The Ovens and Murray Football Netball League (OMFNL or O&MFNL) is an Australian rules football and netball competition containing ten clubs based in north-eastern Victoria, the southern Riverina region of New South Wales and the Ovens and Murray area. The name comes from the Ovens River, the river in the part of north-eastern Victoria covered by the league, and the Murray River, which separates Victoria and New South Wales.
The league features three grades in the Australian rules football competition, with these being Seniors, Reserve-Grade and Under 18s. In the netball competition, there are four grades, with these being A-Grade, B-Grade, C-Grade and Under 16s.
Currently a home and away season consisting of eighteen rounds is played. The best five teams then play off according to the McIntyre system, culminating in the O&MFNL Grand Final, which from 1995 to 2017 was held at the Lavington Sports Ground in the Albury suburb of Hamilton Valley.
History Beginnings of the O&MFA Organised competition in the area started as the "Ovens & Murray Football Association" in 1893, with the following foundation clubs – Beechworth Wanderers, Chiltern, Eldorado, Rutherglen, Wangaratta City and Wangaratta West End, with Beechworth Football Club winning premierships in 1893 and 1894 and Rutherglen winning thirteen O&MFA flags between 1895 and 1915.
In 1910, the O&MFA had only three teams – Albury, Excelsior and Rutherglen, with Rutherglen winning the premiership.
In 1911, both Excelsior and Rutherglen applied to enter the Rutherglen and District Football Association. As a result, the O&MFL folded, with local teams attempting to apply to play in the Rutherglen & DFA. A ballot took place at a Rutherglen & DFA meeting on 29 April at Mackay's Hotel, Rutherglen which resulted in Balldale, North Albury, Rutherglen, South Albury and Wodonga being refused admission to join the association. Corowa, Excelsior and Lake Rovers were club's that were admitted. In 1911, the Albury Football Club was planning to divide the club into South Albury and North Albury teams, but as they were not admitted into the Rutherglen & DFA, the club went into recess in 1911. Rutherglen FC also went into recess in 1911.
Albury FC and Rutherglen FC were admitted into the Rutherglen & DFA in 1912.
In 1913, the Rutherglen & DFA consisting of the following teams – Albury, Balldale, Border United, Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen, with Albury defeating Rutherglen in the grand final at the Albury Sportground.
The competition reformed under the Ovens & Murray Football Association banner again in 1914, involving the following five teams: Albury, Border United, Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen. Balldale FC entered the Coreen & District Football League in 1914.
In 1915, Beechworth Football Club and Wangaratta Football Club returned to play in the O&MFA. Howlong Football Club entered the Chiltern & District Football Association and went onto win the premiership, while Rutherglen defeated Lake Rovers in the O&MFA grand final played at Rutherglen.
After a three-year break due to World War I, the O&MFA reformed for the 1919 season with only four clubs, Border United Football Club (Corowa based), Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen. Albury Football Club was reformed in early 1919 and played in the Albury Senior Football Association with two teams – South Albury and North Albury, with St. Patrick's FC defeating South Albury Football Club in the grand final on the Albury Sportsground.
In 1920 the O&MFA did not reform; "It seems strange that the O&MFA has apparently been allowed to die a natural death" with only two clubs present at the O&MFA – AGM, with some clubs moving to play in the Chiltern & DFA and Coreen & DFA.
The competition reformed in 1921 with Lakes Rovers, Rutherglen, St Patricks, Corowa, Springhurst and Wahgunyah. In 1922, larger town clubs Benalla and Wangaratta joined the OMFA whilst Wahgunyah and Springhurst moved to the Chiltern DFL.
In 1924, Lake Rovers Football Club amalgamated with the Rutherglen Football Club. Albury FC and the Diggers FC also decided to amalgamate in 1924 and apply for admission into the Ovens and Murray Football League as Albury Football Club.
In 1926, the O&M name was changed from an association to a league, its present form. Around this time the clubs contesting the league included Wangaratta, Hume Weir (which drew many of its players from workers constructing the Hume Dam at the time), Yarrawonga and two clubs from the town of Albury, St Patricks and Albury club). These two clubs were largely divided amongst sectarian lines, St Patricks being Roman Catholic and Albury being Protestant and, after much tension, in 1929 the two clubs agreed to disband and form two new clubs, East Albury Football Club and West Albury Football Club, with the player base to be drawn geographically.
ollowing the 1930 season, a 19 year old West Albury player, Haydn Bunton, who has sometimes been described as the best ever player of Australian rules, was recruited by VFL club Fitzroy. Bunton won Brownlow Medals in 1931, 1932 and 1935, before transferring to Subiaco in the WANFL, where he won Sandover Medals in 1938, 1939 and 1941. Bunton has remained one of only four triple Brownlow medallists, and the only player to have been awarded three Brownlows and three Sandovers. (Bunton Park, where North Albury Football Club is based, was named after his brother Cleaver Bunton, who was elected president of the O&MFL in 1930 and would serve in that role until 1969. Cleaver Bunton was also mayor of Albury for 30 years.)
In 1930 Hume Weir Football Club and Ebden Rovers Football Club merged to become the Weir United Football Club.
East Albury Football Club and Weir United Football Club merged in 1933 to become the Border United Football Club (Albury based) and wore green and white jumpers. In 1933 West Albury Football Club changed its name to the Albury Football Club and remained in the West Albury colours of maroon and blue.
At the O&MFA's 1936 Annual General Meeting, it was announced that the Border United FC would merge with the Albury Football Club as both clubs were in debt and also due to a lack of players. The newly merged team took on the name of the Albury Football Club. This left the City of Albury with only one football team.
Post-World War II In 1940, the league went into recess after round 10 for the duration of World War II, before full competition resumed in 1946. In 1945, Rutherglen, played in the Chiltern & District Football Association and Wodonga played in the Albury Border Football Association in 1945. In 1947 North Albury was admitted, followed by Wangaratta Rovers and Myrtleford, who were admitted from the Ovens & King Football League in 1950. Wangaratta won four consecutive premierships between 1949 and 1953, under captain coach, Mac Holten.
The Wangaratta Rovers would go on to dominate the O&M for the remainder of the 20th Century, winning fifteen premierships to date, a number only recently overhauled by Albury with their own streak of flags.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the league began to gain a reputation within Victoria as being the strongest competition outside the then VFL and VFA. The best players were often recruited from the O&M to play for one of the "city" clubs, but it was not uncommon for a VFL player to retire from the "big" league and play in the O&M or another country league, and perhaps start a coaching career there as well, often at the same time as a playing coach. One notable example of this, as far as the O&M was concerned, was Bob Rose, who left Collingwood as a player in 1955 and became captain coach of the Wangaratta Rovers and lead them to two premierships in 1958 and 1960, after which he returned to Collingwood to continue his coaching career.
1970s and 1980s In 1968, the VFL introduced country recruitment zones throughout Victoria and Riverina, which limited the areas from which each VFL club could recruit. The O&MFL was allocated to North Melbourne, and thus quite a few of the better players from the O&M came to play for the Kangaroos, contributing in part to that club's rise to success in the 1970s. These included Mick Nolan, Xavier Tanner, Gary Cowton, Peter Chisnall and John Byrne and later John Longmire, who had a good season with Corowa-Rutherglen as a goal kicking forward in O&M seniors in 1987. The zoning system was discontinued in the late 1980s as the VFL/AFL introduced a draft system.
The Wangaratta Rovers dominated the 1970s, playing in ten grand finals between 1970 and 1980, winning seven premierships and finishing third in 1973.
In 1974 the O&MFL was disaffiliated by the Victorian Country Football League (VCFL) when the O&MFL refused to accept an application from the Lavington Football Club to join the league. By this stage the football club was based at the Lavington Sports Club, an established licensed club, and was strong enough to field teams in both the Tallangatta League and Hume Football League the following year.
The makeup of the competition remained stable until 1979, when Corowa and Rutherglen merged into Corowa-Rutherglen, and the Lavington Football Club was finally admitted from the Farrer Football League, so the number of clubs remained at ten.
Lavington's home ground, the Lavington Sports Club Oval, provided an ideal venue for many sports as the sports club gradually developed it after its construction in the 1970s. The league has designated it as the venue for most of the league's grand finals since the 1980s. Recently, added assistance for the staging of the grand final through regional promotion and in-kind sponsorship has been provided by the Albury City Council.
In 1983, after an unsuccessful debut season playing for Hawthorn the previous year, Gary Ablett played for Myrtleford in the O&M for a year, before he was recruited by Geelong where he recommenced his career in the VFL/AFL and established himself as one of the code's best players, being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2005.
By the late 1980s, the Wodonga Demons of the Tallangatta League had made a number of bids to join the O&M, and in 1989 were accepted into the competition to serve the west of the city of Wodonga, based at Birralee Park. They changed their name to the Wodonga Raiders Football Club so as to not cause confusion with the Benalla Demons and the long established Wodonga Football Club.
1990 "Bloodbath" Grand Final
Around a minute after the start of the 1990 grand final between Lavington and Wodonga, a brawl began players, which lasted for around three minutes. Fifteen players received a combined total of 68 matches in suspensions following the match − a combined 46 for Lavington players and 22 for Wodonga players.
Footage of the brawls, which was broadcast live Prime Television, was shown across Australia and around the world, and it has been described as the OMFL's "darkest day".
Wodonga won the match by 20 points, despite having trailed at the first three breaks, marking the club's fifth senior premiership. This was the second premiership for Jeff Gieschen as Wodonga coach, having coached the club to a victory in 1987, and he later went on to coach and .
Recent years In 1998, after a string of unsuccessful seasons in the O&M, Benalla moved to the Goulburn Valley Football League. In 2000 the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club, financiers of the Penrith Panthers National Rugby League team, merged with the Lavington Sports Club. As a result, the Lavington Football Club changed their nickname from the Blues to the Panthers, added "Panthers" to their title, and adopted a guernsey in the same colours as the NRL Panthers, but in the Port Adelaide AFL pattern.