Collegians Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

club based in the

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

suburb of Albert Park. Formed in 1892, it is the second-oldest club in the

Victorian Amateur Football Association The Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) is the largest senior community Australian rules football competition in Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Founded in 1892, it consists of six senior divisions, ranging from Premier to Division 3 i ...

(VAFA), after

Melbourne University Football Club Melbourne University Football Club, often known simply as University, is an Australian rules football club based at the University of Melbourne. Founded in 1859, it is one of the oldest football clubs in the world. The club fields two teams, kno ...

, although Collegians is the only present-day club that competed in the inaugural VAFA season. As of 2024, the club's men's and women's teams both compete in the Premier Division of the VAFA and VAFA Women's (VAFAW) respectively.

History

In 1891,

Lawrence Adamson Lawrence Arthur Adamson, CMG, (20 April 1860 – 14 December 1932) was a schoolmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne, Australia, and is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential in the nation's educational history. Upon his reti ...

established a Wesley College Old Boys' XVIII, which formally became Collegians Football Club in 1892. Adamson, who was for thirty years the Headmaster of Wesley College, was the President of the club for its first forty years. In 1892, Adamson established the Metropolitan Junior Football Association (MJFA), of which he was president for 37 years, which later was renamed to the VAFA. Collegians entered a "2nd 20" ( reserves) team in the inaugural season, while the senior team appears to have been in local schoolboy competitions. The seniors moved to the MJFA the following year in 1893 and have remained there ever since. Collegian's introduced the clubs first women's football team in 2017, and added a second women's team in 2018. The club fields three senior men's teams, two senior women's teams and an Under 19's team.

Premierships

A Section

* 1892, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1902, 1904, 1936, 1937, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1986, 1992, 1993, 2011, 2012, 2023.

B Section

* 1926, 1956, 2006

Club song

The club's theme song is based on the first verse and chorus of "The Old Collegians Song", which appears in the Wesley College Songbook in all editions from 1893. The lyrics were written by Lawrence Arthur Adamson set to the tune of a traditional Irish Folk Tune, "Irish Jaunting Car", and the later tune "The Bonnie Blue Flag", a song from the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The original lyrics refer to the interim school colours "Blue and White", which returned to "Gold and Purple" at the end of 1902.

References

External links

Official Site

The history of a great football club : Collegians centenary 1892-1992 / Laurie T. Humphries
{{VAFA Victorian Amateur Football Association clubs 1892 establishments in Australia Australian rules football clubs established in 1892 Australian rules football clubs in Melbourne Sport in the City of Port Phillip Wesley College (Victoria)