| Port Melbourne Football Club | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Names | ||
| Full name | Port Melbourne Football Club | |
| Former name | Sandridge Football Club (1874−1884) | |
| Nickname(s) | Borough,Port | |
| 2024 season | ||
| Home-and-away season | VFL 16th VFLW 6th VBFL 2nd | |
| Club details | ||
| Founded | 1874; 151 years ago (1874) | |
| Colours | Blue Red | |
| Competition | VFL: Senior men VFLW: Senior women VBFL: Blind (mixed) | |
| President | Michael Shulman | |
| CEO | Sophie Williams | |
| Coach | VFL: Brendan McCartney VFLW: Tom Chitsos | |
| Captain(s) | VFL: Harvey Hooper VFLW: Olivia Barton | |
| Membership(2024) |  1,410[1][2] | |
| Premierships | VFA/VFL (Div 1) (17)VFLW (1) | |
| Ground | North Port Oval (capacity: 10,000) | |
| Uniforms | ||
| ||
| Other information | ||
| Official website | portmelbournefc.com.au | |
ThePort Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed theBorough, is anAustralian rules football club based in the inner-Melbourne suburb ofPort Melbourne. The club was founded in 1874 and has been competing in theVictorian Football League (VFL) – formerly known as theVictorian Football Association (VFA) – since 1886, and theVFL Women's (VFLW) since 2021.
Port Melbourne is themost successful club in the VFA/VFL, having won 17 senior men's top division premierships, three more than its nearest rivalWilliamstown. It has also won one VFLW premiership.
Port Melbourne is also the only VFA/VFL club never to have been relegated to the second division when the VFA had both first and second divisions. The club has maintained an independent and stand-alone status, without being in a formalreserves affiliation with a club from theAustralian Football League (AFL) for all but five years of its history.
Consequently, Port Melbourne is considered one of the strongest Victorian-based football clubs that does not compete in the AFL. The club has had a women's team in theVFL Women's (VFLW) competition since 2021, and in the past it has fielded premiership-winning teams in the now-defunctVFL reserves competition. In 2024, the club fielded its first team in theVictorian Blind Football League (VBFL).
The Port Melbourne Football Club was formed in1874 as theSandridge Football Club. It changed its name to Port Melbourne in1884, in line with the renaming ofthe municipality.[3][4]
Port Melbourne joined the senior ranks of theVictorian Football Association (VFA) in1886, with its inaugural team formed in large part from members of the powerful nearbySouth Melbourne Football Club which had dominated metropolitan football in1885.[5] The club has played in every VFA/VFL season since that time. In 1897, Port Melbourne was left out of the group of eight clubs which formed the breakaway VFL competition, despite having regularly been about the sixth- or seventh- best performing team onfield. Historian Terry Keenan theorised that the likeliest reason for Port Melbourne's exclusion was the reputation for the poor behaviour that its players and spectators had developed over the previous decade; itsrivalry with and proximity to South Melbourne and the fact that Port Melbourne had supported the gate equalisation measures which the breakaway clubs were trying to escape were also speculated to have contributed to the decision.[6]
The club, and the suburb of Port Melbourne in general, were heavily associated with wharf labourers and the union movement. During a 1928 waterfront strike in Melbourne, a wharf labourer protesting the use ofscab labour was shot by police; as a result, the club banned any police from playing with them. The policy remained in place until the late 1950s.[7]
Port Melbourne went on to become one of the strongest clubs in the VFA, and today still attracts some of the biggest crowds to its games. The club had very strong links with the Port Melbourne community, arguably the strongest community relationship within the VFA; local juniors often held stronger aspirations to play for Port Melbourne than for the VFL's South Melbourne – which by the 1950s was perennially struggling and to which the Port Melbourne area waszoned – and even players as highly decorated asBrownlow MedallistsPeter Bedford andBob Skilton returned to play with Port Melbourne after their VFL careers.[8] Over the twenty-eight seasons from 1961 until 1988 that the VFA was partitioned into two divisions, Port Melbourne played every season in the first division – a distinction shared only with theSandringham.
Traditionally, Port Melbourne'sgreatest rivals areWilliamstown andSandringham. As of 2025, all three teams continue to play in the VFL. Prior to the original breakaway of the VFL from the VFA in 1897, Port Melbourne's greatest rival wasSouth Melbourne.[6]
Since theAFL reserves competition merged with the Victorian Football League in 2000, Port Melbourne has been involved in twoaffiliations: with theSydney Swans (2001–2002), and with theKangaroos (2003–2005); since 2006, Port Melbourne has existed as a stand-alone VFL club. The club has fielded a team in theVFL Women's competition since 2021.
In under-age football, Port Melbourne has been affiliated with theOakleigh ChargersNAB League team since the 1999 season,[9] and the Chargers adopted Port Melbourne's colours as part of the affiliation. Port Melbourne had previously been affiliated with theGeelong Falcons (1996–1998),[10] and in 1995 was part of a three-way affiliation which saw it share theCalder Cannons andWestern Jets withWilliamstown andCoburg.[11]
In 2024, Port Melbourne joined theVictorian Blind Football League (VBFL), becoming the first VFL club to do so.[12]
The club's onfield nickname is theBorough orBoroughs. Like many clubs, its earliest nickname was geographical, and the Borough nickname came from the club's location in what was once the Borough ofPort Melbourne; the name stuck, even after the area was upgraded to the status of town in 1893, and eventually city in 1919.[13][14] Unlike most other clubs, Port Melbourne never adopted a more modern nickname based on an animal or a profession, and remains known as the Borough. The name was sometimes written as Burra or Burras,[15] and in the 1970s and 1980s the nickname was sometimes depicted with akookaburra.[16]
The Port Melbourne Football Club's guernsey is royal blue with red vertical stripes.
     1889 –1897 |  1897–1908 |  1909–present |
The official Port Melbourne Football Club song is called "It's a Grand Old Flag" (sung to the tune ofGeorge M. Cohan's 1906 song "You're a Grand Old Flag"), which is also the club name and basis for the club songs ofCasey,Maribyrnong Park, andMelbourne.
It's a grand old flag, it's a high-flying flag,
It's the emblem for me and for you;
It's the emblem of the team we love,
The team of the Red and the Blue.
Every heart beats true for the Red and the Blue,
And we sing this song to you:
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the Red and the Blue.
In2011, Port Melbourne completed aperfect season, winning all eighteen home-and-away games, then three finals matches, culminating in a 56-point win againstWilliamstown in the Grand Final.[17] It was the first perfect season in the VFA/VFL first division since 1918, and the first to not be shortened by war.[18]
The Port Melbourne team of the century was selected in August 2003:
| B: | Stan Plumridge | Joe Garbutt | Vic Aanensen |
| HB: | David King | Bob Kelsey | Bob Withers |
| C: | Bill Swan | Peter Bedford | Billy McGee |
| HF: | Rob Freyer | Ted Freyer | Brian Walsh |
| F: | Bob Bonnett | Fred Cook | Tommy Lahiff |
| Foll: | Frank Johnson | Graeme Anderson | Bill Findlay |
| Int: | David Holt | Reg Murray | Norm Goss Jr. |
| Bill Bedford | Carl Bowen | Gary Brice | |
| Coach: | Gary Brice | ||
| Premierships | |||
| Competition | Level | Wins | Years won |
|---|---|---|---|
| Victorian Football League | Seniors | 17 | 1897,1901,1922,1940,1941,1947,1953,1964,1966,1974,1976,1977,1980,1981,1982,2011,2017 |
| VFL Women's | Seniors | 1 | 2023 |
| VFA/VFL Reserves | Division 1 | 14 | 1944, 1949, 1951, 1959, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1980, 1996, 2004 |
| VFA/VFL Thirds | Division 1 | 2 | 1952, 1993 |
| Other titles and honours | |||
| Centenary Cup | Seniors | 1 | 1977 |
| Finishing positions | |||
| Victorian Football League | Minor premiership | 20 | 1941, 1947, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1966, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2014 |
| Grand Finalists | 21 | 1902, 1923, 1925, 1928, 1929, 1945, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1965, 1967, 1987, 1993, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012 | |
| Wooden spoons | 3 | 1909, 1936, 2006 | |
Port Melbourne have fielded aVFL Women's team since 2021, in affiliation with theRichmond Football Club. They have won one premiership as of 2024.
| Port Melbourne VFLW honour roll | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | Final position | Coach | Captain | Best and fairest | Leading goal kicker | |||
| 2020 | Season cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic | |||||||
| 2021 | 3rd | Lachlan Harris | Melissa Kuys | Claire Dyett | Emily Harley (14) | |||
| 2022 | 10th | Sean Buncle | Claire Dyett/Melissa Kuys | Kaitlyn O'Keefe | Sophie Locke (6) | |||
| 2023 | Premiers | Sean Buncle | Claire Dyett | Lauren Caruso | Emily Harley (9) | |||
| 2024 | 6th | Sean Buncle | Olivia Barton | TBA | Emily Harley (13) | |||
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| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |