Essendon Football Club

Essendon Football Club
Names
Full name	Essendon Football Club[1]
Nickname(s)	Bombers Dons Same Olds Planes
Motto	Suaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re "Gently in manner, resolutely in execution"
2023 season
Home-and-away season	11th
Leading goalkicker	Kyle Langford (51 goals)
Club details
Founded	1872; 152 years ago (1872)
Colours	Red   Black
Competition	AFL: Senior men AFLW: Senior women VFL: Reserves men VFLW: Reserves women VWFL: Wheelchair
President	David Barham
CEO	Craig Vozzo
Coach	AFL: Brad Scott AFLW: Natalie Wood VFL: Blake Caracella VFLW: Cherie O'Neill
Captain(s)	AFL: Zach Merrett AFLW: Stephanie Cain/Bonnie Toogood VFL: Xavier O'Neill VFLW: El Chaston VWFL: Louis Rowe
Premierships	VFL/AFL (16) 1897, 1901, 1911, 1912, 1923, 1924, 1942, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1962, 1965, 1984, 1985, 1993, 2000 VFA (4) 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894 Reserves/VFL (7) 1941, 1950, 1952, 1968, 1983, 1992, 1999 VFLW (1) 2022 Championship of Australia (1) 1893
Ground(s)	AFL: Docklands Stadium (56,347) & Melbourne Cricket Ground (100,024) AFLW: Windy Hill (10,000) VFL/VFLW: Windy Hill (10,000), The Hangar (3,500) VWFL: Boroondara Sports Complex
Former ground(s)	East Melbourne Cricket Ground (1897–1921)
	Windy Hill (1922–91)
Training ground(s)	The Hangar (2013–)
Uniforms
Home Away Clash
Other information
Official website	essendonfc.com.au

The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club that plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their Ascot Vale home "Alisa" adopting the name of the local borough. While the exact date is unknown, it is generally accepted to have been in 1872. The club's first recorded game took place on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton seconds team. From 1878 until 1896, the club played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA), then joined seven other clubs in October 1896 to form the breakaway Victorian Football League (known as the Australian Football League since 1990). Headquartered at the Essendon Recreation Ground, known as Windy Hill, from 1922 to 2013, the club moved to The Hangar in Tullamarine in late 2013 on land owned by the Melbourne Airport corporation. The club shares its home games between Docklands Stadium and the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Zach Merrett is the current club captain.

Essendon is one of Australia's best-known and most successful football clubs.^[2] It has won 16 VFL/AFL premierships, which, along with Carlton and Collingwood, is the most of any club in the competition. The club won four consecutive VFA premierships between 1891 and 1894, a feat unmatched in that competition's history. Essendon also hold the distinction of being the only club to win a premiership in their inaugural season (1897). It has struggled to achieve significant on-field success in the 21st century, however, having won its last premiership in 2000 and last final in 2004.

During the early-to-mid 2010s, the team was the focus of an investigation by the AFL and independent regulatory bodies into their alleged use of illegal substances during the 2012 season, which led to 34 players receiving two-year suspensions, a $2 million fine, and disqualification from the 2013 finals series (among other penalties). No Essendon player ever returned a positive sample for any banned drug at any point in the investigation.

Three Essendon players—John Coleman, Bill Hutchison, and Dick Reynolds—and one coach, Kevin Sheedy, are classified as "Legends" in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

Essendon also fields reserve men's and women's teams in the Victoria Football League and VFL Women's, respectively. Since 2022 (S7), it has fielded a senior women's team in the national AFL Women's competition.^[3][4]