BENALLA
Current Affiliation: Goulburn Valley Football League (GVFL) since 1997
Formed: 1896
Club Address: P.O. Box 182, Benalla 3672, Victoria
Colours: Black, white and red (formerly white with a red vee)
Emblem: Saints
Senior Premierships: 1920, 1935, 1939, 1940, 1953, 1962-3, 1973 (8 total)
| MINI-BIOGRAPHIES: | Bob Chitty Gary Cowton Len Fitzgerald |
The current Benalla Football Club can trace its origins back to 1896, although there is no doubt that football was played in Benalla much earlier than that. Indeed, another club bearing the name of Benalla is known to have competed in the short-lived Yarrawonga Line Football Association during the 1880s.
Benalla's first senior premiership arrived in 1920 when it beat Devenish by 23 points in the grand final of the Benalla-Yarrawonga Line Football Association. During the 1920s and 1930s Benalla played in a total of nine premiership deciding matches (either grand finals or challenge finals), but apart from their 1920 triumph enjoyed success only twice more. Nevertheless, Benalla was widely acknowledged as one of the powers of the competition (see footnote 1), particularly during the second half of the 1930s when five successive grand finals were contested.
After comprehensively defeating Yabba-Dookie to claim the 1939 Benalla-Mulwala Football League premiership there was a feeling that Benalla was beginning to outgrow its origins, but with the onset of war it looked as though the club's ambitions were going to have to be put on hold. The BMFL opted to suspend operations at the end of the 1939 season and Benalla, it seemed, would have to follow suit, but the following year it was offered a temporary and quite unexpected lifeline by the Goulburn Valley Football League.
Throughout its existence the GVFL had functioned as a Wednesday competition, but during the 1930s there was mounting pressure on it to switch to Saturdays (see footnote 2). In May 1939, following weeks of torrid and at times bitter debate between the club delegates who favoured of a change, and those against it, a proposal to implement a Saturday competition forthwith was put to a formal vote, and narrowly endorsed. Founding member Shepparton FC promptly withdrew from the league in disgust, as did its opponent in the previous year's grand final, Mooroopna, and although the league had little difficulty in covering these losses in a purely numerical sense (in actual fact, by admitting Avanel, Euroa, Nagambie and Seymour it went even further), it soon became obvious that the standard of the competition had declined. By 1940, with the impact of war beginning to be felt, the GVFL underwent further erosion when Kyabram announced that it would be unable to field a team, and then, just four weeks from the end of the home and away season, Euroa and Tatura were reluctantly forced to withdraw. It was at this point, in a move that was probably born more of desperation than aforethought, that Benalla was invited to 'even up the numbers' (to six), enabling the league to play four full rounds of three matches, without byes, in the run up to the finals.
Despite not having played any serious football for almost a year, the Benalla players rose to the occasion superbly, not only qualifying for the finals, but ultimately carrying off the flag with a grand final defeat of Rushworth. Surely few premierships anywhere have been won in such unlikely, idiosyncratic fashion.
The GVFL went into mothballs because of the war in 1941, and when it resumed five years later, Benalla had moved on. The next half century saw the club competing in the powerful Ovens and Murray competition, in which it was successful in landing the premiership on four occasions from eight grand final appearances. By the 1990s, however, it had begun to struggle, and in 1995 even went through the entire season without recording a single win. Two years later the club successfully applied to return to the Goulburn Valley Football League where, over the course of the ensuing decade, its performances steadily improved. In 2006, the Saints as they are known (see footnote 3) headed the ladder going into the finals, but ultimately had to be satisfied with second spot after losing a hard fought grand final to Seymour by 31 points. This was followed by an immensely disappointing 2007 season which produced just 6 wins from 18 matches, consigning the Saints to 10th place in the twelve team competition.
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Footnotes
1. The Benalla-Yarrawonga Line Football Association became known as the Benalla Line Football Association in 1931, and then as the Benalla-Mulwala Football League the following year. Return to Main Text
2. Several Victorian country leagues favoured Wednesday competition during this era as Wednesday rather than Saturday was often the preferred day for a half holiday. Some of the better country league players even lined up for their country teams on Wednesdays and travelled to Melbourne to play with a VFL club on Saturdays. Return to Main Text
3. Until 1995, Benalla was known as the Demons. Return to Main Text