History
The Hampden Football League was formed in 1930, when the four founding clubs broke away from the Western District FL. Terang and Camperdown did not want to continue to travel to Hamilton because their players were farmers who could not spend all day away from the farm to play football, as they had cows to milk. Mortlake agreed with Camperdown and Terang and resigned from the WDFL. Cobden was left with a predicament, and requested admittance to the new league.
In 1933, South Warrnambool and Warrnambool joined the league, as takings at the gate had been greater when playing Camperdown or Terang that against any team in the WDFL.
Colac and Port Fairy were admitted in 1949. Memories for the politics that caused the rift in 1930 meant that the founding clubs were reluctant to allow the shift in power westward. So they allow one club to the west and one to the east. This was repeated in 1961, when they again admitted one western club (Koroit) and one from the east (Coragulac).
Colac and Coragulac merged to form Colac-Coragulac in 1980. In 1986 they dropped Coragulac from the club's name, then in 2001 Colac left the Hampden league to join the Geelong FL.
North Warrnambool were admitted to the league in the 1997 season.
In 1999, Mortlake and Derrinallum merged to form the Western Lions, however the club was not successful and folded during the 2000 season. Mortlake then attempted a new merger with Terang, which has proven successful and continues to the current day, with matches played in both towns.
In 2013 teams from regional centres Hamilton and Portland will compete.
Read more about this topic: Hampden Football Netball League
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“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)