Montmorency’s bid to end 45-year flag drought in Northern Football Netball League grand final
The long wait for a premiership has had a remarkable effect on Montmorency. Demons of near-misses will finally be put to bed if the town’s beloved footy club can prevail as a grand final underdog, writes SHANNON GILL.
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When Greg Bowman heads to the Montmorency shops to grab a coffee he has to clear his diary.
“There are football people everywhere in Were Street at any time during the day and they’re always stopping and talking about the footy,” he tells CODE Sports.
“You go to the coffee shop and it takes you 15 minutes to get out of there, because there’s such a footy vibe in the town.”
Bowman is the president of Montmorency Football Netball Club, which makes him the unofficial ‘Mayor of Monty’.
This week he might need to set aside a few hours.
Montmorency are in the Northern Football Netball League grand final on Saturday, aiming to break a 45-year premiership drought in the same year they celebrate their centenary.
It’s all anybody wants to talk about. Many see it as a David and Goliath battle.
Montmorency is a young team of predominantly homegrown players without any AFL experience.
Opponent Heidelberg has won the past two NFNL premierships, and eight this century, usually with a steady stream of former AFL talent at its disposal.
“They’ve proven over the last two years that they’re a very good side, they’re going to be very, very hard to beat again,” Bowman says.
The team may look overmatched on paper, having lost to Heidelberg three times this season already, but hope is still there.
What the club lacks in silverware it makes up for on just about every other measure.
A ‘country club’ in the suburbs
Lee Adamson was a Collingwood defender in the 1960s and 70s who went to Montmorency to play and coach after his VFL career. He was named playing-coach of their team of the century and has supported the club for decades since.
“We’re the only club in the league not to have gone down to the second division,” he tells CODE Sports proudly.
Every other club knows that any win against ‘Mont’, particularly at their home ground, is well-earned.
They’ve also been a pioneer in growing strong junior programs (25 teams in 2024), women’s football teams (they won their first Division 1 Women’s flag last season) and a netball section.
“If you measure success in premierships, we’ve been found wanting, but if you measure success in terms of community engagement, community atmosphere and an environment for boys and girls and parents, it’s a different story,” Bowman says.
It’s what keeps drawing Adamson back as a local resident.
“You always see people you know in the community and have a chat, and I like that,” he says.
Many believe that strength is derived from how much the football club’s fortunes are wrapped up in the town. In metropolitan Melbourne football, it’s rare for a club to be as emblematic of a place as Montmorency is.
“Montmorency is a village and the footy club is the equivalent. The football club in many ways has a bit of a country club feel about it,” Adamson says.
That village has a population of around 9000 and is sandwiched between ‘big brother’ suburbs Greensborough and Eltham, which double Montmorency’s population.
By all rights, those football clubs should put Montmorency in the shade.
They don’t.
Greensborough is its great local rival and equal, that it pipped by two points in last week’s preliminary final. Eltham has bounced between Division 1 and 2 for decades chasing ‘Mont’.
“We’ve always said that for a little suburb, which is a cul-de -sac tucked in between Eltham and Greensborough, we have punched above our weight,” Adamson says.
‘When are we gonna win one?!’
Sadly, it’s only been grand final days when it hasn’t.
This century, there have been some heartbreakers to rival the infamous ‘Colliwobbles’ that plagued its namesake black and white Magpies in the VFL through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
In 2002, they lost to Northcote Park by just seven points.
In 2003, they finished four games clear on top but were upset by West Preston on grand final day.
In 2008, they led Heidelberg by 26 points at three-quarter-time but were undone by the Preston City oval breeze in the last quarter.
Defeat in 2013, may have been the toughest to take, leading by 47 points in the third quarter before being overrun by Bundoora.
“A couple of times we’ve been so close and just not got over the line, so to actually win one would just put to bed so many demons,” Bowman says.
Adamson knows both sides of a grand final result, having played for Collingwood in 1966 and 1970 GF losses, then captain-coaching Montmorency to its 1976 premiership. He thinks the wait has made the club even more central to the town.
“That’s been exacerbated by the fact of not winning a flag in all that time, you know. People are hanging on … ‘When are we gonna win one?!’
“If they win, it’ll be an upset, but that can happen. It will be pretty exciting because gee whiz, we’ve had a few chances since ’79.”
Daring to dream
Win or lose in 2024, the method of arrival in the grand final bodes well for the club to continue to be the heartbeat of Montmorency.
“The VFL and ex-AFL players are often the cream on the top,” Bowman says.
“So to get there and be in it without that is a really good sign for our club in what we’re producing, and a good effort from our coach.”
And while they don’t have AFL experience on the field, they’ll have some big-league experience on the bench.
Coach Nick Rutley has been an assistant at AFLW level, former Melbourne ruckman Jake Spencer has been an assistant coach this year after injury stopped him taking the field, while fellow assistant Steve McCrystal spent 26 years at the Adelaide Crows in recruiting and scouting roles.
The way that group has developed a relatively unheralded set of players across the season allows Bowman to dream of an upset for a moment in his busy week.
“Forty-five years is a long time,” he says. “There’s some people here that think are they ever gonna see another Mont flag?’”
There would also be a direct link to that last flag.
The late Terry Paterson played in that 1979 team and his son Ben will be playing on Saturday, after kicking three goals and being one of the club’s best last week.
“A win would make the ‘79 and ‘76 premiership heroes very happy, because they carry the flag and say hurry up and win one because we’re all getting too old for this,” Bowman says.
“And it would make a lot of people who have done so much work for so long over those 45 years ago, very, very happy.”
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