墨爾本港

Leagues Played
VFL 19
Links
Wikipedia
VFL 03/23 02:05 - 南港 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 08/19 02:05 - 富茨克雷 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 08/12 04:05 - 墨爾本港 v 列治文 後備隊 View
VFL 07/28 09:35 - 墨爾本港 v 科堡 View
VFL 07/08 05:05 - 墨爾本港 v 華勒比 View
VFL 07/01 04:05 - Box Hill v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 06/25 04:05 - 墨爾本港 v 艾聖頓 後備隊 View
VFL 06/10 02:05 - 南港 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 06/03 03:05 - 墨爾本港 v 黃金海岸 後備隊 View
VFL 05/28 02:00 - 吉朗 後備隊 v 墨爾本港 10.13(73)-8.12(60)
VFL 05/20 09:05 - 墨爾本港 v 悉尼 後備隊 View
VFL 05/14 04:05 - 桑德林漢姆 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 04/30 03:05 - 墨爾本港 v 大悉尼西區 後備隊 View
VFL 04/24 08:35 - Frankston v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 04/15 04:05 - 墨爾本港 v Northern Bullants View
VFL 04/07 04:05 - 威廉斯敦 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 04/01 08:05 - 墨爾本港 v 科林伍德 後備隊 View
VFL 03/25 04:05 - 北墨爾本 後備隊 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 08/21 03:05 - 吉朗 後備隊 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 08/13 04:05 - 墨爾本港 v Frankston View
VFL 07/30 23:05 - 黃金海岸 後備隊 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 07/24 03:05 - 桑德林漢姆 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 07/17 02:00 - 墨爾本港 v 科林伍德 後備隊 11.9(75)-15.12(102)
VFL 07/09 09:05 - 墨爾本港 v 卡爾頓 後備隊 View
VFL 07/02 03:05 - 凱西 v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 06/24 09:05 - 墨爾本港 v 華勒比 View
VFL 06/11 03:35 - Box Hill v 墨爾本港 View
VFL 06/05 04:10 - 墨爾本港 v 威廉斯敦 10.8(68)-6.14(50)
VFL 05/21 02:05 - 墨爾本港 v 南港 View
VFL 05/15 03:05 - Northern Bullants v 墨爾本港 View

The Port Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Borough, is an Australian rules football club based in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Port Melbourne. The club was founded in 1874 and has been competing in the Victorian Football Association/League (VFL) since 1886 and the VFLW since 2021.

Port Melbourne is the most successful club in the VFA/VFL/VFLW, having won 18 senior premierships - 17 senior first division men's premierships - three more than its nearest rival Williamstown, and the club secured its inaugural VFLW premiership and 18th overall in 2023. Beyond these premierships, the club has been a men's first division grand finalist on a further 21 occasions bringing their total grand final appearances to a remarkable 38 in their 137 years in the competition. Port Melbourne is also the only VFA/VFL Club never to have been relegated to the second division. The club has maintained a fiercely independent and stand-alone status, without being in a formal reserves affiliation with a club from the Australian 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 fielded a women's team in the VFL Women's (VFLW) competition since 2021, and in the past it has fielded premiership-winning teams in the now-defunct VFL Reserves and Development leagues.

History

Port Melbourne team that won its first premiership in 1897

The Port Melbourne Football Club joined the senior ranks Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1886, its inaugural team formed in large part from members of the powerful nearby South Melbourne Football Club which had dominated metropolitan football in 1885. 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; its rivalry 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.

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 of scab 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.

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 was zoned – and even players as highly decorated as Brownlow Medallists Peter Bedford and Bob Skilton returned to play with Port Melbourne after their VFL careers. 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 the Sandringham.

Traditionally, Port Melbourne's greatest rivals are the Williamstown Seagulls and the Sandringham Zebras. All three teams continue to play in the VFL to this day. Prior to the original breakaway of the VFL from the VFA in 1897, Port Melbourne's greatest rival was South Melbourne.

Since the AFL reserves competition merged with the Victorian Football League in 2000, Port Melbourne has been involved in two affiliations: with the Sydney Swans (2001–2002), and with the Kangaroos (2003–2005); since 2006, Port Melbourne has existed as a stand-alone VFL club. The club has fielded a team in the VFL Women's competition since 2021.

In under-age football, Port Melbourne has been affiliated with the Oakleigh Chargers NAB League team since the 1999 season, and the Chargers adopted Port Melbourne's colours as part of the affiliation. Port Melbourne had previously been affiliated with the Geelong Falcons (1996–1998), and in 1995 was part of a three-way affiliation which saw it share the Calder Cannons and Western Jets with Williamstown and Coburg.

The club's onfield nickname is the Borough or Boroughs, one of the more unusual nicknames in the sport, coming from the club's location in what was once the Borough of Port Melbourne. The name stuck, even after the area was upgraded to the status of town in 1893, and eventually city in 1919.