Cheltenham Football Club

The Cheltenham Football Club is an Australian rules football club from Melbourne, that was founded in 1895 and currently plays in Division 1 of the Southern Football League.

As early as 1895, the Cheltenham Football Club regularly played football matches, often travelling long distances from their southern Melbourne base to play country teams such as Ballarat.

The Cheltenham home games were played on a paddock on the corner of Park and Charman roads in Cheltenham. In 1909, the club moved to its current home at the Cheltenham Recreational Reserve on Weatherall Road.

Also in 1909, Cheltenham entered in the newly formed Federal Association and became the inaugural Federal Association premiers. The club continued its affiliation with this league for many decades, even fielding an open age team during the war years.

Cheltenham went onto win 5 senior premierships in the Federal Association by the end of the 1920s, they won the flags in 1909, 1911, 1913, 1922 and 1925, with the late Percy Watt playing in all 5 premiership sides and was captain in 1922.

1928 saw the start of an outstanding career from our oldest living player Tom Connor. There were many great players for Cheltenham in the 1930s and Tom Butler was one of the finest, playing over 400 in a career that spanned over 20 years.

Cheltenham continued to win premierships in the 1920s and 1930s with juniors taking out the 1929 and 1933 flags, and that continued in 1934 when Cheltenham took out the 1st XVIII and 2nd XVIII premierships.

The 1940s saw new Cheltenham legends starting their careers. Jack Barker, Jim Sloss, Jeff Farnbach, Eric Whitecross, Jim Brooks and Norm Wilson, all giving Cheltenham great service during the 1940s and 1950s. Cheltenham produced its only Brownlow Medallist in Peter Box who played in the late 1940s, before going to the Footscray Football Club where he became a champion.

Cheltenham continued to show its strength in the 1940s, but were unfortunately runners up in the 1st XVIII in 1946 and also runners up in the juniors in 1942, 1948 and 1949. Cheltenham continued to field sides during the war year's 1939–1945.

The early 1950 saw Arthur Rose at the helm as coach until 1952, and then John Hogan arrived from North Melbourne in 1953. Cheltenham won a 2nd XVIII premiership in 1958 led by coach Jim Ostle.

1959 saw all 3 Cheltenham sides making the finals with the 3rd XVIII finishing runners up and with Kevin Roberts and Bob Arnfield finishing 1st and 2nd in the 1st XVIII Federal Association best and fairest, and Jack Barker winning the best and fairest in the Federal Association 2nd XVIII.

The 1960s saw Peter Lucas and Arthur Gooch from Collingwood showing their presence, with Cheltenham being beaten by a kick after the siren against Springvale in the 1960 preliminary final. Cheltenham had great success with their junior sides winning the 3rd XVIII premierships in 1967, 1968, and the 4th XVIII premiers in 1962 and 1968.

The 1970s saw the 1st XVIII play off in the 2 grand finals, the first under coach Tommy New in 1974, saw Cheltenham go down by 1 point to Highett and in 1976, under coach Ian Cooper lost to Mentone by 6 points. The 3rd XVIII went through the season undefeated in 1974 winning the premiership, with Trevor Barker a key player before going to St Kilda the following year. The 3rd XVIII under coach Jack Hammond in 1975 and the 4ths in 1973, 1975 and 1978 were runners up. Cheltenham had mixed success in the 1980s with Ross Embon taking the 1st XVIII into the finals in 1980. The great Gerry Callaghan, who had coached Williamstown and played in 5 premierships for them, was Cheltenham's last senior coach when the Federal Association ended in 1981.

Cheltenham then joined the South East Suburban Football League under Gerry's coaching in 1982 and he was able to help them become a force in later years with Cheltenham making the finals in the seniors in 1984, 1985 and 1986 and the 4th XVIII taking out he 1981 premiership.

The club was a founding member of the Southern Football League which was formed as a result of the merger between the South East Suburban Football League and the East Suburban Churches Football Association in 1993.

The 1990s brought back memories of Cheltenham's early years with the club winning 3 senior premierships under coach Barry White in 1992, 1993 and 1995. Cheltenham was very successful in 1995 winning both the 1st XVIII and 4th XVIII premierships and was runners up in 2nd XVIII. The 3rd XVIII were premiers in 1996 and runners up in 1997 under coach Jeff Lyon, who had worked tirelessly recruiting junior players to the club.

Former Richmond and Essendon player Brian Winton took over the coaching duties in 1996 and lead the club to the finals in his first year and then again in 1999. Barry White returned to coach the club in both 2000 and 2001, but not with the success of his early years. David Selleck and David Kilburn showed their skills as coaches in 2000 and 2001 when they led the 3rd XVIII to back-to-back premierships.

Andrew Butterfield took the seniors reigns in 2002 and 2003 followed by Steve 'Spider' Kennedy in 2004, and Neil Hassel in 2005. Season 2006 saw former player Brett Shalders take over as senior coach. In a big turnaround from previous seasons, the Rosellas finished third with a 14–4 record and in the process won the Southern Football League Division 1 Club Championship. The Rosellas once again made the finals in 2007, finishing 3rd with a 12–6 record, but fell to Clayton with the last kick of the day in the First Semi Final. Having finished in third place after the home and away season in 2008, Cheltenham defeated Clayton in the first semi final only to be defeated a week later by St Pauls East Bentleigh in the Preliminary Final. There was some cause for celebration when the Rosella Colts defeated Hampton to win their second premiership in succession. Ruckman Ewen McKenzie capped off a stellar first season at the club by winning the Southern Football League Division 1 Best and Fairest award.

After missing the finals for the first time in five seasons in 2010, former Melbourne defender Nathan Brown took over the coaching reigns and lead an extremely young Rosellas side back to September action. In the Elimination Final, Cheltenham defeated pre season flag favorite Chelsea Heights before falling a week later to St Kilda City in the first Semi Final.

The club fields open age senior and reserve teams in the Southern Football League as well as a Colts team. Its junior club, the Cheltenham Junior Football Club, fields multiple junior teams in the Moorabbin Saints Junior Football League.