The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest league in the country.
The club was established in 1873 and its name originates from the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda. The club was a foundation team of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and in 1897 became a foundation team in the Victorian Football League (VFL), which was renamed the Australian Football League prior to the start of the 1990 premiership season.
The club does not acknowledge any connection to the original St Kilda football club (1858–1864) or the 1872 St Kilda club, however it does have a connection to the South Yarra Football Club (1858-1873) having formed by that club's St Kilda based players.
South Yarra St Kilda Split: 1872-1876
In 1872, St Kilda based players from the South Yarra Football Club (established 1858) broke away and trained in St Kilda, these players were many of the club's finest. For the 1873 season, they cut ties completely with South Yarra to form a new club, St Kilda Football Club, based in St Kilda. The club initially struggled for numbers and in 1875, fielded a combined team with Melbourne University Football Club where remainder of the players had gone after South Yarra folded between 1873 and 1875.
Victorian Football Association: 1877–96
In the early stages the club played at an area known as the "Alpaca Paddock" next to the present site of the St Kilda Bowling Club near the St Kilda railway station. Alpacas were a kind of llama with long wool which had been imported from South America as a money-raising venture. St Kilda soon boasted a membership of 60 and showed that it would exceed its initial aim of being a junior club. By the end of the first season the Saints were able to force a draw with the top-ranking Carlton and everything looked rosy. There were tough times ahead but St Kilda's uphill battle was not without its humorous moments. Only 12 St Kilda players turned up for a match in Bendigo and the game against Albert Park started 90 minutes late after the ball burst when it was being inflated prior to the match. Amalgamation with the university football club did not help the cause either, but the club was still one of the original members of the Victorian Football Association (VFA) when it was formed in 1877. That year St Kilda became only the second team to journey interstate (Melbourne had gone to South Australia a fortnight earlier) and beat Adelaide, then a combined South Australian side.
By 1879 the club slipped to its lowest ebb. After the side failed to turn up for a game at Essendon, all further matches were abandoned. St Kilda sank into junior ranks for the next six years. The club returned to senior competition in 1886 and struggled to make its mark. A decision was made to amalgamate with nearby Prahran and St Kilda retained their colours, name and ground, as well as picking up a number of Prahran players. Even at this early point St Kilda had a reputation for being able to lift miraculously on their day and roll the best teams in the competition. Another trademark was the presence of some of the foremost players in football. Alf Smith, a champion rover, was one of the earliest stars, but the hot and cold Saints could never sustain their brilliance for long. Proof of the team's quixotic nature came in the last season it played in the VFA when several top players missed the Collingwood game because they chose to go to the races instead.
St Kilda competed as a senior club in the VFA from 1877 to 1879, 1881 to 1882 and 1886 to 1896 before competing in the Victorian Football League (VFL) from 1897 onwards.
Early years in the VFL: 1897–1915
St Kilda's early years in the Victorian Football League were not successful, finishing last in nine of the first 14 seasons. In 1899, St Kilda scored the lowest score ever recorded in a VFL/AFL match, one point against Geelong (who scored 162).