This page provides a curated list of Australian rugby clubs by date (year) of establishment. The table is confined to the first open rugby clubs in the Australian colonies i.e. clubs whose membership was open (i.e. community/non-institutional clubs), and excludes the teams of a school, university, hospital, or similar institution, or ‘old boys’ thereof.
The list has been prepared with the greatest care and attention, but may not be complete, nor necessarily free from debate and contention.
The convention of using “FC” for club names in the formative era was because they were a football (in the broad use of the word) playing club, irrespective of what playing rules were being used.
The term “rugby union” to describe the game did not come into being until after the formation in 1871 of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in England. This did not immediately impact the continued practice of naming rugby-playing clubs as “FC”.
Upon formation in 1874 the NSWRU (called the Southern Rugby Football Union) adopted the playing laws of the RFU without alteration.
Story written & researched by Sean Fagan ©
AUSTRALIAN RUGBY’S FIRST CLUBS: A COMPENDIUM, 1858-1876
| Year | Club Name | COLONY & CITY | Key Historical Context & Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1858 | Melbourne FC | VIC, Melbourne | Current AFL club devised its unique football rules in 1859, however as the club claims it was formed in 1858, in effect it began life as a rugby club. [Link] |
| 1858 | South Yarra FC | VIC, Melbourne | Established before the Melbourne FC devised its unique football rules, newspapers show it was playing a form of rugby in 1858. Defunct in 1873. [Link] |
| 1870 | Wallaroo FC | NSW, Sydney | Founded in Sydney by Rugby School old boys, first club to unequivocally adopt rugby rules. Organised the NSWRU in 1874. Final premiership game in 1899. [Link] |
| 1872 | Albion FC | NSW, West Maitland | In May 1872 first club formed in regional NSW, initially had its own variant rugby rules. Joined the NSWRU c.1876. A highly regarded club went defunct in 1882. [Link] |
| 1872 | Goulburn FC | NSW, Goulburn | Formed by the captain of Sydney University FC. Co-founder of NSWRU. Defunct before WW1, possibly much earlier. |
| 1873 | Balmain FC | NSW, Sydney | Club in inner city suburban working-class area, divided into multiple new local clubs in the early 1890s. Co-founder of NSWRU. |
| 1874 | Waratah FC | NSW, Sydney | Formed from Wallaroo FC second XV players. Co-founder of NSWRU, but in 1882 switched codes to Australian rules. Club became defunct c.1893. |
| 1874 | Bathurst FC | NSW, Bathurst | In early 20th century was country NSW’s oldest rugby club. Due to rise of rugby league across the state’s mid-west towns, club was defunct by 1914. |
| 1874 | Mudgee FC | NSW, Mudgee | Founded at the same time as the NSWRU. Gave way in the early 1900s to the formation of multiple cross-town rugby clubs. |
| 1874 | Victoria FC | NSW, Sydney | Formed at a meeting in inner-city Darlington with a view to serving the South Sydney area. The club withdrew in May 1876. |
| 1874 | Murrurundi FC | NSW, Murrurundi | Based in the northern Hunter region, little is known about this club, although it continued until well into the mid-1880s. |
| 1875 | Hunter’s Hill FC | NSW, Sydney | Played against other minor clubs and the Seconds of the bigger Sydney clubs. Final season was 1876. |
| 1875 | Launceston FC | TAS, Launceston | Present-day Australian rules club, its first games were ostensibly rugby union with cross-bar, tries, conversions and running with the ball. [Link] |
| 1875 | Toxteth FC | NSW, Sydney | Based in the Glebe suburbs of inner-Sydney, the club fielded both a First and Second teams. It’s final season was 1881. |
| 1876 | Rangers FC | QLD, Brisbane | Brisbane’s first club to adopt rugby union rules at its founding meeting. A prominent city club in its only two seasons played. |
| 1876 | Bonnet Rouge FC | QLD, Brisbane | Brisbane’s second club to adopt rugby union rules at its founding meeting, played just the one season. |
| 1876 | Brisbane FC | QLD, Brisbane | Founded 1866 under Victorian (Australian) rules, switched to rugby joining Rangers and Bonnet Rouge clubs. In 1879 returned to Victorian rules with occasional rugby games. Defunct after 1887. [Link] |
| 1876 | Singleton & Patrick’s Plains FC | NSW, Singleton | Club played locally for its one and only season, including against Albion FC from West Maitland. |
Footnote 1: Football clubs in Victoria, prior to 1859
The first rules of what would become Australian rules (Victorian rules) football were devised by the Melbourne FC on 17 May 1859. These rules were adopted in 1860 by other clubs. It is likely all of these clubs, including Melbourne FC, prior to this had adopted a form of Rugby rules. These clubs include South Yarra, St Kilda, Richmond, Williamstown, Collingwood (not the present day club), Boroondara and Geelong. [Link]
Footnote 2: Sydney, Australia prior to 1870
The handful of clubs that existed in Sydney between 1865 and 1868 had adopted Australian rules or a variant thereof. The Sydney University FC, which cites 1863 as its founding year, is not listed in the table above as it was the team of an educational institution and not an open club. In any event, the University footballers did not formalise into a club until 1871, and there is no evidence of its teams playing anyone under rugby football rules until 1870. [Link]
Footnote 3: Other NSW clubs and teams prior to 1877
The Lyndhurst FC playing in c.1875-76 is almost certainly a team from the Lyndhurst College at Glebe which closed in 1877.
The Sydney Morning Herald of 11 July 1876 mentions a Clifton FC playing Toxteth FC (Glebe). There was in this era a Clifton Cricket Club associated with workers from Coal Cliff coal mine at Clifton, on the Illawarra coast south of Sydney.
There was a Gulgong FC (or Gulgong and Home Rule FC) from 1870 to c.1875 in this mining towns area north of Mudgee, however it appears to be a football club organised around playing folk football by Irish miners, with associated balls (dance balls), wrestling, athletics and so forth held on celebration days such as St Patrick’s Day, as well as football matches for prizes (cash).
WHEN IS A RUGBY CLUB A FOOTBALL CLUB?
The biggest “tell” of a rugby club’s true vintage is in its name: the earliest pioneers were named simply “FC” (Football Club) rather than “RUC” (Rugby Union Club), “RC”, “RFC”, and so on. For instance, see Sale FC, West of Scotland FC, Wallaroo FC and Hull FC. Even in North America, this convention applied when the rugby-playing Chicago FC adopted its name in c.1873.
As pointed out at the top of this page, the term “rugby union” to describe the game did not come into being until after the formation of the RFU in England. It did not immediately impact the continued practice of naming rugby-playing clubs as “FC”.
In the Australian colonies of NSW and Queensland, where rugby was dominant, the convention of naming a rugby club simply as “FC” prevailed until the end of the nineteenth century, and possibly longer in regional areas. In Goulburn in the 1890s, the flag of the local Wallaroo rugby club had W.F.B.C., implying it was a Foot Ball Club (perhaps the flag was a well-intentioned gift).
Even beyond that era, in Sydney the “FC” was retained on the end, such as today in the NRL where the 1908 founded Rabbitohs are formally the South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club (often shortened to “South Sydney Football Club” by the organisation itself), and in the city’s Shute Shield rugby clubs (Eastern Suburbs District RUFC, Randwick DRUFC, Northern Suburbs RFC).
Conversely, in the other Australian colonies, clubs named “FC” were typically Australian rules (now AFL) clubs.
© Sean Fagan.
