ALBURY
Current Affiliation: Ovens and Murray Football League (OMFL) 1896-1928 and 1933 to present
Formed: 1896
Colours: Black and yellow
Emblem: Tigers
Senior OMFL Premierships: 1902, 1908, 1913, 1928, 1937, 1939-40, 1947, 1956, 1966, 1982, 1985, 1995-6-7 (15 total)
Morris Medallists: N.Barnett 1935; L.Mann 1956; K.Bennett 1963; J.Ambrose 1965; R.Coelli 1981; P.Gorski 1982; T.Scott 1993 & 1994; K.Howe 1995; L.Newton 1996 (9 Medallists/10 Medals)
Highest Score: 43.29 (287) vs. Yarrawonga in 1998
| MINI-BIOGRAPHIES: | Phil Baker Haydn Bunton senior Fred Goldsmith Jack Jones Stan Judkins Lance Mann Denis 'Dinny' Ryan Doug Strang William Strang Murray Weideman |
Albury joined the Ovens and Murray Football Association in 1896 and was immediately competitive. After finishing as runner-up in 1899 and 1901 the side broke through for the first of three pre-World War One premierships in 1902.
After the war Albury spent the period between 1920 and 1923 in the Albury and Border Football Association before resuming in the OMFA, which in 1927 was renamed the Ovens and Murray Football League. Albury reached its first post-war grand final that year, but was thrashed by Saint Patrick's. Revenge was quickly achieved, however, as the 1928 grand final saw Albury 12.8 (80) defeating Saint Patrick's 8.16 (64), with a young Haydn Bunton figuring prominently for the victors.
Relations between Albury, a predominantly Protestant club, and Saint Patrick's (Catholic) were at best tense, and at worst outright acrimonious. In 1929, in a joint bid to defuse the problem, the two clubs took the drastic measure of disbanding, with two new clubs, West Albury and East Albury, being formed to replace them. These new clubs were conceived along strict geographical lines which cut right across sectarian interests, thereby encouraging the players to focus their energies and attention where they belonged - on football. By 1933 all trace of religious antagonism had dissipated, and East and West Albury combined to re-establish the Albury Football Club, albeit with no trace of the sectarian prejudices that had tainted it during its former incarnation.
During the second half of the 1930s Albury forged strong if essentially informal links with the VFL club that shared its emblem and colours, Richmond. In 1937 Stan Judkins, who had spent the preceding nine years at Punt Road, winning a Brownlow Medal in 1930, arrived at Albury as coach, and promptly steered the side to its first flag in almost a decade. Among the key contributors to the 16.13 (109) to 9.9 (63) grand final victory over Yarrawonga was another former Richmond star in Doug Strang, who had begun his senior football career in the Ovens and Murray League with East Albury. Having replaced Judkins as Albury's coach, Strang would be successful in steering the side to two further premierships.
The Tigers' 1956 and 1966 flags were similar in that both were achieved under the coaching of former VFL players - Jack Jones (ex-Essendon) and Murray Weideman (Collingwood), respectively.
Throughout the twentieth century Albury was consistently successful, acquiring flags at the rate of one or two per decade other than in the 1970s, when it failed to win any, and the 1990s, when it secured a club record three in succession between 1995 and 1997. Coach of the Tigers for the first two of their 1990s flag wins was Paul Spargo, who had commenced his senior career with the club before embarking on successful stints with North Melbourne and Brisbane. Spargo was one of many Albury footballers to forge noteworthy careers for themselves on the game's highest stage, but it would be wrong to imagine that all of the best local products chose, or were given the chance, to pursue fame and fortune in the VFL. Prior to the 1980s in particular many high quality footballers saw out their entire playing lives in the OMFL, where the game has long generated a fervour and a passion that lose nothing in comparison with that manifested in Melbourne. Among Albury's many fine 'stay at home' players were quadruple club best and fairest award winner of the 1970s Terry Cross, prolific goal kicking forwards like 'Snowy' Osborne in the 1920s and Daryl Brakes more than half a century later, and Cleaver Bunton, who made a telling on-field contribution to the club's 1928 flag win alongside his more widely known brother Haydn, and who went on to have an even greater impact on the game he loved as secretary of the league for no fewer than thirty-two seasons. In 2005, Cleaver Bunton was chosen as the OMFL's first official Legend.
Since the halcyon days of the mid-1990s Albury has fallen on hard times, with a losing grand final against North Albury in 1999 the closest the side has come to securing a sixteenth senior premiership. In 2006, Albury qualified for the finals in third place with 11 wins from eighteen home and away matches, but then bowed out of premiership contention with consecutive losses to Myrtleford in the qualifying final and Lavington in the 1st semi final. A year later the Tigers finished with a 10-8 record to narrowly miss the finals.
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