History
The Blues were among the founding members of a local football competition, which became the Upper Murray Football Association in 1896.
In April 1896, the Corryong Courier published an article that a discussion took place at the 1896 Corryong FC annual general meeting about establishing a local football competition and a motion was passed to arrange for the Corryong FC secretary to communicate with kindred clubs suggesting that delegate's be appointed to meet and discuss the formation of a local football competition. [3]
In May 1896, the Upper Murray Football Association was formed at Master's Hotel, with Mr G Bishop as the Association's first President and Mr F M'Donough as the Secretary [4] and an official fixture arranged. [5]
The side finished second in its debut season and again in 1895 before claiming its first premiership in 1896. [6] This inaugural flag was won on the basis of the number of premiership points attained during the home and away season, but by the time Cudgewa next went top, in 1904, the Association had introduced a finals system. The Blues won that year's grand final against Corryong, and by the time of the outbreak of World War One, Cudgewa had added further such triumphs at the expense of Federal in 1911, Corryong in 1913, and Federal in 1914.
Between the wars Cudgewa claimed another four premierships but it was during the first four decades after World War Two that the club really came into its own. Over the course of the forty-one season period from 1946 to 1986 the Blues contested no fewer than twenty-four senior grade grand finals, winning sixteen of them.
One of Cudgewa's all time greats was former captain-coach, Ben Byatt who coached seven premierships during his 12 years as coach and played over 400 games. [7]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
