Deloraine Football Club celebrates 125 years since inception

The club held the event after an all Meander Valley affair as the Roos took on Bracknell.

The senior team donned commemorative guernseys which were then quickly washed after the game and auctioned off at the event.

The guernseys were black and white, like the club used to wear, and commemorated the 1979 senior premiership team. It was the last time the club won a senior premiership.

Funds raised from the auction will be used to do upgrades around the club, president Shaun Donohue said.

The club's 1979 captain-coach John Williams gave the senior team some words of encouragement before the game and also the guest speaker. Williams coached the club during four premierships.

"It was a great turn out. I think there were about 14 or 15 of the '79 premiership boys that were there," Mr Donohue said. "Trent Bartlett was there. He grew up in Deloraine, and played for Deloraine and went over and played for the Brisbane Bears and Western Bulldogs."

About 10 of the club's former queens were at the event, from when the club was in the Northern Tasmania Football League and had Queen Quests.

Mr Donohue said the club has changed over the last 125 years.

"The past five or six years we've really got ourselves out in the community," he said.

"We've got involved in things like Anzac Day, Make Runs Maxi and now we're, unfortunately, right into MND because one of our trainers, Terry Roles, has been struck with the hideous disease."

A number of people from the club took Mr Roles to the AFL's Big Freeze event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground earlier this month.

Mr Donohue said football was important for regional communities.

"I think footy clubs if they don't have them, the town doesn't really do too well," he said. "The footy club is a big part of the town and little towns struggle to survive without a club."