Camberwell Football Club

The Camberwell Football Club, nicknamed the Cobras, was an Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. The club competed in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) from 1926 until 1990, which was followed by three seasons in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) before going into recess in 1995.

Camberwell was formed in 1886 and joined the Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA), with its earliest-recorded match on 1 May 1886 against Hawthorn Juniors.

The club finished sixth on the ladder in 1889, eighth in 1890, and eighth in 1891. At the 1895 VJFA AGM, the competition was reduced from 20 teams to 12 teams and Camberwell was one of the clubs that was not admitted and it appears that Camberwell FC went into recess for a number of years, before joining the Eastern Suburbs Football Association (ESFA) in 1899 and the Reporter District Football Association (RDFA) in 1905.

In 1912, Camberwell went into recess again, with their players being distributed to the Burwood and Kew football clubs. In 1913, the club was readmitted into the VJFA, rated by many as the third highest grade of football in Victoria at that time.

Camberwell won a three-peat in the Melbourne District Football Association (MDFA) from 1921 until 1923, with the latter grand final held as a curtain-raiser at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before Essendon played South Melbourne in the second Victorian Football League (VFL) semi-final.

In its earliest years, the club was playing at Camberwell Junction (the corner of Burke and Riversdale Roads); the space that became the home of the Camberwell Football Club for 80 years (eventually known as "Camberwell Sports Ground") was originally a vegetable garden ("Brooks Paddock") and part of Camberwell Racecourse. The preparation of a new sports ground (originally dubbed "Bowen Park") on this site was finished in 1909 and Camberwell Football Club first played at the new ground the following year (1910). A grandstand for visitors' rooms (the "Tramways Grandstand") was built in 1920. A much larger spectators' grandstand and pavilion was built in 1935 – and ready for the 1936 football season.

After establishing itself as a successful junior and sub-district club, Camberwell was seen by the 1920s as a likely strong fit for expansions into the eastern suburbs of either the Victorian Football League (VFL) or the Victorian Football Association (VFA). It lodged applications to join both at different times during the early 1920s, and was admitted to the VFA for the 1926 season. It reached its first Grand Final in 1935, losing by nine points to Yarraville.

With the introduction of throw-pass football to the VFA in 1938, the club made one of the VFA's most significant ever recruiting coups when it recruited champion VFL player Laurie Nash for a huge salary of £8/wk. Following World War II, Camberwell won its first and only top division minor premiership in 1946, but lost in the Grand Final against Sandringham by seven points.