Ovens &amp; Murray Football Netball LeagueOvens &amp; Murray Football Netball League Ovens & Murray Football Netball League The Ovens and Murray Football Netball League (O&MFNL) is an Australian rules football and netball competition containing ten clubs based in north-eastern Victoria, the southern Riverina region of New South Wales and the Ovens and Murray area. The name comes from the Ovens River, the river in the part of north-eastern Victoria covered by the league, and the Murray River, which separates Victoria and New South Wales. The league features three grades in the Australian rules football competition, with these being First-Grade, Reserve-Grade and Under 18s. In the netball competition, there  are four grades, with these being A-Grade, B-Grade, C-Grade and Under 16s. Currently a home and away season consisting of eighteen rounds is played. The best five teams then play off according to the McIntyre System, culminating in the O&MFNL Grand Final, which from 1995 to 2017 was held at the Lavington Sports Ground in the Albury suburb of Hamilton Valley. History. Beginnings of the O&MFA. Organised competition in the area started as the "Ovens & Murray Football Association" in 1893, with the following foundation clubs – Beechworth Wanderers, Chiltern, Eldorado, Rutherglen, Wangaratta City and Wangaratta West End, with  Beechworth Football Club winning premierships in 1893 and 1894 and Rutherglen winning thirteen O&MFA flags between 1895 and 1915. In 1910, the O&MFA had only three teams – Albury, Excelsior and Rutherglen with Rutherglen winning the premiership. Then in 1911, both Excelsior and Rutherglen applied to enter the Rutherglen and District Football Association. As a result, the O&MFL folded, with local teams attempting to apply to play in the Rutherglen & DFA. A ballot took place at a Rutherglen & DFA meeting on 29 April at Mackay's Hotel, Rutherglen which resulted in Balldale, North Albury, Rutherglen, South Albury and Wodonga being refused  admission to join the association. Corowa, Excelsior and Lake Rovers were club's that were admitted. In 1911, the Albury Football Club was planning to divide the club into South Albury and North Albury teams, but as they were not admitted into the Rutherglen & DFA, the club went into recess in 1911. Rutherglen FC also went into recess in 1911. Albury FC and Rutherglen FC were admitted into the Rutherglen & DFA in 1912. In 1913, the Rutherglen & DFA consisting of the following teams – Albury, Balldale, Border United, Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen, with Albury defeating Rutherglen in the grand final  at the Albury Sportground. The competition reformed under the "Ovens & Murray Football Association" banner again in 1914, involving the following five teams: Albury, Border United, Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen. Balldale FC entered the Coreen & District Football League in 1914. In 1915, Beechworth Football Club and Wangaratta Football Club returned to play in the O&MFA. Howlong Football Club entered the Chiltern & District Football Association and went onto win the premiership, while Rutherglen defeated Lake Rovers in the O&MFA grand final played at Rutherglen. After a three-year break due to World War I, the O&MFA reformed for the 1919 season  with only four clubs, Border United Football Club (Corowa based), Howlong, Lake Rovers and Rutherglen. Albury Football Club was reformed in early 1919 and played in the Albury Senior Football Association with two teams – South Albury and North Albury, with St. Patrick's FC defeating South Albury Football Club in the grand final on the Albury Sportsground. In 1920 the O&MFA didn't reform; "It seems strange that the O&MFA has apparently been allowed to die a natural death" with only two club's present at the O&MFA – AGM., with some clubs moving to play in the Chiltern & DFA and  Coreen & DFA. The competition reformed in 1921 with Lakes Rovers, Rutherglen, St Patricks, Corowa, Springhurst and Wahgunyah. In 1922, larger town clubs Benalla and Wangaratta joined the OMFA whilst Wahgunyah and Springhurst moved to the Chiltern DFL. In 1924, Lake Rovers Football Club amalgamated with the Rutherglen Football Club. and Albury FC and the Diggers FC also decided to amalgamate in 1924 and apply for admission into the Ovens and Murray Football League as Albury Football Club. In 1926, the O&M name was changed from an association to a league, its present form. Around this time the clubs contesting the  league included Wangaratta, Hume Weir (which drew many of its players from workers constructing the Hume Dam at the time), Yarrawonga and two clubs from the town of Albury, St Patricks and Albury club). These two clubs were largely divided amongst sectarian lines, St Patricks being Roman Catholic and Albury being Protestant and, after much tension, in 1929 the two clubs agreed to disband and form two new clubs, East Albury Football Club and West Albury Football Club, with the player base to be drawn geographically. In 1930, Haydn Bunton was recruited from the West Albury Football Club by Victoria  Football League (VFL) club Fitzroy, where he became regarded as one of the best VFL players in the Depression-era and would go on to win three Brownlow Medals. Bunton Park, where North Albury Football Club is based, was not named after Haydn, but rather his brother Cleaver Bunton, who was elected president of the O&MFL in 1930 and would serve in that role until 1969. (Cleaver would also later serve as mayor of Albury for 30 years.) In 1930 Hume Weir Football Club and Ebden Rovers Football Club merged to become the Weir United Football Club. East Albury Football  Club and Weir United Football Club merged in 1933 to become the Border United Football Club (Albury based) and wore green and white jumpers. In 1933 West Albury Football Club changed its name to the Albury Football Club and remained in the West Albury colours of maroon and blue. At the O&MFA's 1936 Annual General Meeting, it was announced that the Border United FC would merge with the Albury Football Club as both clubs were in debt and also due to a lack of players. The newly merged team took on the name of the Albury Football Club. This  left the City of Albury with only one football team. Post-World War II. In 1940, the league went into recess after round 10 for the duration of World War II, before full competition resumed in 1946. In 1945, Rutherglen, played in the Chiltern & District Football Association and Wodonga played in the Albury Border Football Association in 1945. In 1947 North Albury was admitted, followed by Wangaratta Rovers and Myrtleford, who were admitted from the Ovens & King Football League in 1950. The Wangaratta Rovers would go on to dominate the O&M for the remainder of the 20th Century, winning fifteen  premierships to date, a number only recently overhauled by Albury with their own streak of flags. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the league began to gain a reputation within Victoria as being the strongest competition outside the then VFL and VFA. The best players were often recruited from the O&M to play for one of the "city" clubs, but it was not uncommon for a VFL player to retire from the "big" league and play in the O&M or another country league, and perhaps start a coaching career there as well, often at the same time as a playing coach . One notable example of this, as far as the O&M was concerned, was Bob Rose, who retired from Collingwood as a player in 1955 and coached the Wangaratta Rovers to two premierships in 1958 and 1960, after which he returned to Collingwood to continue his coaching career. 1970s and 1980s. In 1968, the VFL introduced country recruitment zones throughout Victoria and Riverina, which limited the areas from which each VFL club could recruit. The O&MFL was allocated to North Melbourne, and thus quite a few of the better players from the O&M came to play for the Kangaroos, contributing in  part to that club's rise to success in the 1970s. These included Mick Nolan, Xavier Tanner and John Byrne and later John Longmire, who had a good season with Corowa-Rutherglen as a goal kicking forward in O&M seniors in 1987. The zoning system was discontinued in the late 1980s as the VFL/AFL introduced a draft system. In 1974 the O&MFL was disaffiliated by the Victorian Country Football League (VCFL) when the O&MFL refused to accept an application from the Lavington Football Club to join the league. By this stage the football club was based at the Lavington  Sports Club, an established licensed club, and was strong enough to field teams in both the Tallangatta League and Hume Football League the following year. The makeup of the competition remained stable until 1979, when Corowa and Rutherglen merged into Corowa-Rutherglen, and the Lavington Football Club was finally admitted from the Farrer Football League, so the number of clubs remained at ten. Lavington's home ground, the Lavington Sports Club Oval, provided an ideal venue for many sports as the sports club gradually developed it after its construction in the 1970s. The league has designated it as the venue  for most of the league's grand finals since the 1980s. Recently, added assistance for the staging of the grand final through regional promotion and in-kind sponsorship has been provided by the Albury City Council. In 1983, after an unsuccessful debut season playing for Hawthorn the previous year, Gary Ablett played for Myrtleford in the O&M for a year, before he was recruited by Geelong where he recommenced his career in the VFL/AFL and established himself as one of the code's best players, being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2005. By the late  1980s, the Wodonga Demons of the Tallangatta League had made a number of bids to join the O&M, and in 1989 were accepted into the competition to serve the west of the city of Wodonga, based at Birralee Park. They changed their name to the Wodonga Raiders Football Club so as to not cause confusion with the Benalla Demons and the long established Wodonga Football Club. The 1990 Bloodbath Grand Final. Shortly after the commencement of the 1990 grand final between Wodonga and Lavington, played at the Albury Sportsground, most of the players of the two teams became involved in  a bench-clearing brawl. As the game was televised by a local TV station, the footage received sensationalistic national media coverage where the brawl was generally described as a shocking indictment on the code. Even though over a decade had elapsed, comparisons to this incident were made after the 2004 AFL Cairns Grand Final descended into a similar fracas. Wodonga eventually won the match by 20 points and thus the premiership, and the league tribunal handed out a number of lengthy suspensions to players from both sides for the following season. Incidentally, the result marked the second premiership for Wodonga 's coach of that time, Jeff Gieschen, his first for the club being in 1987, before he went on to coach West Perth and then a stint at Richmond in 1997–1999. Recent years. In 1996, after a string of unsuccessful seasons in the O&M, Benalla moved to the Goulburn Valley Football League. In 2000 the Penrith Panthers Leagues Club, financiers of the Penrith Panthers National Rugby League team, merged with the Lavington Sports Club. As a result, the Lavington Football Club changed their nickname from the Blues to the Panthers, added "Panthers" to their title, and adopted a guernsey in  the same colours as the NRL Panthers, but in the Port Adelaide AFL pattern. Also around this time, the Wagga Tigers Football Club, which had dominated the Riverina Football League, made a bid to join the O&MFL; however, partially due to concerns from the league's southern clubs about travel times, the bid was rejected. The Wagga Tigers then successfully bid to join the AFL Canberra. In 2000 the O&MFL, in an association with the AFL North Melbourne Football Club, fielded a team in the Victorian Football League called the Murray Kangaroos, playing home games between Coburg and Lavington. However , due to concerns from O&M clubs about player availability, the Kangaroos about travel time, and poor attendances compared with O&M league games, the venture was discontinued after three seasons and the Kangaroos subsequently set up an affiliation with the established VFL club Port Melbourne. Current finals system. Since 1972 the OMFL has used the "McIntyre System". The final series is played over four weekends, with the Grand Final traditionally being played on the third weekend of September. Also normally there is no home ground advantage is awarded any teams, instead the O&M board deems where the finals will be held , with all finals for both Football & Netball are played at the one venue during each final day. The " Grand Final " since 1995 has been held at Lavington Sports Ground (formally "Lavington Panthers Oval") in the Albury suburb of Hamilton Valley. Interleague competition. The O&M has won the first division of the Victorian Country Football League interleague championship seventeen times, the most recent victory being in 2009. In interleague competition the team wears a gold guernsey, emblazoned with a monogram-style black "O&M" initials, with black shorts and black socks. Junior development. More successful has been the Murray Bushrangers TAC Cup  Under 18s side, who play their home games in Wangaratta; prior to the AFL national draft and the inception of the TAC Cup, young players in the area would usually play through the grades with their local club, with less likelihood of being scouted by the recruitment staff from AFL clubs. Although there has been some concern from clubs about these players being removed from the local competition, the ones that do not get drafted usually return to their home clubs to play locally once they come of age. Even in that case, there is some chance that a late -maturing "older" player in their early 20s will be drafted by an AFL club. Several notable examples to be drafted directly from the O&MFL include Fraser Gehrig (Wodonga Raiders/West Coast Eagles/St Kilda), Guy Rigoni (Myrtleford/Melbourne), and Brett Kirk (North Albury/Sydney Swans). All clubs field sides in the under 18s competition, aside from Myrtleford, which fields a joint team with the "Bright Football Club" wearing navy blue and gold colours & the club will be known as the "Alpine Eagles", and they would also field an under 18s joint team in the "Ovens & King Football League" also wearing  navy blue and gold colours & the club will be known as the Alpine Eagles. However the Alpine Eagles alliance between Myrtleford and Bright had strained over the last few seasons before finally after the 2013 season The Myrtleford under-18s announced that they will stop wearing navy blue and gold colours of the "Alpine Eagles" and will be returning to the red, white and black colours & the club will be known as the "Myrtleford Saints", ending their almost 10-year partnership with Bright, in place since the early 2000s. All the Wangaratta based club's in the Wangaratta & District Junior Football  League club's are independent incorporated local community sports club's and are not affiliated with any O&MFNL or O&KFNL clubs. Clubs. Former clubs. The club monikers listed above for former clubs are the ones they currently use and may not be their monikers used when playing in the Ovens and Murray league. Ovens & Murray Hall of Fame. The Ovens & Murray Hall of Fame was established in to recognise and promote the outstanding achievements of some of the league's greatest players, dedicated administrators and club support staff and long serving media representatives. As of the 2016 ceremony there have  been 63 inductees, including 2 netballers. Only four people have received the additional honour of being promoted to "Legend" status. Minor grades. Netball. Netball competition's were added to the "Ovens & Murray Football League" from the 1993 season. Albury Wodonga Junior Football League. Notes: " Team field by club for that age group; "=Yes" & "=No"." "The competition age group is from 12-17." AFLNEB Youth Girls League. Notes: " Team field by club for that season; "=Yes" & "=No"." Ovens & Murray Football Netball League The Ovens and Murray Football Netball League (O&MFNL) is an Australian rules football and netball