History
The Borough joined the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1886 and has played in every season since then. In the late 1890s, Port Melbourne was touted to join the breakaway VFL competition, but was denied membership. In their place, the St Kilda Football Club joined the VFL, an event still talked about to this day. The reason given was the Borough's reputation for poor behaviour by both its players and supporters.
During a 1928 waterfront strike in Melbourne, a wharf labourer protesting the use of scab labour was shot by police. As a result, the club banned any police from playing with them. This policy was dropped in the 1980's after the recruitment of Emmett Dunne from VFL club Richmond who was a policeman.
Port Melbourne went on to become one of the strongest clubs in the VFA, and today still attracts some of the biggest crowds to its games. Traditionally the Borough's greatest rivals are the Williamstown Seagulls and the Sandringham Zebras. All three teams continue to play in the VFL to this day.
Since the AFL reserves competition merged with the Victorian Football League in 2000, Port Melbourne has been involved in two affiliations: with the Sydney Swans (2001–2002), and with the North Melbourne Kangaroos (2003–2005);
Since 2006, Port Melbourne has existed as a stand-alone VFL club.
Read more about this topic: Port Melbourne Football Club
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)