MORPHETT VALE
Current Affiliation: Southern Football Association/League (SFL) since 1938
Formed: 1898; merged with Noarlunga 1936; reformed as a separate club once more 1938
Colours: Black and red
Emblem: Emus
Senior SFL Premierships: 1978-9-80-1, 2004-5-6-7 (8 total)
Mail Medallists: G.Steel 1995 (1 total)
Morphett Vale Football Club has been a member of the Southern Football League, and its earlier incarnation the Southern Football Association, almost continuously since 1898. The main break in membership occurred during the 1930s when Morphett Vale, in common with many other clubs, found itself enduring a hand to mouth existence, a state of affairs which prompted a brief marriage of convenience with arch rival Noarlunga. The merged club, known as Northern United, existed for just two seasons, and although it was unable to attain premiership success it managed the much more enduring achievement of enabling both partner clubs to survive.
Senior premiership success was a long time arriving for the Emus, as Morphett Vale are known, but since making the initial breakthrough in 1978 the club has been a consistent competition pace setter. Indeed, its record of 7 senior flags in the past thirty years puts it level with Happy Valley as the competition's most successful club during that time.
The Emus' first senior premiership arrived in 1978 thanks to a nail biting 1 point grand final defeat of Port Noarlunga. Morphett Vale's Thirds team went top in division two the same season and both sides repeated their successes the following year. Having suddenly if somewhat belatedly acquired the winning habit the seniors were understandably keen to make up for lost time, or at least that was the impression they generated with further grand final wins over Christies Beach in both 1980 and 1981, thus becoming the first club since Willunga three decades earlier to claim in excess of three consecutive premierships.
Indeed, it might have been even better as the Emus went on to contest both the 1982 and 1983 grand finals as well, only to lose to Noarlunga and Christies Beach respectively.
A quarter of a century later and Morphett Vale is embarking on the second concerted spell of success in its history, with the seniors 11.9 (75) to 3.6 (24) grand final defeat of Brighton in 2007 giving them their fourth straight flag, and their eighth in total.
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