Peel Football League
| Sport | Australian rules football |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1992 |
| President | Paul Campaner |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Sth Mandurah (League) Halls Head (Reserves) Halls Head (Colts) |
The Peel Football League (PFL) is a country football league based in the Peel region of Western Australia. The competition was formed in 1992 when teams from the Metropolitan Football League and Murray Districts Football League merged. There are currently eight league and reserves teams and nine colts teams.
The Metropolitan Football League (MFL) was a predecessor to the PFL and competed from 1988 to 1991 under the administration of the Sunday Football League. The six founding MFL teams in 1988 were Kwinana, Manning, Midland, Mosman Park, North Fremantle and Cockburn. In 1989, the MFL grew from 6 teams to 8 teams with the inclusion of Mundijong Centrals and Pinjarra. These two teams were previously competing in the Murray Districts Football League (along with Harvey Town, South Mandurah and Waroona).
The MFL gained another two teams in 1990, with the admission of South Mandurah and Waroona, who were forced to join the league when the Murray Districts Football League disbanded at the end of the 1989 season. Cockburn also did not compete in 1990, but re-entered for the final year of the MFL in 1991.
In 1992, the ten MFL teams broke ties with the Sunday Football League and combined with Mandurah (from the Sunday Football League) and Belmont to form the new Peel Football League (PFL). In 1994, Midland, Mosman Park, Manning, North Fremantle, Cockburn and Belmont left the PFL to form Division 2 of the Sunday Football League (along with a new club from Kingsley). However, the loss of these six teams was offset by the admission of Rockingham (from the WA Amateur Football League) and a new team from Harvey.
Note: The information above was sourced from Sunday Football League Yearbooks and Westside Football Newspapers.
The end of 2008 saw the end of neighbouring competition the Sunday Football League. This fuelled rumours that 4 of their clubs would be joining the competition in 2009. There were many mixed reactions throughout the competition, with majority of the people and clubs involved, against the idea. Even though clubs rejected the offer, rumours fuelled that the WAFC were going to over rule the clubs and input the new clubs in by themselves. The Harvey Bulls reacted immediately. With playing numbers already at a dangerous low, and coming off a poor season, the input of the four clubs would increase travel time and therefore playing interest would tumble further. So in an effort to increase interest in the club, it held a meeting within the community to decide on their future. There were two options decided to vote upon. Move to the South West Football League or fold. In an overwhelming decision it was voted to create a submission to become the tenth team in the SWFL.
While all this was happening the PFL decided to try to fight of the merger. All clubs voted against it, but it was up to the WAFC to decide on their fate. Meanwhile, the SWFL decided to look into the Bulls submission. The Bulls had a meeting with the SWFL board and both parties came out of the meeting happy, and it was now up to the other clubs in the SWFL to vote upon the Bulls in a months time. The bulls needed to get 7 or more votes out of 9 to enter the competition.
...
Wikipedia