| Sydney Swans | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Names | ||||
| Full name | Sydney Swans[1][2] | |||
| Former name(s) | South Melbourne Football Club (1874–1981) The Swans (1982) | |||
| Nickname(s) | Swans, Swannies, Bloods | |||
| 2024 season | ||||
| After finals | Runners-up | |||
| Home-and-away season | 1st | |||
| Leading goalkicker | Tom Papley (37 goals) | |||
| Club details | ||||
| Founded | 19 June 1874 | |||
| Colours | Red White | |||
| Competition | AFL: Senior men AFLW: Senior women VFL: Reserves men VFLW: Reserves women | |||
| Coach | AFL: John Longmire AFLW: Scott Gowans VFL: Damian Truslove | |||
| Captain(s) | AFL: Callum Mills AFLW: Chloe Molloy, Lucy McEvoy VFL: William Collis | |||
| Number-one ticket holder(s) | Rebecca Skilton[3] | |||
| Premierships | VFL/AFL (5)VFA (5)Reserves (4) South Melbourne in italics. | |||
| Ground(s) | AFL: Sydney Cricket Ground (48,000) AFLW: Henson Park (30,000) North Sydney Oval (10,000) VFL: Sydney Cricket Ground, Tramway Oval (1,000) | |||
| Former ground(s) | Lakeside Oval (1874–1981) Stadium Australia (2002–2015) | |||
| Training ground(s) | Outdoor: Sydney Cricket Ground, Tramway Oval, Moore Park Indoor: Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park | |||
| Uniforms | ||||
| ||||
| Other information | ||||
| Official website | sydneyswans.com.au | |||
The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The Sydney Swans Academy, consisting of the club's best junior development signings, contests Division 2 of the men's and women's underage national championships and the Talent League.
The club's origins trace back to March 21, 1873, when a meeting was held at the Clarendon Hotel in South Melbourne to establish a junior football club, to be called the South Melbourne Football Club.[4] The club commenced playing in 1874 at its home ground, Lakeside Oval in Albert Park. Playing as South Melbourne, it participated in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) competition from 1878 before joining the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL) as a founding member in 1897. Originally known as the "Bloods" in reference to the red colour used on players' guernseys, the Swan emblem was adopted in 1933 after a journalist at the time referred to them using the moniker following a large influx of Western Australian players. In 1982, it became the first professional Australian football club to permanently relocate interstate (from Victoria to New South Wales). Initially playing in Sydney as "The Swans", it was given its current name in 1983.[5]
The club has a rivalry with the Greater Western Sydney Giants, with whom they contest the Sydney Derby. Their headquarters and training facilities are located in the Moore Park sporting precinct, with offices and indoor training at the Royal Hall of Industries and outdoor sessions conducted on the adjacent Tramway Oval and Sydney Cricket Ground, the latter being the site of the club's senior men's team home matches since 1982. The Swans have won five VFL/AFL premierships including 1909, 1918, and 1933, before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest of any team in the competition's history. This premiership drought ended with the 2005 premiership, which was later followed by another title in 2012. Their five premierships are supplemented by fourteen grand final defeats, the most recent of which came in 2024.
According to Roy Morgan, the Swans are one of the most supported clubs in the AFL with more than a million fans in 2021.[6]
- ^ "Current details for ABN 48 063 349 708". Australian Business Number. Australian Business Register. November 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
- ^ "Sydney Swans Constitution" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 September 2018. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
- ^ "Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans Football Club. All the latest news, videos, results and information". 6 October 2023.
- ^ "MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1873". Argus. 24 March 1873. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
- ^ All our cygnets are in a row': For diehard Swans fans, the Bloods run deep 24 September 2022
- ^ "AFL supporter bases boom in 2020/21 as lockdowns keep people at home and 'glued' to the action on TV". Roy Morgan. 21 September 2021.