Melbourne Demons

What does it mean to be the oldest football club in the world, to have literally helped write the rules of the game, and yet to have endured a 57-year premiership drought that tested the patience of even the most devoted supporter? The Melbourne Football Club, known as the Demons, occupies a position in Australian sport that is genuinely unrivalled, their history stretching back to 1859 and encompassing the entire arc of Australian rules football from its codification on the parklands of Melbourne to the modern AFL spectacle. The red and blue of the Demons have been a constant presence throughout that evolution, and the club’s story, with its extraordinary highs and its almost unbearably long periods of frustration, represents the most complete narrative in the history of the game.

Club History

The Melbourne Football Club was established in 1858, with the club formally constituted in May 1859, making it the oldest football club in the world and one of the founding institutions of Australian rules football itself. The tactical implications of Melbourne’s founding are profound: club members Tom Wills and H.C.A. Harrison were instrumental in drafting the original laws of Australian football, meaning that the Demons did not merely participate in the creation of the game but were its primary architects.

Melbourne was a founding member of the Victorian Football League in 1897, though the club’s early decades in the competition were marked by an inconsistency that belied its historical stature. The Demons won their first VFL premiership in 1900, but sustained success proved elusive until the late 1930s, when the structural foundations for one of the greatest dynasties in Australian sporting history were finally laid.

The period from 1939 to 1964 stands as Melbourne’s golden era and one of the most dominant stretches in VFL history. Under the coaching of Norm Smith, the Demons accumulated 12 premierships between 1900 and 1964, including a stunning run of six flags in eight years from 1955 to 1964, a feat of sustained excellence that, structurally speaking, required an alignment of coaching vision, playing talent, and institutional culture that has rarely been replicated. The teams of this era, featuring legends such as Ron Barassi, John Beckwith, and Don Williams, set the tactical standard for the competition.

Following that unprecedented success, Melbourne endured an extraordinarily long premiership drought that lasted 57 years, the longest in VFL/AFL history. The drought was finally broken in spectacular fashion in 2021, when Simon Goodwin coached the Demons to a comprehensive 74-point victory over the Western Bulldogs in the grand final at Optus Stadium in Perth, a triumph whose emotional resonance was amplified by the unique circumstances of the COVID-affected season and the sheer weight of accumulated suffering that preceded it.

Recent Form

The 2021 premiership marked the high point of Melbourne’s recent era, but the years that followed brought significant tactical and institutional challenges that exposed the difficulty of sustaining success at the elite level. The 2022 season saw the Demons finish as minor premiers before a disappointing preliminary final exit, and the 2023 and 2024 seasons saw a gradual decline in on-field performance that raised fundamental questions about the list’s competitive trajectory. Midway through the 2025 season, Simon Goodwin was replaced as senior coach by Steven King, who had served as an assistant at Geelong, and in a bold strategic decision to reshape the list, the Demons traded premiership heroes Christian Petracca to Gold Coast and Clayton Oliver to GWS, acquiring a haul of draft picks to accelerate the rebuild. Heading into 2026, Melbourne is in a transitional phase under King’s guidance, with the focus shifting decisively toward developing a new generation of stars capable of writing the next chapter in the club’s extraordinary history.

Key Players

Max Gawn (Captain, Ruckman) - The towering ruckman and beloved captain continues to lead the Demons with the characteristic passion and competitive intensity that have defined his tenure at the helm of the club. Gawn’s tap work, contested marking, and capacity to influence games from the ruck make him one of the most recognisable and tactically important figures in the AFL, and his seventh consecutive season as captain in 2026 provides crucial continuity during a period of significant transition.

Jack Viney (Midfielder) - The son of club legend Todd Viney, Jack is a fierce inside midfielder whose tackling intensity and contested ball-winning ability set the competitive tone for Melbourne’s midfield. His warrior-like approach to the game, built on an uncompromising willingness to put his body on the line, has made him a fan favourite and an indispensable member of the leadership group during both the premiership highs and the challenges that followed.

Jake Lever (Key Defender) - One of the premier intercept defenders in the competition, Lever’s reading of the play, aerial ability, and clean disposal from half-back provide Melbourne with a reliable structural platform for rebound from defence, a tactical role whose importance only increases during a rebuilding phase when defensive stability is paramount.

Kysaiah Pickett (Small Forward) - An electrifying small forward with blistering speed and dynamic goal-kicking ability, Pickett possesses the capacity to produce match-turning moments of individual brilliance that can shift the momentum of a contest in an instant. His presence inside the forward 50 as a constant and unpredictable threat is one of Melbourne’s most significant tactical assets.

Trent Rivers (Defender) - A member of the 2021 premiership side, Rivers has developed into a composed and tactically versatile defender whose capacity to match up on a range of opposition forwards, combined with his rebounding ability from half-back, adds both defensive reliability and an offensive dimension to Melbourne’s back line.

Home Ground

Melbourne plays its home matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the spiritual home of Australian football and the venue whose name the city and the club share. With a capacity of 100,024, the MCG provides a magnificent stage for the Demons, and the club’s deep historical connection to the venue, stretching back to the earliest days of the game itself, lends every home match a sense of occasion that is unique in the AFL.

The MCG has been Melbourne’s home since the club’s inception, and the Demons’ relationship with the ground is intertwined with the history of Australian football in a way that no other club-venue connection can quite replicate. On match days, the red and blue faithful fill the stands and create an atmosphere that reflects the passion of one of the game’s most historically significant institutions. The Queen’s Birthday clash, traditionally played between Melbourne and Collingwood on the long weekend in June, is one of the most anticipated and culturally significant fixtures on the annual calendar. The club’s training base is located at Gosch’s Paddock, directly adjacent to the MCG, providing the players with modern facilities in the heart of Melbourne’s sporting precinct.

Honours

Melbourne’s 13 VFL/AFL premierships reflect one of the richest histories in Australian football:

• 1900 - First VFL premiership
• 1926 - Second premiership
• 1939 - Beginning of the golden era
• 1940 - Back-to-back flags
• 1941 - Three consecutive premierships
• 1948 - Post-war triumph
• 1955 - Start of the Norm Smith dynasty
• 1956 - Back-to-back under Norm Smith
• 1957 - Three consecutive premierships
• 1959 - Continued dominance
• 1960 - Five flags in six years
• 1964 - Sixth premiership in ten years under Norm Smith
• 2021 - Ended 57-year drought, defeating Western Bulldogs by 74 points

The Norm Smith era from 1955 to 1964, during which Melbourne won six premierships in ten years, remains one of the most remarkable periods of sustained tactical and competitive excellence in Australian football history, a dynasty whose structural blueprint has been studied and admired by every subsequent generation of coaches. The 2021 premiership, which ended the longest drought in VFL/AFL history at 57 years, stands as a testament to the resilience and enduring spirit of the Melbourne Football Club, a reminder that no club in the game possesses a deeper reservoir of institutional memory or a more powerful sense of its own historical significance.

AK — Senior tactical analyst, australiafootball.com