The merger of any two football clubs with separate identities, supporters and histories into a one new entity is a process fraught with difficulties and pitfalls.
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Sometimes the costs can far outweigh the benefits.
A new club can be formed and may flourish but at what price?
The 1986 merger of NTFA clubs City-South and East Launceston to form the current South Launceston Football Club is a case in point.
The City Football Club was formed as Cornwall in 1879 changing their name to City the following year and then to City-South in 1957. The club was a major player in Northern Tasmanian and state football throughout its history boasting all-time greats such as Laurie Nash and Roy Cazaly among its players.
The Redlegs won 30 senior NTFA premierships in their proud 106-year history and numerous reserves and under-19 flags.
In 1972, City-South experienced one of their most successful seasons in the club’s history. The year when Gough Whitlam was elected Prime Minister also saw his deputy Lance Barnard as the club’s patron.
The Redlegs defeated Launceston in the NTFA grand final by 47 points and the following week took on North-West premiers Latrobe at York Park in front of a crowd of 10,551 in the state grand final with the legendary Darrel Baldock the Demons captain and coach.
Following those triumphs City-South enjoyed the honour of being Tasmania’s first representative team in the end of season club championships in Adelaide performing creditably against Carlton, North Adelaide and East Perth.
For any sporting club to reach 100 years is a worthy achievement and City-South proudly joined Launceston (1875), Longford (1878) in the centenary ranks in 1980 – the club producing a Redlegs Centenary Book (1880-1980) to celebrate the occasion.
Sadly, just six years later they ceased to exist in their own right.
How could that happen?
What would have motivated football administrators at the time to allow one of the most successful clubs in the state to lose its history and identity.
City-South moved their home base from York Park to Youngtown Oval in 1972 and built the club facilities and bar now enjoyed by South Launceston.
The club incurred a significant debt in the process and was basically told by Tasmanian Football League officials in Hobart, who ran state football at the time, that if they merged with East Launceston the debt would be wiped.
Talking to some of the City-South veterans this week in Graeme Wilkinson and Brian Hardman as they prepared for a Redlegs reunion on October 9, at Youngtown – they said that the merger was acrimonious at the time.
East Launceston had been based at the NTCA Ground and according to Hardman had zero finance behind them and no facilities at the time and were undoubtedly major beneficiaries of the merge.The club, formed in 1948, made only two NTFA grand finals winning their one and only premiership in 1967, and were at the opposite end of the spectrum to City-South in terms of success.
A vote was apparently taken of City-South members which came out in favour of the merger but Wilkinson said there were many people that were very unhappy about the decision, himself included.
In his words – “ A fantastic club was killed because of that bloody decision.”
The merger saw the birth of the South Launceston Football Club under the Bulldogs moniker.The club has survived and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary. The Bulldogs have enjoyed success but cannot boast that of the former Redlegs.
In hindsight, one has to wonder whether the right decision was made in 1986 and if a similar situation presented itself today whether there would be a different outcome.
The only remnants of City-South’s proud 106-year history are a few premiership team photographs on the walls of the South Launceston Football Club. What happened to the rest of the club’s memorabilia – the premiership cups and trophies which were testament to a rich history?
If they were lost or destroyed as a result of the merger then shame on those involved and on football administrators who were prepared to consign a proud football club with a distinguished history to the scrapheap.
Yet the same scenario has been repeated in AFL ranks – the Fitzroy Football Club for instance, South Melbourne’s relocation to Sydney and in the TSL a planned merger of North Hobart and Hobart instigated by AFL Tasmania resulted in one of the oldest clubs in the country changing its identity and colours.
Mergers can be resisted if there is the will – an AFL- proposed Hawthorn and Melbourne merger in the 1990s would have created the Melbourne Hawks but was successfully fought by Don Scott and other Hawks’ faithful – and look where Hawthorn are now.