Melbourne Rugby Union Football Club

Last updated

Melbourne RUFC
Melbourne Rugby Union Football Club logo.png
Full nameMelbourne Rugby Union Football Club
Union Australian Rugby Union
Branch Victorian Rugby Union
Nickname(s)Unicorns
Founded1909
LocationCharles Lux Pavilion, Toorak Park, 580 Orrong Rd, Armadale, Victoria
Ground(s)Romanis Reserve, Orrong Park, Orrong Rd, Prahran, Victoria
2011Premiers (17th title)
Kit left arm navy lower gold piping.png
Kit left arm.svg
Kit body navy sides gold piping.png
Kit body.svg
Kit right arm navy lower gold piping.png
Kit right arm.svg
Kit shorts yellowsides.png
Kit shorts.svg
Kit socks long.svg
Team kit
Official website
www.melbournerugby.com.au

The Melbourne Rugby Union Football Club, is a rugby union football club based in Melbourne, Australia. Nicknamed the Unicorns, the club plays at Romanis Reserve in Prahran and was founded in 1926. The club's colours are green, blue and gold.

Contents

History

Melbourne rugby union football club is one of the two oldest clubs in Victoria (the oldest being Melbourne University Rugby Football Club). Officially established in 1926, some 38 years after the first game of rugby was played in Victoria, under the 'Melbourne Rugby Union' banner. The first rugby union games were played in Victoria were in 1888. Three games are recorded as being played that year:- one against a British touring team and two against a New Zealand Natives side. The match against the British was lost, but the second Natives' games was a draw; the game they play in heaven had arrived in Victoria.

Until the establishment of Melbourne Rugby club, Victorian rugby was a somewhat stop start affair, due in no small part to World War I. The Victorian Rugby Union (VRU) was established in early 1926 when Melbourne and the five other clubs then playing Rugby League, St Kilda, Melbourne University, Kiwis, RAAF and Navy agreed to wind up the Victorian Rugby League. [1]

During the period 1930-35, Dave Cowper became the club's and Victoria's first Australian international representative and, in 1933, captained Australia against the Springboks in South Africa.

In the early days of the late 1920s and 1930s, Melbourne Rugby Club's motto of that era was "Praemia Post Habeas Ludo" (loosely translated as "After the Battle, Enjoy the Prize"). Following the club's amalgamation in 1939 with Old Boys Rugby Club and prior to his departure, that year, to military duties in World War II, the club accepted the recommendation of club member Weary Dunlop, that the rampant unicorn become the club emblem along with his suggested new club motto "Never a step backward"

Both the emblem and the motto along with the club's victory song "We're on the march with Melbourne's Army" are still deeply embedded in the Melbourne Rugby Club 'psyche.' Another mark of recognition of Melbourne RUFC was introduced by R.I. Kingman in the early Sixties. The sound of 'Who's that man with the big red nose' has become synonymous with MRUFC throughout Victorian rugby circles.

In 1959 MRUFC gained the rights to play on Romanis Reserve. Commonly known as Orrong Park, it is situated on Orrong Road, between High Street and Malvern Roads, Prahran, and is regarded as one of the best playing surfaces in the Victorian union.

In recent years the Melbourne Rugby club has enjoyed some extraordinary success. In 2009, the club's centenary year the first grade side came from last to first, to win the Dewar Shield for the club's 15th time (the most of any club in Victoria). On 11 September 2010, the club went one step further with all 4 senior sides winning their respective competitions. The first club to ever do this in Victoria and second in Australia. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victorian Football League</span> Australian rules football league

The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in eastern states of Australia: Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, including reserves teams for the eastern state AFL clubs. It succeeded and continues the competition of the former Victorian Football Association (VFA) which began in 1877. The name of the competition was changed to VFL in 1996. Under its VFL brand, the AFL also operates a women's football competition known as VFL Women's, which was established in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsternwick, Victoria</span> Suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Elsternwick is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government area. Elsternwick recorded a population of 10,887 at the 2021 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prahran</span> Suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Prahran, also pronounced colloquially as Pəran or Pran, is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Stonnington local government area. Prahran recorded a population of 12,203 at the 2021 census.

Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. The club fields two teams, known as the "Blacks" and "Blues", who both compete in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) in the William Buck Premier Division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian rules football in Queensland</span>

Australian rules football in Queensland was the first official football code played in 1866. The Colony of Queensland was the second after Victoria to adopt Australian rules football, just days after there rules were widely published. For two decades it was the most popular football code, however a strong desire for representative football success saw Queenslanders favour British football variants for more than a century. 120 years later in 1986 Queensland was the first state awarded a licence to have a club, the Brisbane Bears, in the national competition, also its first privately owned club. However the Gold Coast based Bears had a detrimental effect until the 1993 redevelopment of the Brisbane Cricket Ground (Gabba). In contrast the Bears transformation into a Brisbane and traditional membership based club resulted in enormous growth, and a tripling of average AFL attendances by 1996.

Prahran Football Club, nicknamed The Two Blues, is an Australian rules football club based at Toorak Park in Orrong Road between High Street and Malvern Road, Armadale, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club is currently in Division 1 of the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). The nickname Two Blues comes from the club uniform which has been royal blue and sky blue since the club formed in 1886.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toorak Park</span>

Toorak Park is a cricket and Australian rules football arena in the Melbourne suburb of Armadale, Victoria, Australia. It is the home ground of the Prahran Football Club and Old Xaverians Football Club of the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) and Prahran Cricket Club, which plays in the Victorian Premier Cricket competition. The current capacity of the venue is 7,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rugby Victoria</span>

Rugby Victoria, formerly the Victorian Rugby Union, is a member and founding union of Rugby Australia. Within the state of Victoria, it is the governing body for the sport of rugby union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Chadwick</span> Australian rules footballer and coach

Sir Albert Edward Chadwick, CMG, MSM was an Australian rules footballer in the (then) Victorian Football League (VFL).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melbourne Rebels</span> Rugby team

The Melbourne Rebels is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Melbourne. They made their debut in SANZAR's Super Rugby tournament in 2011. The club shares its name with a former Australian Rugby Championship team, but is unrelated. The team plays home matches at AAMI Park.

Australian rules football was first organised in Victoria in 1859 when its rules were codified by the Melbourne Football Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rugby league in Victoria</span>

Rugby league football has been played and watched by people in the Australian state of Victoria since the early 20th century. While for most of its history there the game's popularity has been marginal due to the dominance of Australian rules football in Victoria, rugby league's popularity has rapidly increased in recent years in the state's capital of Melbourne, due mainly to the introduction of a professional Melbourne-based team in the national competition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Adams (Australian footballer)</span> Australian footballer

William John Adams was an Australian rules footballer who played for Fitzroy and Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL) before becoming coach of South Melbourne. He also went by his nickname of "Bull" during his career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rugby union in Victoria</span>

Rugby union in Victoria describes the sport of rugby union being played and watched in the state of Victoria in Australia. The code was first introduced some time between the 1850s and 1880s but remained a minor sport played primarily in the private schools and amongst interstate expats. This has changed, particularly since the professionalisation of the game in the mid 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1907 VFA season</span> Australian rules football competition in Victoria

The 1907 Victorian Football Association season was the 31st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, after it defeated West Melbourne in the final by eighteen points. It was the first premiership won by Williamstown, in its 24th season of senior competition.

The 1959 Victorian Football Association season was the 78th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club after it defeated Coburg in the Grand Final on 10 October by 35 points. It was Williamstown's tenth premiership, taking it past Footscray to become the club with the most premierships won in VFA history, a title it held until it was passed by Port Melbourne in 1976; it was also the fifth of five premierships won in six seasons between 1954 and 1959, and the club's fourth consecutive minor premiership.

The 1980 Victorian Football Association season was the 99th season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 20th season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Coburg in the Grand Final on 21 September by eleven points; it was Port Melbourne's 13th Division 1 premiership, the first of three premierships won in a row between 1980 and 1982, and the fourth of six premierships won in nine seasons from 1974 until 1982. The Division 2 premiership was won by Brunswick; it was the club's second Division 2 premiership, and was won in its first season since relegation from Division 1.

Waverley Oakleigh Panthers Rugby League Football Club is an Australian rugby league football club based in Clayton, Victoria, that currently plays in the Melbourne Rugby League competition under the NRL Victoria. The club was founded in 1976 by a group of mutual friends and players with a common passion for the game. The club currently fields teams in the majority of the age groups from Under 6s through to seniors, and also Girls' Tag teams. The club plays its home games at Fregon Reserve in Clayton, Victoria.

Melbourne University Rugby Football Club (MURFC), the oldest rugby club in Victoria, is a Foundation Club of the Victorian Rugby Union, participating in the top-tier Victorian Premier Division since 1909. MURFC is the only Foundation Club to remain continuously in the Victorian Premier Division since its inception.

Francis Walker McIver was an Australian soccer player, coach and administrator. A prolific forward, he represented Victoria and Australia. He was an inaugural inductee into the Football Federation Australia Hall of Fame in 1999 and inducted into the Football Victoria Hall of Fame in 2016.

References

  1. .Sporting Globe (Melbourne) 12 February 1926
  2. "Home". vicrugby.com.au.