Football started in the Murchison district in 1877, but it wasn’t until 1881 that the Murchison Football Club was founded. The clubs formative years were successful ones, with the club winning 4 premiership in its first 24 seasons of competitive football in four different leagues, the Upper Goulburn Valley Football Association (1897), the Waranga Football Association (1904), the Goulburn Valley Football League (GVFL) (1910) and the Waranga North East Football League (1914).
Murchison had somewhat of a nomadic existence, due to the haphazard nature of football at the time. However, Murchison found a stable home in the Goulburn Valley Football League, where it stayed for 58 seasons of its 125-year history.
The Club’s fifth premiership came in 1945, when it defeated Euroa by 20 goals in the Grand Final of the Euroa & District Football Association.
After that premiership win, the club re-joined the GVFL, until 1963, when the club chose to leave, due to the highly competitive nature of the GVFL.
In 1964, Murchison joined the Kyabram District Football League (KDFL) where we remain to this day. Two premierships in three seasons (1964 & 1966) was a great achievement, alongside with 2nd XVIII Premierships in 1967 & 1972 and 3rd XVIII Premierships in 1970 & 1980.
An important milestone for the club was in 1979, when the KDFL established a Netball competition for the first time, and since then the club has been known as the Murchison Football Netball Club.
1982 was a watershed year for the club with all three football teams making the grand final and winning two premierships. Unfortunately the club had to wait till 2001, to taste premiership success when the 2nd XVIII won a thrilling Grand Final against Lancaster.
After 10 years the club finally tasted premiership success in 2010 with the 3rd XVIII going through the season undefeated to claim the premiership.
More recently a revampt aproach, new coaches in Steven Reeves and Chris Pearson along with renewed vigor in fund raising allowed the football side to step up the tempo winning its first senior flag in over 30 years against Stanhope at Tatura Park. Ex AFL player Anthony Mellington headlined the list of recruits in his last year as a player, while former Bushranger captain John Shiels joined on as a playing assistant in the premiership year.
The Murchison Netball Club claimed its first flag in 2012 with the C Grade team winning the clubs inaugural flag, then backing up once again in 2013. Despite the lack of prior success the club has produced a number of great players over the years and going extremely close to winning flags in the prior years.
2012 was a successful year for our club with five of eight sides making it to the final series. It was an extremely successful campaign with one premiership and another side making it to grand final day. The club continued to produce the individual success with Georgina Eddy, Ethan Homewood and David Murray winning league best and fairest medals.
Over the years the Murchison Football Club has produced several players that have gone on to play at the most elite level, the most famous of these are the father & son combination of Leo and Lawrie Dwyer.
Leo first played for Murchison in 1924, before being recruited by North Melbourne a year later; Leo developed a fine reputation within the V.F.L., playing 71 games for the club, from 1925 to 1935. As well as playing for North Melbourne on a Saturday, he continued to play for Murchison on a Wednesday, becoming the club’s only GVFL Best & Fairest winner in 1936.
Leo represented Victoria in 1927, and he finished in third place in the Brownlow Medal in 1928, he retired from competitive football in 1950 with Murchison at the age of 43.
His son, Lawrie, was one of North Melbourne’s greats in a 201 game career from 1956 to 1970. “Twinkletoes” (as he was known), won two best and fairests (1961 & 1967), finished in second place at the Brownlow Medal (1960 & 1967), represented Victoria three times, and was a brilliant footballer who was both fair and courageous.
The modern day MFNC boasts 3 grades of football and 5 grades of netball finishing strongly over the past few seasons in all grades. Level of participation is healthy and with newly laid netball courts and an excellent playing surface Murchison is poised for great things in the coming seasons.