ALTHOUGH the Graveyard Dogs have been part of the BFNL only since 2000 Gisborne boasts a proud footy history stretching right back to 1879.

The Bulldogs played in competitions closer to the Melbourne metro. area for a large slice of their existence with some massive scores posted in the Romsey District Football Association and stretching right through their playing days into the Riddell District F.L.
The club hasn’t always worn its red, white and blue strip.
At the start of World War 1 the Gisborne players ran out in a maroon guernsey. By 1919 the colours were back to red, white and blue before a black and white vertical striped jumper was introduced in 1930.
The Magpie uniform was worn by Gisborne players until 1946 when the Footscray-aligned colours were brought back.
And Gisborne hasn’t changed its playing strip since that immediate post-World War 2 era.
When you consider Gisborne’s history it’s sobering to note the Bulldogs are an older club than both Collingwood and Richmond.
And depending on which historian you’re aligned with their 1879 start date gives Gisborne at least a year’s grace on BFL powerhouse Eaglehawk.
Or three years if you take into account some recent research which shows the Canterbury Park Two Blues weren’t actually founded until 1882 --- 24 months after the generally accepted Eaglehawk foundation date of 1880.

RIGHT through the drought years of the early to mid-Noughties those of us who ventured to the Gardiner Reserve for broadcasting or match report writing duties saw Jackson’s Creek barely flowing behind the far end goals, away from the pavilion.
But in the heady days of yesteryear the Gisborne footy ground (or the Gardiner Reserve as it became) was known as ‘The Island’.
That’s because the oval was almost encircled by that very same Jackson’s Creek.
It was the case when Gisborne first competed in the Romsey DFA. However, it took many years of hard slog before Gisborne competed in its first grand final.
That momentous occasion came in 1901 when the Dogs went down to Sunbury.
Even when a competition was formed in 1904 known as the Gisborne District Football Association the home side still wasn’t able to take out a flag.
They went down to Romsey in 1909’s big dance. On through the years preceding and just after World War 1 and it wasn’t until 1934 that Gisborne won the premiership.
During the middle years of the Depression Gisborne defeated Sunbury 15.19 (109) to 7.16 (58) to annex the ‘34 premiership.
Best players were Slater, Morrison, Ryan and James. Then Gisborne had to wait until 1962 for its next grand final success – a six-point nail-biter over Lancefield in the Riddell DFL play-off.
Final scores: Gisborne 7.12 (54) def. Lancefield 7.6 (48). Tom Sankey and Robinson booted two goals each for the premiership winners with best players Dennis Creed, J. Ritchie and Sankey.

THIRTY-ONE years after downing Sunbury in the 1934 grand final, Gisborne repeated the dose beating Sunbury for the 1965 flag.
Final scores: Gisborne 8.11 (59) def. Sunbury 7.10 (52). Graham Kays, P. Keane and J. Bourne were three named in the Bulldogs’ best.
And in 1967 the Bulldogs saluted again, this time accounting for Woodend. It was another tight and tense RDFL grand final with Gisborne 14.18 (102) to Woodend’s 13.15 (93).
Graham Kays had another big last-day-of-the-season, booting four of Gisborne’s 14 majors and was named in the best along with Doug Belcher and Bob Hayes.
Speaking of Kays, the man is a legend at Gisborne. He coached the club for seven years and won the Bowen Medal as RDFL fairest and best along with his own club award in 1970.
Tom Sankey fared even better than Kays in medal voting. He won Gisborne’s best and fairest no fewer than eight times and was a three-time winner of the RDFL’s Bowen Medal in 1963, 1965 and again in 1979.
Frank Fitzgerald won the league medal in 1950 along with the club award and of course in more recent times Matt Fitzgerald (2003, 2007), Simon ‘Harry’ Elsum (2004) and Luke ‘Rolls Royce’ Saunders (2005) have all won the prestige Michelsen medal in the BFNL.

AMONG the players to have made the big league in VFL/AFL ranks have been George Martin (Melbourne) and the Rev. Thomas Sadler (Fitzroy, Melbourne).
Others with VFL experience include Alex. G. Gardiner (Footscray, 1925-26, 23 games) and Alex. W. Gardiner (Footscray, 1955-62, 91 games and 18 goals).
We should also not forget Gisborne town’s AFL products in Ryan Crowley (Fremantle, drafted 2005, now an Essendon top-up player) and Brent Reilly (Adelaide, drafted 2001).
Although they came directly from the Calder Cannons into AFL ranks, they are both former Gisborne district junior footballers.
Ken Moran holds both the Gisborne club and RDFL records for most games played. Moran played in an astounding 455 games for the Bulldogs.
John Hogan booted the highest tally of goals for Gisborne in a senior game, nailing 18 majors against the Riddell club in 1965.
The club’s record score was posted against Craigieburn in 1972. Final scores: Gisborne 57.41 (383) def. Craigieburn 1.3 (9).
This massive total eclipsed the previous best score recorded in 1962 when Gisborne 37.19 (214) hammered Macedon 1.2 (8).
That score posted in 1962 had sat as the Riddell District Footy League’s biggest record score along with the league’s biggest winning margin.
The 1972 score of 57 majors plus the winning margin easily topped the ones set a decade earlier --- a final tally of 383 and winning margin of 374 points!
Incidentally, the BFL’s biggest ever score was posted by South Bendigo in 1990 against Kennington: 49.28 (322) to 3.3 (21), a winning margin of 301 points.

GISBORNE enjoyed an amazing run of BFNL success in the mid to late Noughties, just a few short years after moving to the BFNL.
The actually joined for the 2000 season playing their first game against Kyneton on April 15th, 2000. The Dogs beat the Tigers: 22.15 to 10.9. Glenn Nugent was Gisborne’s coach.
Gissy made the 2000 elimination final, going down to South by 64 points. Then in 2001 under coach Ben Ingleton the Bulldogs won just three games and finished second last.
Their third and final win for 2001 was posted in split rd. 13 with a two-point cliffhanger over the Barry Hayes-coached Eaglehawk: 16.11 (107) to 15.15 (105).
The Gardiner Reserve Dogs won flags in 2002 (Mick McGuane’s first year), 2003, 2005 and 2006. And that’s after just three wins in their second season: 2001.
And they were runners-up to Sandhurst in 2004 [15.14 (104) to 10.15 (75)], Eaglehawk in 2007 [12.12 (84) to 12.10 (82)] and to Golden Square in 2012’s last-kick-of-the-day cliffhanger: 16.10 (106) to 14.19 (103).
Then there was the situation seven seasons back when the Ballarat F.L. actively courted the Graveyard Dogs.
Ballarat officials were present at the Round 14 game at the Gardiner Reserve in 2009 when the other Bulldogs --- Golden Square --- thumped Gisborne by an astonishing 159 points.
And all that after a pretty even first quarter during which Gizzy booted four of its six goals for the afternoon.
The 31.11 (197) to 6.2 (38) flogging was Gisborne’s worst loss since joining the BFNL in 2000.
Its previous biggest loss had been to Castlemaine in round 15 of its inaugural season: a 154-point thumping.
As it turned out with then BFNL chairman Damian Drum and the 2009 league CEO Steven Oliver in regular contact with the club the Bulldog senior players swung a members’ vote in favour of staying with the BFNL.
All that after the actual Gizzy committee had voted for a club shift to the Ballarat league. It was then that the casting decision was left to the members, a 2009 meeting in which senior players spoke out strongly about remaining with the Blue and Gold.
It’s certainly been a long and colourful history for the club from the Gardiner Reserve, a club which is an integral part these days of the BFNL.

THIS is an updated version of an August 2007 Reflections I wrote for the BFNL Record. Thanks to Victorian country footy historian and author John Stoward for his recollections and history prompts.

Richard’s tips for Rd. 16, 2016: Eaglehawk by 17, South Bendigo by 39, Golden Square by 158, Sandhurst by 30 and Strathfieldsaye by 26.
Season tally for 2016: 62

By Richard Jones