Caulfield Grammarians Football Club, is an Australian rules football club based in Caulfield East, Victoria. The club, composed of Caulfield Grammar School alumni is, along with Old Melburnians, the (equal) second oldest consecutively competing team in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) (the oldest being Collegians).
The team entered the competition in 1920, and has competed continuously since that time (competition was suspended from 1940 to 1945 during World War II). In 2020, the club’s centenary year, all 6 teams will be playing in their respective A Grades.
Their home ground is the Glenhuntly Oval, at the corner of Neerim Road and Booran Road.
Caulfield Grammar "Old Boys" From time to time various teams of "Old Boys" were selected to play against the school's team. The first of these matches took place on 15 August 1889, and matches such as these took place on a regular basis from 1907 to 1914 (when the matches ceased due to World War I).
Caulfield Grammarians Football Club
The Caulfield Grammarians Football Club was founded in early 1920. Caulfield Grammar School's headmaster, Walter Murray Buntine, was elected as its inaugural president. Buntine gave the team access to all of the schools sporting facilities for its training, and he allowed the team to use the school's oval as its home ground.
Metropolitan Amateur Football Association
On Monday, 22 March 1920, a meeting of the (then) Metropolitan Amateur Football Association decided to resume the inter-club competition that it had suspended for the duration of World War I at the end of the 1915 season. The MAFA announced that the re-formed competition would be between four of the "pre-war" clubs, Collegians Football Club, South Yarra Amateur Football Club, Elsternwick Football Club, and Melbourne University Football Club (later University Blacks), and four "new clubs": Old Melburnians, Old Caulfield Grammarians, Melbourne Swimming Club Football Club and the Teachers’ College Football Club.
In their first competition match, on Saturday 15 May 1920, Old Caulfield Grammarians were narrowly beaten 7.11 (53) to 6.16 (50) by Collegians.
Their second competition match was against Teachers’ College on Saturday, 22 May 1920, at the Caulfield Grammar School Oval. Old Caulfield Grammarians won convincingly, 12.17 (89) to 3.7 (25).
A 1921 press report of the team's Metropolitan Amateur Football Association match against Hampton refers to the team as Old Caulfield Collegians; it is unclear whether this was an inadvertent typographical error — such as the South Australian newspaper references to Hans Ebeling (C.G.S. 1919–1922), as "the old Caulfield Collegian" — or a case of the reporter confusing the Old Caulfield Grammarians Football Club with an earlier team known as "Caulfield Collegians" that seems to have, from time to time, contained a large percentage of Caulfield Grammar "Old Boys".
In 1904, the Victorian press reported that Caulfield Collegians Football Club, centred on Caulfield Grammar School, that played its matches on the school grounds, was competing in a competition conducted by The Colleges' Football Association:<ref>[http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189433168 Colleges' Association, The Age" (Wednesday, 28 September 1904), p.11].</ref> Great things are expected of … this association … formed at the beginning of the [1904] season … [and] composed of teams from various well-known schools, and one from the University … as it fills a long-felt want in providing games on Saturdays for those who, although they have left school, do not wish to surrender its healthy amusements.
In the competition's first season (1904), Caulfield Collegians Football Club was the premier team; and, in the second season (1905), Sherwood Collegians'' were premiers. There is no trace of any further competition conducted by the Colleges' Football Association.
VAFA Senior Premierships
1925 – B Grade
On Saturday, 12 September 1925, coached by former VFL senior umpire, Brighton coach, and Brunswick, Prahran, Brighton, and St Kilda footballer, Fred Turnbull and lead by Ian Howell, Caulfield Grammarians beat Teachers' College by 37 points, 13.14 (92) to 8.7 (55) to win the B Section premiership at the Old Scotch Oval; the team's full forward, Eric Dakin, kicked four goals in the Grand Final to bring his season's total to 125 goals.
Goals: E.Dakin 4, Cassidy 4, Dunstan 2, Kohn 2, Chaffey. Best: Pie, Matheson, Cassidy, Jones, Dunstan, Donaldson.