Encounter Bay Football Club

Encounter Bay
Full name Encounter Bay Football Club
Nickname The Eagles
Sport Australian rules football
Founded 1921
League Great Southern Football League
Home ground Encounter Bay Oval, Victor Harbor

The Encounter Bay Eagles are an Australian rules football club based in Encounter Bay, South Australia, that plays in the Great Southern Football League.

Club history

Australian rules football on the Fleurieu Peninsula dates back to the 1860s–1870s, when the Goolwa Football Club was established in 1878. Matches were organised between local towns on a 'friendly' basis. Following this period, it was thought that a stable league should be created to oversee the competition. That league was named The Great Southern Football League; Encounter Bay joined the league two years after the club's founding, in 1921.

In Encounter Bay's first few years of existence, the team was made primarily of players from the Victor Harbor area. The club's first match was against Victor Harbor, and they also played games against Hindmarsh Valley and Finniss. The club first saw premiership glory in 1940, beating Port Elliot 10.15.75 to 7.5.47, playing home games at a paddock off Maude Street in Encounter Bay.

Originally, Encounter Bay's colours were red and white; the current yellow and blue was the result of a split in 1946. After World War II, there was a group of men who couldn't get a game. With support from the local areas of Back Valley, Lower Inman, and Inman Valley, they formed a breakaway football club – the Valleys Football Club. The Valleys FC played their home games at the Back Valley Oval, next to the Back Valley Tennis Club, but by 1953, the club was finding it difficult to win games and so they re-amalgamated with Encounter Bay to form the Bay Valley Rovers.

The new team had the blue and gold colours of the former Valleys FC, and the merger lasted until 1957, when the name was changed to Encounter Bay. The 1958 season saw the change from a gold sash to the eagle that is still worn on the guernsey, and the Eagles won the A- and B-Grade premiership that same year. The club dominated the decade of the 1960s by making numerous grand finals and winning in 1960, 1961, 1965, and 1967. Encounter Bay saw a twenty-two-year premiership drought until 1989, when the Eagles won another A-Grade flag after being bridesmaids to Willunga the year before; they won again in 1996.[1][2][3]

GSFL A-Grade premierships

  • 1958
  • 1960
  • 1961
  • 1965
  • 1967
  • 1989
  • 1996

References

  1. ↑ South Australian Country Football Digest.
  2. ↑ A Sporting nation.
  3. ↑ A Game of our Own.
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