Cudgewa Football Netball Club, nicknamed the Blues, are an Australian rules football

Australian rules football

Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...

 club that plays in the Upper Murray Football League

Upper Murray Football League

The Upper Murray Football League is an Australian Rules football competition based in North-east, Victoria and South-Eastern Riverina, New South Wales. The players in the league are largely from Corryong and its surrounding areas. The competition is played over fifteen home and away rounds and four...

. The club is based in Victorian

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 town of Cudgewa

Cudgewa, Victoria

Cudgewa is a town in the Australian state of Victoria. The town is located adjacent to the Murray Valley Highway, north east of the state capital, Melbourne. Part of the Shire of Towong Local Government Area, at the 2006 census Cudgewa and the surrounding district had a population of...

and plays its home games at the Cudgewa Recreation Reserve. The club fields senior, reserve and junior sides as well as fielding all netball sides.

History

The Blues were among the founding members in 1893 of the Corryong Football Association, the competition which, after several name changes, became the Upper Murray Football League in 1937. The side finished second in its debut season and again in 1895 before claiming its first premiership in 1896. This inaugural flag was won on the basis of the number of premiership points attained during the home and away season, but by the time Cudgewa next went top, in 1904, the Association had introduced a finals system. The Blues won that year’s grand final against Corryong, and by the time of the outbreak of world war one had added further such triumphs at the expense of Federal in 1911, Corryong in 1913, and Federal in 1914.

Between the wars Cudgewa claimed another four premierships but it was during the first four decades after world war two that the club really came into its own. Over the course of the forty-one season period from 1946 to 1986 the Blues contested no fewer than twenty-four senior grade grand finals, winning sixteen of them.

The Modern Era

Since the late 1990's Cudgewa has experienced mixed success under a variety of coaches starting by going back to back Premiers in 1999 and 2000. However by the early 2000's the Blues were struggling with the retirement of severel older players and the reformation of the Bullioh Football Club the Blues were drained of many of its better players. For the rest of the decade the Blues made the finals on only 4 occasions as they slowly rebuilt with some of the more promising players in the competition. By 2011 under new coach Bill Deery and with a host of new recruits the club made a resurgance to reach the Grand Final only to be defeated by Bullioh by 63 points in the decider.