Thought to have been founded in 1872, Essendon F.C. boast one of the biggest fanbases, and the equal most premierships (16, tied with Carlton) of any club in the AFL. After a horror doping scandal that dragged on for four long years, Bombers’ faithful will be looking to their team to notch up their 17th flag in the immediate future.
Essendon entered the VFA in 1878, before being one of the inaugural members of the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897. The Bombers then went on to win the first ever VFL premiership that year, stamping themselves into Australian Rules annals and setting the tone for a culture of winning that would follow.
This culture was typified by Dick Reynolds, three-time Brownlow medal winner who coach-captained Essendon to four flags in his illustrious career which spanned from 1933-1960. ‘King Richard’ has left a lasting legacy at Essendon, which has only been matched by Kevin Sheedy. Sheedy coached Essendon for a remarkable 634 games, in a successful era of Essendon’s history, encompassing four premierships.
However, in a club with a winning culture so deeply engrained, Essendon took a step too far in its quest for success. The supplements scandal that emerged in 2013 revealed a club that injected its players with performance-enhancing peptides in the 2012 season. The fallout from this discovery lasted four years, and included coaching and medical-staff bans, Jobe Watson having his 2012 Brownlow medal stripped, but most significantly a swathe of Essendon players banned from taking part in the 2016 season, which was essentially a write-off for the embattled club.
2017 saw the Bombers emerge from its darkest period with an impressive return to finals footy. Essendon’s large group of supporters will be hoping that their beloved Bombers can do them proud, and never again fall into the dark abyss in which they found themselves.
