| Melbourne Football Club | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Names | ||||
| Full name | Melbourne Football Club Limited[1] | |||
| Nickname(s) | AFL: Demons, Dees Indigenous rounds: Narrm | |||
| Former nickname(s) | Redlegs, Fuchsias (prior to 1933) | |||
| 2024 season | ||||
| After finals | 14th | |||
| Home-and-away season | 14th | |||
| Leading goalkicker | Bayley Fritsch (41 goals) | |||
| Club details | ||||
| Founded | 1858[2][3][4][5] | |||
| Colours | Navy Blue Red | |||
| Competition | AFL: Men AFLW: Women | |||
| President | Brad Green | |||
| CEO | Gary Pert | |||
| Coach | AFL: Simon Goodwin AFLW: Mick Stinear | |||
| Captain(s) | AFL: Max Gawn AFLW: Kate Hore | |||
| Premierships | VFL/AFL (13) AFLW (1) 2022 (S7) Reserves (12) VFA (Nil) Victorian (3) | |||
| Ground(s) | AFL: Melbourne Cricket Ground (100,024) AFLW: Casey Fields (9,000)[6] | |||
| Training ground(s) | AFL/AFLW: Gosch's Paddock, Casey Fields | |||
| Uniforms | ||||
| ||||
| Other information | ||||
| Official website | melbournefc.com.au | |||
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition and plays its home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Melbourne is the world's oldest professional club of any football code. Its origins can be traced to an 1858 letter in which Tom Wills, captain of the Victoria cricket team, called for the formation of a "foot-ball club" with its own "code of laws". An informal Melbourne team played that winter and officially formed in May 1859, when Wills and three other members codified "The Rules of the Melbourne Football Club"—the basis of Australian rules football. The club was a dominant force in the early years of the game and a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1896, now the national AFL. Melbourne has won 13 VFL/AFL premierships, the latest in 2021. The club was a foundation team of the AFL Women's league (AFLW), and won its first AFLW premiership in 2022 season 7.
The football club has been a sporting section of the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) since 2009, having previously been associated with the MCC between 1889 and 1980.[7]
- ^ "Current details for ABN 27 005 686 902". ABN Lookup. Australian Business Register. November 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
- ^ Bell's Life in Victoria, 10 July 1858
- ^ The Footballer An annual Record of Football in Victoria, 1875
- ^ 100 Years of Football, The Story of the Melbourne Football Club, 1958
- ^ Smith v Australian Football League [2012] ATMO 20.
- ^ "Casey Fields". austadiums.com. Austadiums. Retrieved 20 May 2023.
- ^ "Melbourne Football Club becomes an MCC Sporting Section again". Melbourne Cricket Club. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
...on April 1, 2009, the Melbourne Football Club once again became a Sporting Section of the Melbourne Cricket Club...