Historical information

Emerald Football Club was formed in 1905, one of the first teams in the Mountain District Football Association (renamed the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League in 1967). The club has changed its official colours three times, playing firstly under blue and white colours, then green and gold before adopting the red and black colours shown in the photograph and still used today. The club has also been known variously as the 'Emites', the 'Redlegs' and the current 'Bombers.'

A joint Australian Football League (AFL) and La Trobe University Centre for Sport and Social Impact study discusses the importance of local football teams for fostering community cohesion and relationships and distributing information and health and social issues to local people. Local football and other sporting teams are integral to the economic and social development of an area and are therefore significant far beyond the immediate players or families associated with the club.

Significance

The photograph is significant for its insights into the history of sports and recreation in the Emerald region in the 1980s. Australian Rules Football has a long history in the region and played a fundamental role in community life.

Physical description

Colour rectangular photograph printed on photographic paper. The photograph depicts twenty-five men standing in four main rows outside a building that may be a football clubhouse. There are nineteen younger men wearing red and black sports jerseys and six adults wearing casual clothes. An inscription on the reverse of the image indicates the group depicted is the Under Seventeen team, 1987.

Inscriptions & markings

Obverse:
EMER /

Reverse:
VEMU P 815 /
U-17 - 1987 /