History
A Wimmera Football Association was first formed in 1902, with teams from Ararat, Horsham and Stawell as the founding clubs. In 1921 the Wimmera District Football League was formed. The seven original clubs were Ararat, Horsham, Minyip, Murtoa, Rupanyup, Stawell and Warracknabael. Dimboola joined in 1923 and Nhill in 1925; Ararat spent six years in the Ballarat Football League from 1924 to 1929.
The Wimmera FL defeated the Gippsland FL in 1928 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, lead by captain-coach, Artie Wood. [1]
In 1932, during the height of the Great Depression, the small town clubs were suffering from financial pressures, and tried to get the league to change the way the gate taking were distributed to the clubs. The larger town clubs, knowing that they would be disadvantaged, blocked the motion. Subsequently, Nhill and Dimboola both went into recess while Minyip and Murtoa replaced their junior sides in the Dunmunkle FL.
In 1931, Stawell's Horrie Hunt kicked 105 goals for the season. [2]
The WDFL approached the Ballarat Football League to merge hoping that greater interest and better football would cause larger gate takings, so in 1934 the Wimmera FL and the Ballarat FL merged to form the Ballarat Wimmera FL. After three years, in which the Wimmera clubs faced with greater costs and were constantly losing on the field, feelers were put out to the smaller clubs, now playing in the Mid Wimmera FL. A peace deal was settled in September 1936 and the Wimmera Football League was reformed in 1937 as a nine team competition. [3]
Football in the Wimmera was revived in 1944 with a competition [4] that involved six teams.
In 1945, Dimboola and Warracknabeal joined the Wimmera Football Association, [5] which formed a six team competition. [6]
In 1946 Rupanyup Football Club joined the Wimmera FL [7] and that made it a ten team competition. [8] As a ten team competition the league remain stable until Rupanyip decided the level of football was too hard for them and they opted to drop to the local district competition in 1981. The numbers returned to ten when local district club Imperials-Wonwondah joined in 1983. After fifty fruitless years Jeparit Football Club decided to try their luck in the South Mallee FL from 1990.
St Michaels from the district competition joined in 1993. Founding clubs Minyip and Murtoa decided to merge in 1995.
2000 saw local Horsham clubs change their names, St Michaels became Horsham Saints and Imperials-Wonwondah became the Horsham Diggers.
Horsham Diggers later merged with Natimuk FNC under the banner Natimuk United at the start of 2014; following an exodus of players in the 2008 pre-season, the Diggers had struggled on and off-field, and had won three matches in the previous four seasons. The merged club plays home games at Natimuk and City Oval.
Southern Mallee transferred from the Hosham District League in 2018 after dominating the competition.
Following the 2023 season Southern Mallee merged with Jeparit Rainbow from the Horsham District Football Netball League to form the Southern Mallee Thunder.
