Claremont Football Club - History

History

It was formed as the amateur Cottesloe Beach Football Club in 1906, and joined the peak amateur competition, the Western Australian Football Association the following year. The club dominated the WAFA from the outset, winning premierships from 1907–1910, and in 1908 it beat WAFL club Subiaco in a challenge match.

Applications by the club to join the WAFL were rejected for many years. In 1919, the Cottesloe Beach club merged with a consortium from Claremont which was also attempting to gain entry to the WAFL and had no contracted players, but claimed to have secured use of the Claremont Showgrounds, as a home ground. In 1921, the club was admitted to the WAFL "B" Grade competition, as Claremont-Cottesloe, using the same blue and gold colours as the local swimming club. It was finally admitted to the senior league in 1926.

The inaugural captain-coach was former South Fremantle and Richmond player Norm McIntosh, who was the only player with senior experience. McIntosh's young squad could only win one game in their first season.

In 1927, the club moved to Claremont Oval, where it has been the club's home ground, with the exception of 1945 and 1946, where, due to the grandstand burning down in 1944, and the condition of the playing surface, the club shared with Subiaco Oval with the Subiaco Football Club.

Between 1926 and 1935 Claremont won just 40 and drew 2 of 183 games for an overall success rate of 22.4%. The nearest they came to qualifying for the finals was in 1929 when, with 8 wins and 10 defeats, they finished just four points plus percentage behind 4th placed Subiaco. Even when Swan Districts was admitted to the competition in 1934 Claremont-Cottesloe continued to underachieve, ending up with the wooden spoon for the 7th time in 9 seasons.

In 1935 the club officially dropped 'Cottesloe' from its name, becoming simply 'Claremont', and with the return of George Moloney in 1936 following his five seasons with Geelong Football Club in Australian football's 'big league' the VFL Claremont enjoyed its best WANFL season to date, winning 12 and losing 8 of its home and away matches to qualify for the finals in 2nd place. A 5 point 2nd semi final defeat of minor premier East Fremantle Football Club then earned Claremont premiership favouritism, a state of affairs which intensified still further when it was learned that their grand final opponents would not be Old Easts, but the Royals (East Perth Football Club), which had finished the minor round in 4th place, but had surprisingly overturned East Fremantle in the preliminary final by a solitary point. The 1936 WANFL grand final attracted 20,874 spectators to Subiaco Oval, who witnessed East Perth reaching a 11.5 (71) to 9.6 (60) victory.

Claremont again finished runners-up a year later after raising hopes, first by finishing the home and away rounds with a 13–5–1 record to qualify for the finals as minor premiers, and then by overcoming East Fremantle in the 2nd semi final by 14 points. However, when the stakes were raised a fortnight later against the same opponent Claremont was found lacking, eventually going under by 10 points.

In 1938 the club replaced coach Dick Lawn with Johnny Leonard, a former Sandover Medallist, who had already coached successfully at Ballarat, Geelong and West Perth. The club qualified for the finals in 2nd place and scored a 2nd semi final victory over East Fremantle, winning, 17.19 (121) to 13.18 (96). The grand final, again against East Fremantle however resulted in a draw, only the second time in WA(N)FL history. In the subsequent grand final replay Claremont won by 22 points, 14.17 (111) to 11.13 (79), breaking their premiership drought. 1939 although the club lost the 2nd semi final against East Perth it won the preliminary final against East Perth saw the club win its second premiership, 10.17 (77) to 11.5 (71). In the grand final re-match with East Fremantle, Claremont went on to win 14.11 (95) to 11.10 (76) obtaining its second premiership.

1940 saw Claremont again reach the finals, losing the 2nd semi final against the South Fremantle Football Club before the club prevailed against East Fremantle in the preliminary final. In the grand final Claremont went on to beat South Fremantle obtaining their third successive premiership.

Between 1942 and 1944, owing to the demands of World War II, the WANFL operated on a limited, under age only basis and after open age competition returned in 1945 Claremont commenced its longest period in the football wilderness. In 1945 it won only two games and finished last, kicked its lowest score ever against Perth, and had a losing streak of seventeen games into 1946, when it again was last with only three wins. Although it avoided the wooden spoon for the next eleven years, only in 1950 (fifth) and 1952 (fourth by one percent from East Fremantle) did it finish higher than sixth in an eight-team competition in the next seventeen years.

After claiming the wooden spoon in 1962 and 1963 Claremont appointed a complete outsider, former East Fremantle rover Jim Conway as coach for 1964. At the end of that season Claremont scraped into the finals in 4th place. The club went on to beat Subiaco in the 1st semi final, which was then followed by a win against the Demons (Perth Football Club) in the preliminary final, with Claremont winning 14.18 (102) to 15.8 (98) against East Fremantle in the grand final and securing the club's fourth premiership.

Claremont failed to follow this meteoric rise, and between 1966 and 1978 participated in the finals only twice. In 1971 they were knocked out easily by an Alan Joyce-coached East Fremantle outfit, but in 1972 they lost only three home-and-away games and with players of the calibre of Graham Moss, Bruce Duperouzel, Colin Tully and Daryl Griffiths, were firm flag favourites, only to be beaten in both the second semi and grand finals by a more physical East Perth side. Despite recruiting Essendon full forward Geoff Blethyn, the Tigers fell to last in 1973 with only four wins, and did even worse in 1975 with only three wins as Moss went to Essendon. The club were involved in an unusual incident in their Round 20 clash against West Perth during the 1976 season. Claremont coach Mal Brown replaced John Colreavy with Ross Ditchburn at three-quarter time, but when another player went off injured in the last quarter, Brown sent Colreavy back onto the ground, in contravention of the rule which specified that a player being replaced could not return to the field. Claremont lost the game 20.21 (141) to 13.18 (96), but had their score annulled after the game. When Moss returned in 1977 as captain-coach, he gradually moulded one of the most individually talented teams in WAFL history with such players as Jim and Phil Krakouer, Ken Hunter, Wayne Blackwell, John Annear, and Warren Ralph. In 1981 they kicked an Australian record 3,352 points in 21 matches, and won their fifth flag over an inaccurate South Fremantle. Despite lacking the “enforcer” needed to win many flags under pressure, between 1979 and 1994 Claremont played in the finals every year bar 1985 and 1992, and under Gerard Neesham’s extremely innovative coaching methods and “chip and draw” style, they won twenty and drew one of their last 21 games in 1987. Neesham’s skill was such that Claremont reached five successive grand finals for three flags despite the loss of most key players to the VFL (later AFL).

After 1994, Claremont’s fortunes declined somewhat, and financial difficulties threatened their existence in the middle 1990s. However, at WAFL level they managed to remain competitive throughout the 1990s and 2000s if never threatening for a premiership until 2004, when they were thrashed by Subiaco in the grand final, a fate which befell Claremont again in 2005 from South Fremantle.