page_title: Essendon Football Club
section_title: Formation and VFA years (1871–1896)
hierarchical_section_title: Essendon Football Club / History / Formation and VFA years (1871–1896)
caption_attribution_description: English: Team of Essendon FC of Australia.
context_page_description: The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club that plays in the Australian Football League, the sport's premier competition. Thought to have formed in 1872, the club played its first recorded game on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton Second 20, winning 1 goal to nil. The club played a senior club in the Victorian Football Association in 1878, one year after the VFA formed. It is historically associated with Essendon, a suburb in the north-west of Melbourne, Victoria. Since 2013, the club has been headquartered at The Hangar, Melbourne Airport, and plays its home games at either Docklands Stadium or the Melbourne Cricket Ground; throughout most of its history the club's home ground and headquarters was Windy Hill, Essendon, where it played from 1922 until 1991. While it stopped playing games at the ground thereafter, Windy Hill remained its training and administration base until the end of 2013. Dyson Heppell is the current team captain.
  A founding member club of both the Victorian Football Association, in 1877, and the Victorian Football League, in 1896, Essendon is one of Australia's best-known football clubs.
context_section_description: The club was founded by members of the Royal Agricultural Society, the Melbourne Hunt Club and the Victorian Woolbrokers. The Essendon Football Club is thought to have formed in 1872 at a meeting it the home of a well-known brewery family, the McCrackens, whose Ascot Vale property hosted a team of local junior players.
  Robert McCracken (1813-1885),, the owner of several city hotels, was the founder and first president of the Essendon Football club and his son, Alex McCracken, its first secretary. Alex later became president of the newly formed VFL. Alex's cousin, Collier McCracken, who had already played with Melbourne, was the team's first captain.
  The club played its first recorded match against the Carlton second twenty on 7 June 1873, with Essendon winning by one goal. Essendon played 13 matches in its first season, winning seven, with four draws and losing two. The club was one of the inaugural junior members of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877, and began competing as a senior club from the 1878 season. During its early years in the Association, Essendon played its home matches at Flemington Hill, but moved to the East Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1881.
  In 1878, Essendon played in the first match on what would be considered by modern standards to be a full-sized field at Flemington Hill. In 1879 Essendon played Melbourne in one of the earliest night matches recorded when the ball was painted white. In 1883 the team played four matches in eight days in Adelaide: losing to Norwood (on 23 June), and defeating Port Adelaide (on 16 June), a combined South Australian team (on 18 June), and South Adelaide (on 20 June).
  In 1891 Essendon won their first VFA premiership, which they repeated in 1892, 1893 and 1894. One of the club's greatest players, Albert Thurgood played for the club during this period, making his debut in 1892. Essendon (18 wins, 2 draws) was undefeated in the 1893 season.
caption: Early photo of a 1872 Essendon team
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