Hope for Elizabeth Football Club despite record thrashing while other clubs struggle

Dubbed Australia’s worst footy team after aa 516-point drubbing last weekend, there is now hope on the horizon for the embattled Elizabeth Football Club.

The scoreboard from the record breaking game.

Being bad at footy doesn’t really reap many rewards, but being really, really bad may just have some benefits.

That seems to be the lesson learnt at the Elizabeth Football Club in the Division Six competition of the Adelaide Football League after they plumbed new depths last Saturday when being trounced to the tune of 516-points (yes, that’s the equivalent of 86 goals!).

Despite this masthead documenting the struggles the club was facing leading up to the game, it was only after the photo of the weekend scoreboard went viral across the nation that the rest of the country really started to take notice.

Like a car crash, it was hard to look away.

But the massive focus on that one result now seems to be reaping some rewards.

Elizabeth football director Tim Young (right) with new coach Matt Switala. Picture: Elizabeth Football Club

Players returned to training en masse on Tuesday, a former club hero has returned to take over the coaching reins, ex-AFL footballers are expressing their desires to play for the club, celebrity local DJs from Nova will pull on the jumper and the club has even signed a new two-year sponsorship deal with Channel 7’s Sunrise.

All this positivity is getting to the point where other clubs in Division Six, now seemingly worried that having so many fly in-fly out ex-AFL and SANFL players would damage the integrity of the competition, applied to have the Elizabeth seniors relegated to a reserve grade status only for the rest of the season.

How quickly the wheel turns.

Suffice to say all eyes will again be on Elizabeth this weekend when they return to the field against third-bottom team Adelaide Lutheran for this week’s game.

Clubs struggle across the nation

It’s not just Elizabeth which is struggling to make an on-field impact at the moment.

In competitions across the country there are the perennial cellar dwellers who are constantly holding up the bottom rungs of the ladder.

Take, for example, the battling Western Rams Football Club in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

As documented this week the Rams have been battered week in, week out since 2018 which is when they last tasted victory. That’s so long ago that few of us had ever heard the word Wuhan at that point.

Not to be deterred, the Rams have this year changed leagues in a bid to end the winning drought, have brought in a new coach and there is a renewed vibe of positivity around the club.

Western Rams leadership group for 2024.

In Tasmania’s Southern Football League it’s the Claremont Magpies, in their 100th year, who are struggling, winless with a percentage of just 4.14.

While there have always been (and will always be) regular blowout margins in the smaller leagues across the country, a worrying trend seems to be emerging in 2024, particularly in regional Victoria, where these results are becoming commonplace in what have traditionally been powerhouse, highly competitive leagues.

In the Bendigo Football League there are grave concerns over the viability of the Maryborough Football Club which this week succumbed to the greatest loss in the competition’s history when it was smacked by 333 points.

A look across other powerhouse leagues reveals clubs with similar concerns.

In Ballarat, Melton South is suffering regular 150-point beltings, while in the Ovens and Murray League the Corowa-Rutherglen club (returning this year from recess) is providing a lot of goal kicking practice for opposition forwards.

A similar tale of woe can be seen with Portland in the Hampden Football League.

Having smashings in minor leagues is one thing, but seeing constant blowouts in premier competitions must be something of a concern for the game’s custodians.

Originally published as Hope for Elizabeth Football Club despite record thrashing while other clubs struggle