The Footy Almanac | The change in demographics and the demise of country footy clubs has been a constant over the past four or five decades.
Very many of these clubs are fondly remembered, still have honour boards and photos up somewhere, and are still talked about in the public consciousness.
The Pomborneit Football Club is a long forgotten relic of a bygone era. So forgotten that they don’t even rate a mention on the comprehensive list of clubs on the excellent australianfootball.com website. While the Pomborneit Cricket Club has been a constant presence since 1883, the Pomborneit Football Club had a spasmodic journey between 1884 and 1949. Their story deserves to be told.
While the first land grant in the Parish of Pomborneit was given in 1858, and several other lots were obtained in the 1860’s, it was the rabbit infestation of that era that moved the Manifold family to section off the north east portion of their ‘Purrumbete’ property, mainly rocky ‘stony rises’ country, in 1867, which saw many families whose names are still synonymous with the area today take up land in the Pomborneit district.
Pomborneit was basically considered a coach stop village for a time after 1867, with only a school, post office and a Presbyterian church in operation. That all changed with the Colac to Camperdown railway line opening in 1883. The Pomborneit railway station opened on July 6th, 1883, bringing railway workers to the area. The Pomborneit Cricket Club played its first game on February 12th 1883, while the Pomborneit Football Club played its first games in 1884. The village seemed to grow rapidly in this time, the railway helping other businesses become established in the 1880’s.
The Pomborneit FC played around 7 or 8 games in 1884. There was no league or official competition, just clubs lining up games against each other.
