The Panthers have won 11 SANFL premierships, their last being in 1964. Recently, South Adelaide won back-to-back SANFLW premierships in 2018 and 2019. In 2023 South Adelaide also won the first SANFL Development League Premiership against an undefeated Norwood, who had miss slip at half time by declaring that they won. The club also participated in the Leagues Championship Cup.
South Adelaide Football Club is the owner of South Adelaide Netball Club and South Adelaide Volleyball Club, with all three clubs now under the Panthers brand. The partnership between these clubs is seen as an initiative to establish South Adelaide as the sporting hub for the southern community.[2]
History
Club Formation and Early Days
The South Adelaide Football Club is one of the two surviving original members of the South Australian Football Association formed 30 April 1877 [3] still competing in the SANFL, and has held its original colours (which were originally blue caps and long white trousers) longer than any other and has competed in every single season.
A meeting was held on Wednesday 12 April 1876 at the Draper Memorial Schoolroom, Adelaide in the evening for the purpose of forming a South Adelaide Football Club. There were more than thirty persons present and Mr. C. Simmonds presided. A set of rules was adopted, and the following officers were elected: President, Mr. A. G. Chapman; Vice-Presidents, Messrs. G.Colyer, R. Couche, A. Farr, W. Holland, and M. C. Morris; Captain, Mr. George Kennedy; Vice Captain, Mr. Mehrtens; Committee, Messrs. Bridgland, Colbey, Cole, A..Holmesby, Jones, Simmonds, and Wallace; Treasurer, Mr. J. Holmesby; Secretary, Mr.C. C. Kingston. The code of playing rules passed by the leading Victorian Clubs in 1874 was discussed and adopted, and Messrs. Kennedy, Mehrtens, and Kingston were appointed delegates to confer with representatives from the other Clubs, with a view of considering the propriety of introducing the code generally throughout the colony.[4][5]
On Wednesday 19 April 1876 at the General Havelock Hotel, The South Adelaide Football Club which formed in 1875 and had its headquarters in the south east portion of the city, resolved without a dissentient that it should amalgamate with the new Club started this season to create one really good Club rather than two modest clubs. It was also proposed to move the practice ground to a new one on the Park Lands nearer to King William Street.[6][7]
The new South Adelaide club played their first game on 20 May 1876 against the Victorian Club at Montefiore Hill which started at 3pm. George Kennedy an ex Carlton player was the club captain. After some hard work and several disputes over the rules of the game it ceased 2 hours later after the Victorians scored a goal.[8] South Adelaide was joint SAFA Club Champions along with the Victorians in the inaugural SAFA season of 1877.
Golden Era of Success
The 1885 premiership team
Between 1885 and 1900 South Adelaide won seven premierships (1885, 1892, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1898 and 1899) and was runner-up eight times between 1881 and 1903 (1881, 1882, 1886, 1894, 1897, 1900, 1902, 1903).[9]
South Adelaide was led from 1888 to 1898 by captain and "proto-coach" Dinny Reedman who is generally seen as the first to view team combination and planning as a critical component of success in football. In 1896 they won sixteen and drew two of eighteen games.[10]
Decline after District Football
South Adelaide vs Port Adelaide 1903Jack Tredrea was the first South Australian league player to reach 200 games
District football was introduced optionally in 1897 and became compulsory in 1899. This was difficult for South Adelaide, who had under Reedman obtained most of its top players from Christian Brothers College,[10] and even in 1899 when it won its sixth premiership in eight years half its side came therefrom. With the loss of Reedman and Jones to North Adelaide, and after one season goalsneak "Bos" Daly to West Torrens in 1900, the blue and whites declined steadily. This was exacerbated by the admission of Sturt in 1901. South Adelaide was runner-up in 1903 to Port Adelaide, but won only 26 and drew two of 108 games between 1906 and 1914, including a winless season in 1909 and two consecutive one-win seasons (both wins by less than a goal) in 1910 and 1911.[11] In 1915, South improved to second before lack of finals experience took its toll in the semi-final.
Following an enforced halt to SAFL football during World War I, the presence of champion defender Dan Moriarty made South highly competitive between 1919 and 1924, though it never rose above third in 1921. However, after his retirement South took four consecutive wooden spoons from 1926 to 1929 and did not finish above sixth in an eight-team competition between 1925 and 1934, winning only thirty and drawing three of 160 games. It was generally known that South had an unfairly small share of the area zoned between eight league clubs,[12] but the league committee refused to alter the status quo.
Brief Halcyon and Abrupt Fall
In response to South Adelaide's limited metropolitan recruiting resources, the club began a concerted country recruiting campaign during the 1930s. This bore spectacular fruit between 1935 and 1940. Under coach Vic Johnson, South Adelaide after a slow start played impressive football throughout 1935 and ultimately upset Port Adelaide for its first premiership since 1899. Jack Cockburn at centre half-back was the team's star and won the Magarey Medal. After two more seasons in the finals, South Adelaide reached a high point in 1938, losing only two games and swamping Port Adelaide with a 13-goal third quarter in the Grand Final.[13] Led by Clem Rosewarne, Max Murdy and Len Lapthorne, South averaged an amazing 132 points per game, and even without Rosewarne their attack remained extremely potent in 1939 and 1940, averaging 125 points over the minor round. The blue and whites failed badly in the 1939 finals, but won two finals before losing to Sturt in 1940.
1941 saw South slip to fifth with only six wins, but that could hardly have prepared them for the experiences of the two decades after full-scale football resumed after World War II.[14] Between 1947 and 1951 South won only seven games out of eighty-six, and from 1945 to 1963 South never won more than six games in a season, nor finished above any rival except Glenelg and Sturt. Other clubs with greater financial resources duplicated South's 1930s country recruiting campaigns and the club turned over coaches at an extraordinary rate. Eight coaches were employed in nine seasons from 1953 to 1961: even a spell by Port Adelaide legend "Fos" Williams in 1960 failed to raise them above second last, and neither did the adoption of the club's current nickname "The Panthers" in 1957[15]
Kerley and Another Decline
In 1959, after doubting whether the club was viable as a league team, the SANFL granted South Adelaide a substantial area of newly developing southern Adelaide suburbs. During the early 1960s it became apparent that South Adelaide, though only marginally better statistically than the dreadful late 1940s and early 1950s teams, was possessed of enough talent to move beyond the bottom couple of placings. In 1963, South Adelaide sought the services of proven West Adelaide player/coach Neil Kerley after he was controversially sacked by the Bloods, and despite being sceptical Kerley did accept and put the team on an intense training schedule during the 1963/1964 off-season.[12]
South Adelaide rose rapidly in 1964, losing only three minor round games before defeating Port Adelaide by 27 points in the Grand Final. It remained prominent for the remaining two years of Kerley's stint but failed to make the grand final. However, under champion player Peter Darley as captain-coach the Panthers declined very quickly owing to the loss of key followers Kerley and David Kantilla,[16] winning only two games in 1969 for another wooden spoon and not improving until another renowned coach in Haydn Bunton, Jr. took over the reins in 1975. Under Bunton, the Panthers, playing fast, skilful football firmly rooted in the South "tradition",[12] contested the major round for the first time in eleven years in 1977 and reached the Grand Final in 1979. However, on an appallingly windy day and muddy ground the experienced Port Adelaide, aided by winning the toss, were too good, winning 9-9 (63) to 3-14 (32). The Panthers fluctuated in yo-yo fashion under Bunton, never playing in two consecutive finals series before he departed to return to Subiaco after a sabbatical at the end of 1982.
Noarlunga
In 1979, South Adelaide's recruiting zone in the southern suburbs was extended to cover all the developing areas around O‘Halloran Hill, giving the club a potential community base for the first time in its long history. It continued to play at Adelaide Oval until 1994 (the oval was ironically located on the northern side of the City of Adelaide and River Torrens), and its fortunes fluctuated, with two unsuccessful finals appearances under future Adelaide Crows coach Graham Cornes in 1983 and 1984 being followed by free-fall under the coaching of former Hawthorn (VFL) ruckman Don Scott and Sturt champion full forwardRick Davies to a wooden spoon in 1987. South was under severe pressure to enter into a merger with another SANFL club, but was argued that if South made the long-proposed move to Noarlunga it would be able to capture expanding suburbs in the future.
Under John Reid, South developed rapidly after a one-win season and twenty-six successive losses during 1988 and early 1989. After this disastrous losing streak, South rose to contest each SANFL finals series between 1990 and 1992, with a minor premiership in 1991 the highlight, the Panthers being bundled out by West Adelaide in the Preliminary Final. The next 20 years saw some dubious coaching changes such as the sacking of former St Kilda coach Ken Sheldon in 1996, and briefly employing seventy-one-year-old veteran John Cahill during 2008. After this, the Panthers won only four games in the 2009 and 2010 seasons for their worst two-season record since the dark days of 1950 and
The Panthers were lacking in success until 2006 when they reached a semi final and again in 2011. The 2010’s and early 2020’s saw some finals action and helped cement the club as a competitor in the league. In 2014 they finished 3rd, losing a preliminary final to Port Adelaide. In 2016 they finished the minor round in 2nd but were knocked out the finals in straight sets. In 2018 they lost an elimination final to eventual Premier North Adelaide. In 2020 and 2021 they reached back to back Preliminary Finals but unfortunately couldn’t go that one step further.
Three South Australian Premiers have had a close association with the South Adelaide Football Club: Charles Cameron Kingston (Premier 1893–1899), Dean Brown (1993–96) and Mike Rann (2002–2011). Kingston played for South Adelaide, Dean Brown became Patron and Mike Rann was Number One Ticket Holder. During his Premiership Rann presented the club with a 100-year peppercorn lease over the Noarlunga Oval site owned by the State Government in what he described as 'land rights for the Panthers'. The club presented the Premier with 100 peppercorns.
South Adelaide entered a team in the SANFL Women's League in 2018. In their short history fielding a women's team, they have become the most successful team in the competition, winning back-to-back premierships in 2018/19.[17]
In 1969 South Road Recreation Ground at St Marys, South Australia later renamed Panther Park was earmarked to be South's new home ground with plans to build a grandstand but only the change rooms were built and it was used as a training base and for South's junior teams. South Adelaide's clubrooms were based at Panther Park but home games continued to be played at Adelaide Oval until 1995 when the club moved to Noarlunga and its new ground Flinders University Stadium (then called Noarlunga Oval). With the exception of 1904 when they played at the now defunct Jubilee Oval, the Panthers played all their home games at the Adelaide Oval (ironically located on the northern side of the Adelaide city centre) while in 1992 and 1993 they played two games at the Bice Oval in the southern suburb of Christies Beach to gauge support in the area for the Panthers. The oval, located only 1km from where Hickinbotham Oval now sits, was packed to capacity in 1993 with approximately 8,000 crammed in to see South take on “local” rival Glenelg. It was following this game that the South Adelaide Football Club made the decision to move permanently to Noarlunga.
South Adelaide christened their new home at Noarlunga in Round 8 of the 1995 SANFL season. The opening game at Noarlunga also saw the ground record crowd of 10,123 when Glenelg defeated the Panthers by 47 points. Originally called Noarlunga Oval, the name was officially changed to Hickinbotham Oval in 2005 to honour former Panther and successful property developer, the late Alan Hickinbotham.[1]
In late 2010 the South Adelaide Football Club obtained permission from the City of Onkaparinga to install four light towers at the oval with the intent to host night SANFL games at the venue. Unlike other SANFL grounds which had lights installed, Hickenbotham Oval is not surrounded by housing and permission to build the lights was easily obtained as they were ruled to have minimal impact on the local residents. The first game played under lights on 9 April 2011 saw South defeat North Adelaide in front of 2,630. The record night attendance at the oval was set just a few weeks later in Round 4 of the 2011 SANFL season when 2,700 saw the clash between the Panthers and Port Adelaide.
Most Years as Captain: 11 by Jack Reedman (1888–98)
Most Premierships as Captain: 5 by Jack Reedman (1892, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1898)
SANFL Leading Goal Kicker: R Wardrop (1882), Alf Bushby (1887), Jack Kay (1896, 1898, 1902), S Scott (1945), Danny Del-Re (1995), Michael Wundke (2011, 2013), Brett Eddy (2016)
We are the blue and white We are the grand old blue and white We're the team to take the Panthers top Until we win the flag we will not stop Fight on forever, We'll weaken never in our endeavour To raise the Panther flag to glory We are the famous blue and white!
The original club song contained the following lyrics and was based on an original tune;
Fly the blue and white flag high, Proudly we bear South's banner, We're Panthers and we'll do or we'll die, For everything that we hold dear.
Cheer with mighty Panther roars, Shout 'till the rafters ring, The mighty blue and white forever, Let each and everyone here sing...
↑ The second-tier of women's competition is officially referred to as the "Development League".
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↑ Between 1942 and 1944 the SANFL contested a restricted, four team competition with its eight member clubs paired off geographically: Port Adelaide-West Torrens; Norwood-North Adelaide; West Adelaide-Glenelg and South Adelaide-Sturt
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