Subiaco Football Club - History

History

Subiaco was incorporated in 1896, establishing its base at a small playing arena within the environs of the Shenton Park Lake. During the Club's embryonic period it played in the "First Rate Juniors" competition from 1896 to 1900 and enjoyed premiership success. As a result, along with fellow First Rate Junior powerhouse North Fremantle the Subiaco Football Club joined the then West Australian Football Association competition (known today as the West Australian Football League – WAFL) in 1901. However, it struggled so much that there were long debates as to whether it should continue after it won only eleven games in its first seven seasons but with the construction of Subiaco Oval on what was formerly called the “sand patch”, the club’s performances improved: very slowly at first, but very rapidly after the acquisition of two key forwards in Phil Matson and Herbert Limb for the 1912 season. That year Subiaco rose from second last to their first ever premiership despite a thrashing from East Fremantle in the final, and they again premierships against Perth in 1913 and 1915 before loss of players to World War I gave them the rare ignominy of plummeting from premiers to the wooden spoon in 1916.

During the inter-war period Subiaco were mainly a middle-of-the-road outfit, though they did win a premiership from fourth in 1924 and played in three grand finals for the rest of the decade, only to lose each time to East Fremantle or East Perth. They were noted for a large number of outstanding players during this period, including ruckman Tom Outridge and rover Johnny Leonard, but as these players declined Subiaco began a period of struggle that would rival their experiences in the 1900s (and from 1975 to 1983).

They plummeted to their first wooden spoon since 1916 in 1937 and made an extremely ambitious recruiting coup by providing local employment for three Victorian champions in Haydn Bunton, Keith Shea and Les Hardiman. Although Bunton lived up to his Fitzroy reputation and at times did work far beyond that expected of a rover, Shea and Hardiman did not, and Subiaco in the four seasons from 1938 to 1941 won only 23 and drew one of eighty games, finishing seventh twice and sixth twice in an eight-team competition.

After the WAFL operated on an under-age format for three seasons from 1942 to 1944, Subiaco rose to fifth in 1945 and third in 1946, but this proved a false honeymoon. Sorely lacking in high quality players, Subiaco between 1947 and 1956 won only thirty-eight of 198 games, and simply failed to recruit players of the quality that the two Fremantle sides, Perth and West Perth did. It was engaged in a consistent battle with Swan Districts for the wooden spoon, and never finished higher than seventh in an eight-team competition.

Late in the 1950s, Subiaco finally emerged from the doldrums in spectacular fashion when in its first final for thirteen years it kicked a remarkable 16.8 (104) in the third quarter against Perth - easily a record quarter score for a senior Australian rules final. They then beat East Fremantle to reach their first grand final since 1935, but were beaten by East Perth and in the following years Subiaco again struggled, winning only 69 and drawing three of 168 home-and-away games between 1960 and 1967 and never seeming to have good direction in their management. 1968, however, saw the club achieve stability through the recruitment of Haydn Bunton junior as coach and a record season from Austin Robertson at full forward, who kicked 157 goals and in one match against East Fremantle fifteen of nineteen (along with eleven behinds!). The club finished fourth every year from 1968 to 1970, but declined somewhat in 1971 and 1972. However, under Ross Smith and with the emergence of star players like Mike Fitzpatrick, Subiaco were for the first time since the Matson era firm favourites for the flag in 1973 and duly beat West Perth.

However, with the departure of Mike Fitzpatrick and Peter Featherby to the VFL, Subiaco returned to the dark days of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1974 they reached the First Semi-Final only to lose to Swan Districts, but would not participate in the finals for a decade afterwards and finished absolutely last in 1976, 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1983. In the process they won just 44 of 189 games, and in 1982 looked like a winless season before beating East Fremantle in the seventeenth round. However, during this period every one of the other seven WAFL clubs won at least one premiership. Their only genuinely class player of this era, Gary Buckenara, defected to Hawthorn after three years with the Lions. Worse still, unlike that earlier bleak era, Subiaco were hit by severe financial problems and only community involvement during the early 1980s managed to save the club from extinction.

The return of Hadyn Bunton junior as coach after a long stint with South Adelaide was viewed by most Subiaco fans as the return of a master, and it is remarkable how he rose a nearly defunct club to a major force in the WAFL. Subiaco moved from four wins to nine in 1984 (along with a reserves premiership) and rose to second behind East Fremantle in 1985. Although it was their first finals appearance since 1974, Subiaco did not disappoint but ultimately failed by five points. However, 1986 saw them even better, beating VFL club St. Kilda in the Foster‘s Cup and losing only four games all year - their second-best home-and-away return behind 1912 - before recovering from a thrashing from East Fremantle to demolish that team in the Grand Final by sixty-nine points.

Bunton junior’s aim of a Subiaco dynasty was ended by the formation of the West Coast Eagles that summer, which quickly drained the WAFL of all its best talent. Nonetheless, he coached the Lions to another premiership in 1988, and although they did decline to only six wins in 1989 and 1990, Subiaco maintained a respectable position in the weakened WAFL over the next decade, before in the most powerful club therein during the 2000s under the coaching of Peter German and Scott Watters with premierships in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 - in the last of which they were amazingly unlucky not to be only the second undefeated team in WAFL history suffering only a one point loss to Swan Districts.