The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their Ascot Vale home "Alisa" adopting the name of the local borough. While the exact date is unknown, it is generally accepted to have been in 1872. The club's first recorded game took place on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton seconds team. From 1878 until 1896, the club played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), then joined seven other clubs in October 1896 to form the breakaway Victorian Football League. Headquartered at the Essendon Recreation Ground, known as Windy Hill, from 1922 to 2013, the club moved to The Hangar in Tullamarine in late 2013 on land owned by the Melbourne Airport corporation. The club shares its home games between Docklands Stadium and the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Zach Merrett is the current club captain.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at Princess Auto Stadium.
Michael Joseph Riley is an American football coach who was most recently the head coach of the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League (USFL). He has previously served as the head coach of two college football programs: Oregon State and Nebraska (2015–2017). Riley has also been the head coach of teams in four different professional leagues: the Canadian Football League (CFL), World League of American Football (WLAF), National Football League (NFL), and Alliance of American Football (AAF). He played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 1970s.
Teddy Lehman is an American former college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons. He played college football for the University of Oklahoma, and was twice recognized as a consensus All-American. The Detroit Lions chose him in the second round of the 2004 NFL Draft, and he also played for the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL, and the Las Vegas Locomotives of the United Football League (UFL).
Thomas Albert Clements is an American football coach and a former Canadian Football League (CFL) quarterback who is the quarterbacks coach for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). He also served as an assistant coach for the Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints and the University of Notre Dame.
Dermott Hugh Brereton is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Hawthorn Football Club, Sydney Swans and Collingwood Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Paul Salmon is a former Australian rules footballer who played in the Australian Football League for Essendon and Hawthorn. Recruited from North Ringwood, Salmon had a prolific career, with many accolades such as being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, a two-time premiership player, seven-time leading goalkicker at Essendon, and the fourth-highest goalkicker for Essendon.
Milton Eugene Stegall is a former professional gridiron football player who played 17 years of professional football, three years in the National Football League (NFL) with the Cincinnati Bengals and 14 years in the Canadian Football League (CFL) with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He is currently an analyst on the CFL on TSN studio panel.
Kenneth Ploen was an American professional football player who was a quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He played college football for the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Avon Cobourne is an American former professional gridiron football running back who was most recently a running back coach for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL). He was a running back for the West Virginia Mountaineers football team from 1999 to 2002 before entering the National Football League (NFL).
Edwin Fitzgerald James was a Canadian professional football and ice hockey player. He played as a running back for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL) between 1952 and 1964 and as a right winger for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL) between 1955 and 1960. He is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, like his father, Eddie James, who also played for the Blue Bombers. James was born in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Alex "Allie" Sherman was an American football player and coach who played 51 games in six seasons in the National Football League (NFL) as a quarterback and defensive back, and afterward served as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and of the New York Giants of the NFL. He later worked as a cable television and sports marketing executive and media personality.
William B. Frank, Jr. was a Canadian football offensive tackle in the Canadian Football League (CFL) for the BC Lions, Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He also was a member of the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at the University of Colorado. He is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Ray Jauch is an American former gridiron football player and coach. He was head coach in the Canadian Football League (CFL), the United States Football League (USFL), and the Arena Football League (AFL). He won 127 regular season games in the CFL, the sixth highest win total by a head coach in the league's history.
Martin Owen Ruby was an offensive tackle and defensive tackle for the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), New York Yanks of the National Football League (NFL), and the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU). He lived in Waco, Texas, while he was a professional player.
Johnny Lee Davis is a former American football running back who played ten seasons in the National Football League (NFL) from 1978 to 1987. Davis was a member of the 1981 San Francisco 49ers team that won Super Bowl XVI. He is a graduate of Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, Alabama, and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Wallace F. Gabler III is a retired professional American football player. He was the starting quarterback for the 1965 Michigan Wolverines football team and played seven seasons in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as the starting quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts (1966–1969), Winnipeg Blue Bombers (1969–1970), and Hamilton Tiger-Cats (1970–1972). In seven years in the CFL, Gabler passed for 13,080 yards and 61 touchdowns.
Samuel Terrence McGuffie is an American bobsledder for the United States men's national team, a former American football running back and wide receiver and a former rugby union player. In American football, he most recently was a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. Previously in the National Football League, he had spent time with the Oakland Raiders in training camp in 2013, and then was briefly a practice squad player for the Arizona Cardinals and later the New England Patriots. He played his freshman season of college football at Michigan before transferring to Rice to play his final three seasons in his native state of Texas.
Andrew Harris is a former professional Canadian football running back who played for 14 years in the Canadian Football League (CFL). Harris is a four-time Grey Cup champion, two-time winner of the Grey Cup Most Valuable Canadian and one-time Grey Cup Most Valuable Player, as well as a five-time CFL All-Star and a six-time CFL West All-Star. He played for the BC Lions for six seasons before joining the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2016 as a free agent, where he was named the 2017 Most Outstanding Canadian after leading the league in rushing and setting the record for single-season receptions by a running back. In 2022, while a member of the Toronto Argonauts, Harris passed 10,000 career rushing yards and became the CFL leader in career yards from scrimmage by a Canadian.
Onterrio Raymond Lloyd Smith is an American former professional football running back who played for the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Oregon, after being kicked off the team by head coach Phillip Fulmer at Tennessee.
