| Names | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Melbourne University Football Club |
| Nickname(s) | University, The Students, The Blacks, The Blues |
| Club details | |
| Founded | 1859 |
| Colours | Black Blue |
| Competition | Victorian Amateur Football Association |
| Chairman | John Carmody (MUFC); Lucas Van Kempen (University Blacks); Tony McInerney (University Blues) |
| Coach | Matthew Kempton(University Blacks); Fergus Watts(University Blues) |
| Captain(s) | Bede Mahon(University Blacks); Matthew Torney (University Blues) |
| Ground(s) | East Melbourne Cricket Ground, University of Melbourne |
Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University is an Australian rules football club.
The club achieved prominence by being a member of Victoria's elite competition in the early 20th century, the Victorian Football League (the forerunner of the Australian Football League) between 1908 and 1914.
Although there are no records of its exact formation, University's first recorded match took place in the same month that the Castlemaine Football Club was formed making it likely that University is the second oldest club in Australia after Melbourne.
University was founded in 1859 by students and graduates of the University of Melbourne. The first report of the university participating in a match was against St Kilda in June 1859. According to ‘Gymnastic’, writing in the sporting newspaper Bell's Life in Victoria, the ‘long pending match’ finally came off between two teams of 15. University was captained by a player called Phillips and St Kilda emerged the winners, under the method where the first team to score two out of three goals was victorious.
That same year it played against teams from Albert Park, Carlton, Melbourne, Royal Park and South Yarra. In 1861, University defeated Melbourne to win the first ever trophy for Australian football, instituted as part of the Calendonian Society's Games.
During the 1870s, the club played in the Second Twenties competition, one level lower than the main competition, the South Yarra Challenge Cup. From 1885 to 1888, University played in the VFA which at the time was the sport's major governing body. Following these years, the club was variously dormant or played in other competitions including the Metropolitan Junior Football Association, the Colleges Football Association and from 1905 to 1907 was a dominant member of the Metropolitan Football Association.
On 4 October 1907 the eight founding clubs of the VFL voted unanimously to include University in the league as its ninth team. Richmond Football Club became the 10th team two weeks later. The club's home ground was originally the East Melbourne Cricket Ground, where it was a tenant of the Essendon Football Club; after a lengthy dispute with Essendon over rent, the club relocated to the Melbourne Cricket Ground which it also shared, this time with the Melbourne Football Club.
The club was nicknamed The Students, The Professors and The Shop. The players wore a black guernsey with a blue chevron and blue collars and cuffs (the same design is still used to this day), black and blue socks and an optional black and blue cap. Players had to have matriculated or hold a higher degree to be eligible to play in the team. It is unique among VFL/AFL clubs in never having any professional (paid) players.
The club was not particularly successful: it never finished higher than sixth in the 10 team competition, and never played in the finals. It finished last in the competition from 1911 to 1914, and lost its last 51 games in a row. In total, it played 126 games for 27 wins, 2 draws and 97 losses between the 1908 and 1914 seasons.
When World War I broke out, many young men enlisted to fight, leaving the club with far too few players to field a team. It dropped out of the League before the beginning of the 1915 season and disbanded, with the remaining players joining Melbourne, and there was no hope of re-forming it after the War as it suffered the highest rate of casualties of any team in the league.
| Year | Position | Coach | Captain | Leading goalkicker (goals) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1908 | 6 | Tom Fogarty | Martin Ratz (25) | |
| 1909 | 7 | Harry Cordner | Albert Hartkopf (19) | |
| 1910 | 6 | Mick Grace | Edgar Kneen | Albert Hartkopf (30) |
| 1911 | 10 | Gerald Brosnan | George Elliot | Albert Hartkopf (19) |
| 1912 | 10 | Gerald Brosnan | George Elliot | Roy Park (22) |
| 1913 | 10 | Victor Upton-Brown | Bert Hurrey | Roy Park (53) |
| 1914 | 10 | Gerald Brosnan | Jack West | Roy Park (36) |
Overall, 112 players played at least one game for University in the Victorian Football League between 1908 and 1914; and, of that 112, at least 20 died in active service in either World War I or World War II (see List of Victorian Football League players who died in active service).
Bert Hurrey played the most amount of games for the club (101), and was the only University player to play at least 100 games in the VFL. Roy Park was the club's leading goalscorer, kicking 111 goals between 1912 and 1914, including winning the VFL's Leading Goalkicker Award in 1913 with 53 goals for the home-and-away season, a remarkable effort considering the team itself managed only 115 and finished last on the ladder without a win.
The following is a list of coaches to have coached the club in the VFL.
| No. | Coach | P | W | L | D | W% | Years |
| 1 | Mick Grace | 18 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 55.55 | 1910 |
| 2 | Gerald Brosnan | 54 | 2 | 52 | 0 | 3.70 | 1911-14 |
| 3 | Victor Upton-Brown | 18 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0.00 | 1913 |
In the summer of 1919, after the War, Melbourne University began to rebuild its football involvement. Deciding not to reapply for a position in the VFL, they were instead requested by the VFL to supply two teams to the newly-formed VFL Reserves competition, or the Victorian Junior Football League. These two teams were initially called University A and B, but soon became known as "University Blues" and "University Blacks", respectively (the teams were only officially called the Blues and Blacks in 1930). The Blues contested the 1919 and 1920 VJFL Grand Finals, losing to Collingwood on both occasions; the Blacks moved to the Metropolitan Amateur Football Association in 1920, and the following season, were joined by the Blues. Both contested the 1921 MAFA Grand Final, with the Blacks winning what to date is the only grand final the two teams have contested in the MAFA or VAFA.
Melbourne University students and alumni continue to maintain their involvement in football through the Blues and Blacks. The Melbourne University Football Club is unique in that it only plays as "Melbourne University" in inter-university matches, and its regular weekly competition is provided through its component teams, University Blues and University Blacks. The Blues and Blacks play in the Victorian Amateur Football Association, and have been a perennial power in the highest division of a high-standard amateur competition.
Up until the 1950s, the Blacks were the leading University side as well as one of the dominant sides in the Amateur competition, winning 11 A Section premierships by 1949. However, in the later part of the century the Blues established themselves as the premier University side, and are currently the second longest serving club to play in the top division of the VAFA. Whilst the Blacks have won a total of 13 A section flags (the most in the VAFA) and the Blues three (with their most recent being in 2004), in the years since the 1980s it has been the Blues that have maintained the club's presence in A Section. Throughout their history, the Blues and Blacks have often played together in A section of the MAFA/VAFA, and with the Blacks return to A section in 2008 after a prolonged absence, the teams met again for the first time in 25 years. In head to head matches, the Blues lead the win tally with 43 wins to the Black's 36 and one draw. Regrettably, the Blacks were relegated to B section again at the end of 2008, but in 2012 have won promotion into A section to join the Blues for the 2013 season.
Both teams have consistently been a spawning ground for young players who go on to the AFL. To date 240 MUFC players have played in the VFL/AFL competition. Latest is Daniel Nicholson (Melbourne 2011)
From 1955 until 1996, an additional team was fielded by the club called "University Reds" which competed in the VAFA, with a firsts and reserves team and predominately in the lower sections (the Reds achieved the lofty heights of D Section in 1982, but otherwise played mainly in E or F Section). When the team was discontinued by the club, players and supporters of the team decided to keep the team operating and it continues to this day as Fitzroy Reds. The Fitzroy Reds merged with the Fitzroy Football Club in 2008.
In 1996, a women's team was formed, but established under its own club structure rather than being part of the MUFC. Named the Melbourne University Mugars (Melbourne University Girls Aussie Rules Squad), the women's football club wears the same uniform and currently fields 3 senior teams and 2 under-age teams in the Victorian Women's Football League and AFL Victoria's Youth Girls competitions. The MUWFC has won 5 premierships since making its first of ten VWFL grand finals in 2001. The club is Australia's largest women's football club, with 145 players participating in 2007 across the five teams.
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||
HOT DESIGNS ▪ Premium designs ▪ Designs by country ▪ Designs by U.S. state ▪ Most popular designs ▪ Newest, last added designs ▪ Unique designs ▪ Cheap, budget designs ▪ Design super sale DESIGNS BY THEME ▪ Accounting, audit designs ▪ Adult, sex designs ▪ African designs ▪ American, U.S. designs ▪ Animals, birds, pets designs ▪ Agricultural, farming designs ▪ Architecture, building designs ▪ Army, navy, military designs ▪ Audio & video designs ▪ Automobiles, car designs ▪ Books, e-book designs ▪ Beauty salon, SPA designs ▪ Black, dark designs ▪ Business, corporate designs ▪ Charity, donation designs ▪ Cinema, movie, film designs ▪ Computer, hardware designs ▪ Celebrity, star fan designs ▪ Children, family designs ▪ Christmas, New Year's designs ▪ Green, St. Patrick designs ▪ Dating, matchmaking designs ▪ Design studio, creative designs ▪ Educational, student designs ▪ Electronics designs ▪ Entertainment, fun designs ▪ Fashion, wear designs ▪ Finance, financial designs ▪ Fishing & hunting designs ▪ Flowers, floral shop designs ▪ Food, nutrition designs ▪ Football, soccer designs ▪ Gambling, casino designs ▪ Games, gaming designs ▪ Gifts, gift designs ▪ Halloween, carnival designs ▪ Hotel, resort designs ▪ Industry, industrial designs ▪ Insurance, insurer designs ▪ Interior, furniture designs ▪ International designs ▪ Internet technology designs ▪ Jewelry, jewellery designs ▪ Job & employment designs ▪ Landscaping, garden designs ▪ Law, juridical, legal designs ▪ Love, romantic designs ▪ Marketing designs ▪ Media, radio, TV designs ▪ Medicine, health care designs ▪ Mortgage, loan designs ▪ Music, musical designs ▪ Night club, dancing designs ▪ Photography, photo designs ▪ Personal, individual designs ▪ Politics, political designs ▪ Real estate, realty designs ▪ Religious, church designs ▪ Restaurant, cafe designs ▪ Retirement, pension designs ▪ Science, scientific designs ▪ Sea, ocean, river designs ▪ Security, protection designs ▪ Social, cultural designs ▪ Spirit, meditational designs ▪ Software designs ▪ Sports, sporting designs ▪ Telecommunication designs ▪ Travel, vacation designs ▪ Transport, logistic designs ▪ Web hosting designs ▪ Wedding, marriage designs ▪ White, light designs E-COMMERCE DESIGNS ▪ Magento store designs ▪ OpenCart store designs ▪ PrestaShop store designs ▪ CRE Loaded store designs ▪ Jigoshop store designs ▪ VirtueMart store designs ▪ osCommerce store designs ▪ Zen Cart store designs CMS DESIGNS ▪ Flash CMS designs ▪ Joomla CMS designs ▪ Mambo CMS designs ▪ Drupal CMS designs ▪ WordPress blog designs ▪ Forum designs ▪ phpBB forum designs ▪ PHP-Nuke portal designs ANIMATED WEBSITE DESIGNS ▪ Flash CMS designs ▪ Silverlight animated designs ▪ Silverlight intro designs ▪ Flash animated designs ▪ Flash intro designs ▪ XML Flash designs ▪ Flash 8 animated designs ▪ Dynamic Flash designs ▪ Flash animated photo albums ▪ Dynamic Swish designs ▪ Swish animated designs ▪ jQuery animated designs WEBSITE DESIGNS ▪ WebMatrix Razor designs ▪ HTML 5 designs ▪ Web 2.0 designs ▪ 3-color variation designs ▪ 3D, three-dimensional designs ▪ Artwork, illustrated designs ▪ Clean, simple designs ▪ CSS based website designs ▪ Full design packages ▪ Full ready websites ▪ Portal designs ▪ Stretched, full screen designs ▪ Universal, neutral designs CORPORATE ID DESIGNS ▪ Corporate identity sets ▪ Logo layouts, logo designs ▪ Logotype sets, logo packs ▪ PowerPoint, PTT designs ▪ Facebook themes VIDEO, SOUND & MUSIC ▪ Video e-cards ▪ After Effects video intros ▪ Special video effects ▪ Music tracks, music loops ▪ Stock music bank GRAPHICS & CLIPART ▪ Pro clipart & illustrations, $19/year ▪ 5,000+ icons by subscription ▪ Icons, pictograms |
| Super Offers |
| Super Offers |
| Custom Logo Design $149 ▪ Web Programming ▪ ID Card Printing ▪ Best Web Hosting ▪ eCommerce Software ▪ Add Your Link |
| © 1996-2013 MAGIA Internet Studio ▪ About ▪ Portfolio ▪ Photo on Demand ▪ Hosting ▪ Advertise ▪ Sitemap ▪ Privacy ▪ Maria Online
|
