The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest league in the country.
The club was established in 1873 and its name originates from the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. The club was a foundation team of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and in 1897 became a foundation team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), which was renamed the Australian Football League prior to the start of the 1990 premiership season.
The club does not acknowledge any connection to the original St Kilda football club (1858–1864) or the 1872 St Kilda club, however it does have a connection to the South Yarra Football Club (1858-1873) having formed by that club's St Kilda based players.
South Yarra St Kilda Split: 1872-1876 In 1872, St Kilda based players from the South Yarra Football Club (established 1858) broke away and trained in St Kilda, these players were many of the club's finest. For the 1873 season, they cut ties completely with South Yarra to form a new club, St Kilda Football Club, based in St Kilda. The club initially struggled for numbers and in 1875, fielded a combined team with Melbourne University Football Club where remainder of the players had gone after South Yarra folded between 1873 and 1875.
Victorian Football Association: 1877–96 In the early stages the club played at an area known as the "Alpaca Paddock" next to the present site of the St Kilda Bowling Club near the St Kilda railway station. Alpacas were a kind of llama with long wool which had been imported from South America as a money-raising venture. St Kilda soon boasted a membership of 60 and showed that it would exceed its initial aim of being a junior club. By the end of the first season the Saints were able to force a draw with the top-ranking Carlton and everything looked rosy. There were tough times ahead but St Kilda's uphill battle was not without its humorous moments. Only 12 St Kilda players turned up for a match in Bendigo and the game against Albert Park started 90 minutes late after the ball burst when it was being inflated prior to the match. Amalgamation with the university football club did not help the cause either, but the club was still one of the original members of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) when it was formed in 1877. That year St Kilda became only the second team to journey interstate (Melbourne had gone to South Australia a fortnight earlier) and beat Adelaide, then a combined South Australian side.
By 1879 the club slipped to its lowest ebb. After the side failed to turn up for a game at Essendon, all further matches were abandoned. St Kilda sank into junior ranks for the next six years. The club returned to senior competition in 1886 and struggled to make its mark. A decision was made to amalgamate with nearby Prahran and St Kilda retained their colours, name and ground, as well as picking up a number of Prahran players. Even at this early point St Kilda had a reputation for being able to lift miraculously on their day and roll the best teams in the competition. Another trademark was the presence of some of the foremost players in football. Alf Smith, a champion rover, was one of the earliest stars, but the hot and cold Saints could never sustain their brilliance for long. Proof of the team's quixotic nature came in the last season it played in the VFA when several top players missed the Collingwood game because they chose to go to the races instead.
St Kilda competed as a senior club in the VFA from 1877 to 1879, 1881 to 1882 and 1886 to 1896 before competing in the Victorian Football League (VFL) from 1897 onwards.History of the VFL: 1877 - 2007
Early years in the VFL: 1897–1915 St Kilda's early years in the Victorian Football League were not successful, finishing last in nine of the first 14 seasons. In 1899, St Kilda scored the lowest score ever recorded in a VFL/AFL match, one point against Geelong (who scored 162).Jim Main, Aussie Rules for dummies (2nd edition, 2008) p 45.
In 1897, 1898 and 1899 St Kilda finished eighth on the ladder. In the opening round of 1900 St Kilda and Melbourne tied, but a St Kilda protest over an incorrectly awarded point was upheld. The relief was only temporary as the team lost every other game for the year. By an ironical twist, Melbourne went on to the premiership. The Saints finished last on the ladder again in 1901 and 1902, setting a record for ineptitude unequalled in a major Australian football league until Sturt took its seventh consecutive wooden spoon in the 1995 season and finished with eight consecutive from 1989 to 1996.Sturt football Club Biography In 1903 St Kilda finished fifth on the ladder. In 1904 a committee shake-up heralded a bold new recruiting drive and the club netted much-travelled ruckman Vic Cumberland and champion Tasmanian rover Vic Barwick, but in 1904 St Kilda finished eighth on the ladder and in 1905 seventh. Within two years of the bold new recruiting drive the brilliant young forward Dave McNamara and a talented batch of interstate men were on the books and St Kilda rose to sixth place in 1906.
The St Kilda team took the football world by storm early in 1907 by winning the opening six games. Six successive wins to start the 1907 season saw the club make the finals for the first time, finishing third with nine wins and eight losses. St Kilda 4.11 (35) were beaten by Carlton 13.13 (91) in the club's first VFL final by 56 points in front of 26,100 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). The team again finished third in 1908 and qualified for the finals again. St Kilda 3.8 (26) were eliminated by Carlton 12.12 (84) by 58 points in front of 25,531 at the MCG. In 1909 and 1010 St Kilda finished last on the ladder after a protest by Geelong over the eligibility of Bill Stewart whom the Saints played when suspended, second last in 1911 and third last in 1912.
1913 season In the 1913 season, St Kilda finished fourth and made a storming run to the 1913 finals. In the Preliminary Final St Kilda 10.10 (70) defeated Fitzroy 6.9 (45), in front of 54,846 at the MCG making it into the grand final. St Kilda ended up playing Fitzroy for the Premiership in the 1913 Grand Final for the first time in the club's history. The match became a nightmare for the Saints when they hadn't scored a goal by half-time. At the last change they trailed by 25 points.1913 VFL Grand Final statistics Suddenly St Kilda sparked to life and four goals brought the within a point.Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. St Kilda charged forward again and landed the ball with Baird who marked within scoring range, yet amazingly tried to handpass to Morissey who hurriedly shot for goal, scoring just a point. Fitzroy then scored two more goals to win by 13 points.The Complete History of Every club in the VFL/AFL p 323. Fitzroy 7-14 (56) to St Kilda 5-13 (43).
1914 and 1915 seasons In the 1914 season the St Kilda finished seventh on the ladder and did not make the finals. In 1915 they were also disappointing as the club finished eighth on the ladder. Due to World War I, the St Kilda team were in recess in 1916 and 1917.
Resuming after recess: 1918–39 The club resumed in 1918 and fared well, making the finals in fourth position, but was eliminated by Collingwood in the semi-finals by nine points, 58 to 49.
Results declined in the early 1920s, with the club finishing last in 1920 and 1924. The following years saw St Kilda establish itself as more consistently competitive, despite being the poorest club in the league apart from new entrants Hawthorn and North Melbourne owing to an absence of wealthy industrial and political patrons.Booth, Ross; “History of player recruitment, transfer and payment rules in the Victorian and Australian Football League” by LA84 Foundation Colin Watson played brilliantly in 1925, winning the Brownlow Medal.
The St Kilda team made the finals in 1929 and were eliminated by Carlton 12.9 (81) to 11.7 (73) in the semi-finals. However, financial problems and committee disputes meant that the club fell into the bottom four every year from 1931 and 1933, only avoiding the wooden spoon by eight percent in 1932.
The mid-to-late 1930s saw the club consistently vying for finals berths, finally making the finals again in 1939 by finishing fourth after a record run of eight consecutive victories and an overall record of 13 wins and 5 losses: the best home and away season in the club's history up to that point. Unfortunately for the Saints, three other clubs did even better, but going into the first semi final against Richmond there was felt to be substantial ground for optimism as the Saints had won their last four meetings. St Kilda had not been victorious in a finals match for twenty-six years (though they had engaged in only two finals matches during that time) but for once the optimism was not misplaced as the Saints raced to a comfortable 30 point win, 10.12 (72) to 6.6 (42).
The team had its first finals win since 1913 over Richmond in the semi-final winning 10.12 (72) to 6.6 (42) at the MCG in front of 51,411. Then in the Preliminary Final, St Kilda 15.15 (105) lost to Collingwood 20.14 (134) in front of 66,848 at the MCG on the 23/9/1939, with Ron Todd kicking eleven goals.
1940–59
The breakthrough win in the finals of 1939 did not herald a period of success for the club and St Kilda's fortunes took a rapid nose-dive in 1940 and thereafter the club continued to struggle. The club won three of the first four games early in the 1940 season and was on top of the ladder after Round 4 before finishing second last. Though there was some high-class players like Harold Bray, Keith Drinan, Peter Bennett and later Neil Roberts, St Kilda were rarely competitive. Indeed, it is doubtful if the club has ever experienced a worse decade than the 1940s which yielded only 34 wins and 4 draws from 174 matches for a paltry success rate of just over 20%. During the entire decade the Saints (or the 'Panthers' as they were briefly known at around this time) only twice finished outside the bottom two, and never once achieved as many wins in a season as defeats. The club finished last seven times in 13 years between 1943 and 1955.
The 1950 season saw the club win the first five games before fading to finish with eight wins and a draw in ninth place. The 1950s brought improvement of sorts, at least when compared to the 1940s, but St Kilda could still hardly be regarded as a glamorous club.
In 1955, after one of the club's worst seasons, Alan Killigrew was appointed coach. His first action was one of the most massive clean-outs of players in the history of any VFL club. It is believed that only 17 players from 1955 played for St Kilda again in 1956, while 11 new players appeared in the club's opening match of 1956. The appointment of Alan Killigrew as coach eliminated the defeat-accepting attitude of St Kilda and soon made the team more competitive. In the late 1950s St Kilda vied for finals berths without making the finals. St Kilda had three consecutive Brownlow Medal winners; Brian Gleeson in 1957, Neil Roberts in 1958 and Verdun Howell in 1959.
In 1958 St Kilda won the Consolation Night Series competition, a competition played at night at the end of the home and away rounds between the eight teams that finished between 5th and 12th and failed to qualify for the VFL Premiership Season Finals Series. St Kilda defeated Carlton 16.13 (109) to 15.11 (101) in the final.
1960–73