Koonibba Football Club is an Australian rules football club situated in the small Aboriginal Australian community of Koonibba, South Australia. Founded in 1906, it is the oldest surviving Aboriginal football club in Australia. The players are known as the Koonibba Roosters. [1]
The Lutheran missionaries at Koonibba Mission (founded in 1901), helped the residents of the mission to establish the football club, which played against teams from Denial Bay, Charra, Penong and Ceduna. [1]
At the celebrations for its 100th year in existence, 23 of its players past and present were added to the club's Team of the Century. [2]
AFL footballer Gavin Wanganeen's great-grandfather played for Koonibba. [3]
Port Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, South Australia. The club's senior men's team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), where it is nicknamed the Power, while its reserves men's team competes in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL), where it is nicknamed the Magpies. Since its founding, the club has won an unequalled 36 SANFL premierships and four Championship of Australia titles, in addition to an AFL Premiership in 2004. It has fielded a women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition since 2022 (S7).
Gavin Adrian Wanganeen is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Essendon Football Club and Port Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL), and also for the Port Adelaide Magpies in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).
Adam Roy Goodes is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Sydney Swans in the Australian Football League (AFL). Goodes holds an elite place in VFL/AFL history as a dual Brownlow Medallist, dual premiership player, four-time All-Australian, member of the Indigenous Team of the Century and representative of Australia in the International Rules Series. In addition, he has held the record for the most VFL/AFL games played by an Indigenous player, surpassing Andrew McLeod's record of 340 during the 2014 AFL season before having his own record surpassed by Shaun Burgoyne during the 2019 AFL season.
Sir Douglas Ralph Nicholls was a prominent Aboriginal Australian from the Yorta Yorta people. He was a professional athlete, Churches of Christ pastor and church planter, ceremonial officer and a pioneering campaigner for reconciliation.
Marn Grook, marn-grook or marngrook is the popular collective name for traditional Indigenous Australian football games played at gatherings and celebrations by sometimes more than 100 players. From the Woiwurung language of the Kulin people, it means "ball" and "game".
Coloured Stone is an Aboriginal Australian band whose members originate from the Koonibba Mission, west of Ceduna, South Australia. They first became known for their 1984 single, "Black Boy". The band performs using guitar, bass, drums, and Aboriginal instruments – didjeridu, bundawuthada and clap sticks – to play traditional music.
Harry Hewitt, sometimes spelled "Hewit", "Ewart" or "Hewett", was an Indigenous Australian cricketer and Australian rules footballer. In 1889, Hewitt played for the Medindie Football Club, and so is believed to be the first Indigenous Australian to play in the South Australian Football Association (SAFA), known today as the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).
The Indigenous All-Stars is an Australian rules football team composed of players that identify as Indigenous Australian or with an indigenous culture.
Aaron Davey is a former Australian Football League (AFL) athlete, that represented the Melbourne Football Club between 2004 and 2013. He is currently the Senior Coach of the Cairns City Lions, where he also served as a Player-Coach.
Danyle Pearce is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Port Adelaide Football Club and Fremantle Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played for the Port Adelaide between 2005 and 2012 and Fremantle between 2013 and 2018.
John Kundereri "Jumbana" Moriarty is an Aboriginal Australian artist, government advisor and former soccer player. He is also known as founder of the Balarinji Design Studio, for painting two Qantas jets with Aboriginal motifs.
The Western Eyre Football League (WEFL), formerly Far West Football League (FWFL), is an Australian rules football competition based in the Ceduna area of the Eyre Peninsula region of South Australia, Australia. As of March 2021, the league includes clubs in Ceduna, Thevenard, Koonibba Aboriginal community, Penong, Streaky Bay and Wirrulla.
Point Pearce, also spelt Point Pierce in the past, is a town in the Australian state of South Australia. The town is located in the Yorke Peninsula Council local government area, 194 kilometres (121 mi) north-west of the state capital, Adelaide.
Chad Jordan Wingard is a former professional Australian rules footballer who played for the Port Adelaide Football Club and the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He was drafted to Port Adelaide with the sixth selection in the 2011 AFL Draft from the Sturt Football Club in the South Australian Football League (SANFL).
Jarman Impey is a professional Australian rules footballer playing for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously played for the Port Adelaide Football Club from 2014 to 2017.
Cameron Ellis-Yolmen is a former professional Australian rules footballer, most recently playing for the Brisbane Lions in the Australian Football League (AFL), having played for the Adelaide Football Club from 2014 until 2019. He was drafted at pick 64 in the 2011 National Draft. Cam currently plays for the Wodonga Raiders in the Ovens & Murray Football League
The 1993 Brownlow Medal was the 66th year the award was presented to the player adjudged the fairest and best player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home-and-away season. Gavin Wanganeen of the Essendon Football Club won the medal by polling eighteen votes during the 1993 AFL season. Wanganeen was the first Aboriginal player to win the Brownlow Medal in the history of the award, and, at age 20, he was the youngest winner since Denis Ryan in 1936. The South Australian also added a premiership medallion to his collection after Essendon defeated Carlton in the 1993 premiership decider. Both medals were already in addition to the 1993 Michael Tuck Medal Wanganeen was awarded for being judged best on ground in the pre-season grand final.
Raukkan is an Australian Aboriginal community situated on the south-eastern shore of Lake Alexandrina in the locality of Narrung, 80 kilometres (50 mi) southeast of the centre of South Australia's capital, Adelaide. Raukkan is "regarded as the home and heartland of Ngarrindjeri country."
Koonibba is a locality and an associated Aboriginal community in South Australia located about 586 kilometres (364 mi) northwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about 38 km (24 mi) northwest of the municipal seat in Ceduna and 5 km (3.1 mi) north of the Eyre Highway.
Natasha Wanganeen is an Aboriginal Australian actress. She is known for her starring role in the 2002 feature film Rabbit-Proof Fence, aged 15, and numerous television roles. Her debut film as co-writer and co-producer is the 2022 short film, an Indigenous sci-fi drama entitled Bunker: The Last Fleet, about an alien invasion of Australia, in which she also takes the lead role.