1995 Sturt Football Club season

1995 saw the Sturt Football Club set a number of unwanted South Australian National Football League records:

The Sturt Football Club experienced a long-term decline following a record 1978 season that saw the team win a SANFL record 21 of 22 games, but then lose the 1978 Grand Final by the narrowest of margins to Norwood. The Double Blues fell from minor premiers to ninth of ten clubs in 1979, and although they recovered to make the Grand Final in 1983 with Rick Davies kicking a then-SANFL record 151 goals, after the controversial sacking of Mervyn Keane at the end of a 1988 season that had seen the club rise from second last to finalists and apparently to potential premiership contenders, the club went into free-fall under the coaching of Davies in 1989. That season the Double Blues won only four games and towards the end as their on-field performances deteriorated the off-field strife that had seen Keane sacked recurred, with Davies resigning after Glenelg beat them by 132 points in the final match.

A succession of coaches failed to lift the Double Blues off the bottom of the table: the team won only sixteen of 106 games between 1990 and 1994, and following the sacking of legendary coach Haydn Bunton junior who guided the Double Blues to only nine wins in 42 games, Sturt entered a serious crisis as many experienced players left the club, notably skipper Jay Viney to North Adelaide, Damian Kitschke to study abroad, Stuart Wigney to Glenelg and ultimately Richmond plus Chris Williams and spearhead Jody Arnol to Darwin.

After an attempt to merge with Norwood and enter the AFL was rejected, Phil Carman, a former VFL star originally from Edenhope, took the reins on a three-year contract for 1995 after having been Sturt’s fitness coordinator. Nevertheless, the Double Blues’ inexperienced list almost never threatened any of its opponents and by mid-season it was clear that a win was unlikely and results became even worse later on; for instance, in a game against West Adelaide regarded the previous week as Sturt’s “best chance for a win this season”, West Adelaide, when two goals ahead at quarter time, set a goal of keeping the Double Blues goalless on a rain-soaked Adelaide Oval in the last three quarters and succeeded.

...
Wikipedia