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ADELAIDE UNIVERSITYCurrent Affiliation: South Australian Amateur Football League (SAAFL) since 1911 Home Grounds: 1. University Oval, Corner of Sir Edwin Smith Avenue and War Memorial Drive, North Adelaide; 2. Park 10, Corner of McKinnon Parade and Bundeys Road, North Adelaide Formed: 1906 as University Football Club; renamed Adelaide University in 1969 Website: www.bobneill.com Email: info@adelaideuniversity.saafl.asn.au Colours: Black and white Emblem: Blacks Senior Grade SAAFL Premierships: Division One - 1911-12, 1920-1-2, 1926, 1929, 1932, 1951-2, 1954-5, 1960-1-2, 1965, 1968-9, 1974-5, 1986, 1996, 1999 (23 total) The club was officially formed in 1906, although football had certainly been played at the university for at least twenty years prior to that. Originally known simply as University, the club spent its first three seasons competing in the Adelaide and Suburban Football Association. On at least four occasions during its formative years the club applied to join the South Australian Football League, thereby emulating its Melbourne counterpart which competed in the Victorian Football League between 1908 and 1915. However, these overtures were rejected, and the 1911 season saw University helping to establish the South Australian Amateur Football League, with which it has maintained an unbroken association ever since. With a total of twenty-three senior grade A1/Division One premierships to its credit, University has been far and away the South Australian Amateur game’s most successful club. That success commenced right away as the club defeated Glenferrie by 9 goals in the very first SAAFL grand final. A year later it repeated its success, this time by a 40 point margin at the expense of St Francis Xavier. A third grand final appearance in 1914 brought defeat at the hands of the club which, over the years, would prove to be University’s most redoubtable rival, Semaphore Central. Between 1916 and 1919 the SAAFL suspended operations because of world war one, but when it resumed University promptly established its elf as the competition’s pre-eminent force, claiming a hat trick of premierships thanks to grand final triumphs over Henley and Grange by 55 points, and Prospect and Semaphore Central by an identical 11 point margin. The remainder of the 1920s brought a further four grand final appearances, with those of 1926 and 1929, both against Semaphore Central, producing victories. The 1930s proved somewhat less successful than the 1930s with University only claiming a single flag - albeit an unbeaten one - that of 1932 against Underdale United, and finishing runner-up on three occasions. After the third of these in 1934 University did not re-emerge as a genuine premiership threat until the late 1940s. In 1949 the Blacks played off in the A1 grade grand final, but lost to arch rival Semaphore Central. This disappointment was a prelude to a marvellous decade for the club which produced no fewer than seven A1 grade grand final appearances. In 1951 and 1952 against Exeter, 1954 against Rosewater, and 1955 against Exeter once more the Blacks were triumphant. It was a similar story during the ensuing decade which opened with the club’s second hat trick of premierships. Indeed, between 1960 and 1969 the Blacks contested every A1 grade grand final, winning six and losing four, and giving rise to mutterings that the club was too powerful for the competition, and ought to be divided into two separate teams, along the lines of Melbourne University’s Blacks and Blues. However, nothing eventuated, although had the club continued to dominate as it had during the 1970s it is at least arguable that some kind of restructuring exercise would have been imposed. As it was, the 1970s brought something of a decline in fortune, although with a couple of flags from three grand finals the Blacks still vied with Flinders Park as the decade’s most successful club. Adelaide University’s two A1 grade grand final clashes of the 1980s were both against Riverside and resulted in a loss by 20 points in 1983, and a hard fought 3 point win three years later. Over the past couple of decades the Blacks have contested another five top grade grand finals, winning those of 1996 against Edwardstown and 1999 against Goodwood Saints (the latter by the narrowest of margins), but losing those of 2002, 2003 and 2006. Adelaide University’s top grade side currently competes in division two. The club fields more teams than any other club in the SAAFL and attracts something of a cult following with its supporters often heard singing songs about Bob Neill, the Blacks’ unofficial mascot, after whom their web site has been named. Where now? or
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