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It has won only one premiership, in 1954.
This success was in no small part due to two champions of the club- Charlie Sutton the wiley and tough Captain/Coach and the clubs and one of Australian Rules' best ever players, Ted Whitten. Charlie claims to have invented the modern play on style of football- run, handball, run, kick. While Teddy Whitten has been the source of more arguments on who is the greatest player than any other to grace the fields of Australian Rules Football.
Both before and after 1954 the club struggled to make the final '4' however it almost always managed to hold itself a few games above the 'cellar dwellers' on the ladder.
It had players of both quality and character such as Charlie and Ted, later Gary Dempsey the heroic ruckman who was badly burnt in bushfires in 1967 but managed to take out the games top individual award the 'Brownlow' in 1975. Or Dougie Hawkins the rogish lad as much at home with a beer as taking on the likes of 'Dipper' on the outer wing of the Western (Whitten) Oval. Even Simon 'the Pieman' Beasley a deadly accurate Full Forward and stockbroker who broke the image of blue collar players at the club. (He's now a bookmaker- not so different from a stockbroker!)
In the dim distant past (1900 to 1925) the club won a string of premierships in the VFA, but after the mightiest clubs had broken away and formed the VFL, the forerunner of the AFL.
Under tightly focussed management by club president David Smorgon , driven coaching by Terry Wallace, and the on-field leadership of Chris Grant and Tony Liberatore, the club had a relatively successful period through the mid- to late 1990s. However, without a premiership win, the club's future as ever looks on a knife's edge.
In MayThis article is about the month of May. For other uses, see May (disambiguation). May is the fifth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 31 days. It may have been named for the Roman goddess Maia or more likely for the Roman goddess of fertili 20022002 is a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). 2002 was the first palindromic year since 1991 and the last until 2112. 2002 was also designated: International Year of Ecotourism and Mountains National Science Year in the United Kingdom, the club announced a team of the greatest players from the last century.
| Backs: | Charlie Sutton | Herb Henderson | John Schultz |
| Half Backs: | Wally Donald | Ted Whitten Senior (captian) | John Jillard |
| Centres: | Harry Hickey | Allan Hopkins | Doug Hawkins (vice-captian) |
| Half Forwards: | Alby Morrison | Kelvin Templeton | Chris Grant |
| Forwards: | Jack Collins | Simon Beasley | George Bisset |
| Followers: | Gary Dempsey | Scott West | Brian Royal |
| Interchange: | Jim Gallagher | Arthur Olliver | Brad Johnson |
| Norm Ware | Tony Liberatore | Scott Wynd | |
| Coach: | Charlie Sutton |