerable different "associations" in the bush late 1800s and early 1900s. Think it just reflects how disorganised footy was in those days. For instance Dunnstown FC near Ballarat played in the Dunnstown Association in 1894, the Claretown Association in 1895, Wallace Dists in 1914. They have played in 8 leagues since and now play in the Central Highlands League.

 

[Mobbs]

I think it enriches the romantic aspect of it, little clubs and leagues springing up all over the map, and disappearing basically as fast.

Morrl Morrl, another locality in the Wimmera, had a footy club, but never played a match against any opponent. Go figure!

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