The Preston Football Club, nicknamed the Bullants, is an Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Preston. The club last competed in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and played its home games at Preston City Oval.
The club was established in 1882. After playing in junior competitions, the club first participated in senior football in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) between 1903 and 1911, and then again continuously since 1926. The team became known as the Bullants, and wore a plain red guernsey with a white monogram. Preston won four VFA premierships, with its periods of greatest success coming in the 1960s and 1980s.
Since the VFA changed to become the VFL in the 1990s, Preston competed as the Preston Knights from 1996 until 1999 in a partnership with the Northern Knights under-18s team; and then as the Northern Bullants starting in 2000. The club had a reserves affiliation with the Carlton Football Club from the Australian Football League (AFL) from 2003 until 2019; and from 2012 until 2019, the club adopted Carlton's identity to become the Northern Blues, wearing navy blue and white.
The reserves alignment ended in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the club operated as a stand-alone VFL club again as the Northern Bullants (2021–2025). Despite intending to return as the Preston Football Club the following year, the club had its VFL licence revoked at the end of the 2025 season, and was put into liquidation at the end of year.
Contents
History
The club was formed in 1882, but little is known of its first three years before the Shire of Jika Jika changed its name in September 1885 to Preston. Preston and another local club, Gowerville, then merged and competed at lower levels of the Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA). After a battle with the council, the club was finally granted permission in 1887 to play on Preston Park, where it has remained with the exception of one year when it played at Coburg to allow the ground to be widened.
1890−1902: VJFA
From 1890, the club played in the first-rate division of the VJFA and, despite its remote location compared with other clubs, was the only one of the 28 teams of 1890 to survive the decade, despite finishing last or second last in five consecutive seasons.
By the late 1890s, the district was starting to grow, and the struggling club gathered depth and strength. It took out the first of three consecutive first-rate premierships in 1900, defeating Collingwood Juniors (effectively the League team's Seconds) before 5,000 people at Brunswick Street Oval. Further premierships followed in 1901 and 1902, with no finals being played as Preston finished the requisite two games clear of its nearest rivals to claim the title. After the 1902 premiership, "Bounce" in The Herald asked: "Will the VFL find room for [Preston]?"
1903−1911: VFA entry
With the VFA keen to expand, Preston was a logical choice to join the senior body in 1903. The uniform changed from a blue jumper with yellow sash (which would have clashed with Williamstown) to a plain maroon jumper with navy blue knicks. Despite a reasonable opening season in which it won six games, the club struggled to find players and finished last in 1904 in the middle of what was to be a 27-game losing streak.
Several other bottom-of-the list results came before a brief resurgence in 1909 under former Collingwood champion Charlie Pannam, but with the loss of several key players to VFL clubs, Preston again went on a downward spiral and won just one game through 1910 and 1911.
1912−1925: Back to the juniors
With Northcote joining the Association in 1908, pressure was applied for the two neighbouring clubs to merge and the VFA forced the issue early in 1912. Preston officials encouraged their players to move, but diverted all the club's trophies and assets to the junior Preston Districts Football Club, which had acted as its reserves team. Northcote became known as the Northcote and Preston Football Club (or simply Northcote-Preston) for the next few years, but it played its games in Northcote, retained Northcote's colours, and its team in the VFA continued to be known as Northcote. The merged entity is considered a continuation of the Northcote Football Club.
Preston was simply promoted before its time: by 1912, the district numbered just 4,800 people spread over 8,800 acres (an average of 0.6 persons per acre). Of the other suburbs represented in the VFA, the next smallest was Brighton with 11,000. Preston's leading player during the early VFA days was Sid Hall, a centre half-back regarded as the best high mark in the competition. Despite the lack of success, Preston managed to supply some fine players to VFL ranks in Percy Ogden (Essendon), Hedley Tomkins and Bill Hendrie (Melbourne), Hugh James (Richmond), Joe Prince (St Kilda, South Melbourne and Carlton), George Doull (Geelong) and Eric Woods (University). Preston's place was taken by Melbourne City which didn't win a game in the two years before it folded.
The junior club played as Preston Districts from 1912 to 1915, until the name changed to Preston prior to the start of the 1916 season, something that Preston officials may have always intended in 1912. This effectively meant Preston Districts ceased to exist, replaced by Preston.
The nucleus of Preston returned to the first-rate division of the Victorian Junior Football Association. Ogden returned to captain-coach the club in 1916 and 1917 while Essendon was in recess for the First World War; and, by 1919, Preston had re-established itself as one of the top teams in junior football. Young George Gough was recruited by Fitzroy as a rover. Premierships came in 1921 and again in 1923 with Preston, under the coaching of William "Bull" Adams, who had been refused a clearance to Fitzroy by his West Australian club, overrunning Yarraville in the final term despite playing one man short.
1926: Rejoining the VFA
With the loss of North Melbourne, Footscray and Hawthorn to the League in 1925, the Association accepted Preston (just proclaimed a city) and Camberwell into its ranks for the 1926 season.
The team used the uniform from its junior days, a broad red stripe down the chest and back with white sides and sleeves. This time the club was ready for senior ranks, raising some eyebrows when it won nine of the 18 games in its first season as well as supplying the Recorder Cup winner, William "Bluey" Summers. A finals appearance came the following year. Preston's first ever senior final finished in a draw with Brighton, which won the replay a fortnight later.
The club remained in the middle ranking of the Association up until the cessation of play during World War I, the highlight being a remarkable 1931 season under the legendary Roy Cazaly who sacked half the side mid-season and promoted youngsters. Needing to win 12 games straight to ensure a finals spot, Preston managed to sneak in with 11 wins and a draw, but was bundled out in the preliminary final due to several injuries (including Cazaly).
Despite its modest finals record (the semi-final win was the only finals match Preston won), the club provided the 1934 and 1936 Recorder Cup winners in Danny Warr and Bert Hyde respectively. Leading players up to World War 2 included Summers, Warr, "Bert" Smith, Francis "Dickie" Dowling and Bill "Socks" Maslen, the latter pair being the club's record-holders for number of senior games played. Although he was never a star with Preston, 17-year-old Bert Deacon played his first match in 1940, later becoming Carlton's first Brownlow Medallist in 1947. With the abolition of clearance agreements between the League and Association in 1938, Preston snared Footscray champion Alby Morrison as captain-coach for 1939–40 (although Morrison did obtain a clearance), and in 1941 a young Geelong ruckman, Jack Lynch, who was switched to full-forward early in the season and finished with 133 goals. Lynch is the only known Preston player to have been killed during the War.
The "Bullants" nickname was first mentioned in the Herald newspaper in 1938, with an article on Association clubs adopting new nicknames, noting that "Preston will be known as the 'Bullants', because they can sting". 1930s radio commentator Wallace "Jumbo" Sharland referred to the small Preston team in its bright uniforms as "like a swarm of busy bullants".
1980s
The club was one of the VFA's strongest in the 1980s, and it reached four Grand Finals in a row between 1981 and 1984. The team fell well short in the 1981 decider, unable to match Port Melbourne who inflicted a record Grand Final defeat (both score and winning margin) on the Bullants. The Borough kicked 23 goals to six in the second half to record its first score above 200 ever against the Bullants. The following season saw the return of Ray Shaw, captain of Collingwood in 1982 but disillusioned with bitter infighting at the club. Shaw's influence and a number of highly rated recruits had many believing that this would be Preston's year, but again Port Melbourne proved the nemesis with a seven-point win in the Grand Final.
Further strong recruiting brought together probably the greatest depth of players ever at an Association club. Preston rewrote the record books in 1983 by becoming the first club to win the Senior, Seconds and Thirds premierships in the same year in Division 1, and repeated the achievement in 1984. Preston was a dominant force in the Seconds over that period, reaching eight of ten Grand Finals between 1978 and 1987, winning five. The club had been a perennial force in the Thirds competition since the 1950s, missing the Grand Final only nine times over a 37-season stretch between 1953 and 1989 and winning the premiership a VFA-record 13 times (eleven in Division 1 and two in Division 2); its 1980s form was particularly strong, missing only one Grand Final between 1978 and 1989. Neil Jordon capitalised on the club's strong minor grade form, playing an astonishing 84 matches with the club across all three grades before ever playing in a losing side.
Eight straight wins in 1985 extended Preston's winning stretch to a record 23, but with the loss of Shaw to the Diamond Valley, retirement of a few experienced players and the movement of several promising younger players to League ranks, Preston's period of dominance was at an end. The club reached a further four finals series between 1985 and 1990, winning the minor premiership in 1990, but was eliminated from the finals by Williamstown on all four occasions. During this time, the club unearthed a new legend in Jamie "Spider" Shaw who kicked 106 in his first season and followed up with an astonishing 145 in 1986 before an unsuccessful stint at Fitzroy.
1990s: Decline
With the ethnic mix of the Preston area rapidly changing and the almost saturation coverage of the now Australian Football League, the club's off-field position deteriorated in the 1990s, and it was constantly battling for survival. Preston was not the only club struggling, and at the end of 1994, the VFA Board of Management merged with the Victorian State Football League (VSFL) (now controlling the elite under-18 competition that had effectively replaced both the League and Association Thirds), and plans gradually evolved for the development of a new competition, which became the Victorian Football League.
With a mounting debt, Preston entered into a merger with the Northern Knights under-18 team in 1996. The combined entity was known as the Preston Knights and adopted the Knights uniform of white with black and blue hoops. The move provided some financial stability off the field, but little success on the football front.
In October 1997, the VSFL executive announced that the Preston Knights' licence with the League had been withdrawn and that Preston, after 95 years, was effectively out of the competition. A number of protest meetings were organised and the club found a willing ally in Don Gillies, an administrator appointed by the State Government to replace the long-dysfunctional Preston Council, who through years of neglect had allowed the Preston Oval to degenerate to a standard well below that required for senior football. Gillies, in meeting with the VSFL, undertook to initiate significant drainage and lighting improvements at the ground and after around about a month of uncertainty, the Knights' license was reinstated when Traralgon announced its withdrawal from the VFL after an unsuccessful two-year trial.
The shaky alliance with the Knights continued until 1999 when the Board announced it could not recommend continuing. A new group approached the now VFL with a proposal to resurrect the club under the name of the Northern Bullants, market research having revealed that much of the club's support and player base no longer lay within the old Preston area. The revived club returned to a variation of the traditional red uniform, replacing the PFC monogram with a white bullant (although the logo actually featured a termite until it was replaced in 2002). The PFC initials were later added to the back of the guernsey below the collar.
At the same time, the AFL abandoned its reserves competition in favour of a restructured VFL comprising a number of AFL–VFL affiliations, AFL reserve teams and "standalone" VFL clubs. The Bullants opted not to pursue affiliation with an AFL club. 2000 and 2001 saw the stand-alone Bullants post six wins in each season, but the difficulty of having part-time players and coaching staff competing with full-time AFL counterparts was obvious in many games where the Bullants were highly competitive for much of the match but outgunned by fitter, bigger and stronger opposition late in the game.
2003−2020: Affiliation
Just before the end of the 2002 season, proposals for affiliation were received from both Essendon and Carlton. Essendon's plans were virtual domination of the club with a jumper change, renaming as the Northern Bombers and playing several games each season at Windy Hill. Carlton's, on the other hand, was for a cooperative playing group with no change to traditional values and was accepted without major modification by the Bullants board.
The affiliated team continued under long-serving coach Mark P. Williams, but there was to be no instant success, the club coincidentally matching the 2001–02 result with six wins in 2003. With a few personal tensions emerging, Carlton announced its intention to withdraw from the two-year agreement at the end of the 2003 season, but subsequent negotiations between the two clubs and the VFL saw the problems resolved and a new arrangement established. Williams had already resigned, citing lack of time, (later accepting the role at Sandringham) and under the terms of the agreement, Carlton retained the right to nominate one of their assistant coaches, eventually Barry Mitchell, as his replacement.
Carlton at the time was struggling in the AFL due to the loss of National Draft picks because of salary cap infringements. This worked in the Bullants' favour in the mid-2000s, as Carlton opted to recruit a number of experienced mid-range AFL players recycled from other teams, who went on to provide a backbone of a very strong VFL team. The club surprised most by finishing third in 2005, then won the minor premiership with a club best 17–1 record in 2006, but suffered heavy losses in two finals to finish third.
Under coach David Teague, the Bullants managed to finish third on the ladder in 2009, then win through to the Grand Final for the first time since the 1984 victory; but, the team was comfortably beaten by North Ballarat. The Bullants reached a second consecutive Grand Final the following season, winning through to the Grand Final from sixth on the ladder, but again lost to North Ballarat. The club reached another preliminary final from sixth place in 2011.
In 2012, the club adopted many features of Carlton's identity. The club was renamed the Northern Blues, and the playing colours were changed to navy blue and white, featuring Carlton's CFC monogram but in a slightly different design to the AFL club's guernsey. Home games were split between Preston City Oval and Princes Park. The club retained a red and white guernsey for matches played in Preston, and when a clash guernsey was required. The club never made VFL finals under the Northern Blues name. Also during this time, the club's former identity was established in the form of the Northern Bullants Amateur Football Club, a separate entity that was established and entered the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). Preston AFC was formerly known as the Northern Bullants and later the Northern Blues, and by their current name since 2016.
2021−2025: Standalone club folds
In the five years after returning as a standalone club, the Bullants struggled in the VFL. The club won three wooden spoons: in 2022 (when it managed only a single win), 2024 and 2025. The club suffered several of the heaviest losses in its history over those five years, including against Werribee in round 22, 2022, in which it scored only scored 0.10 (10) and lost by 181 points; and against Footscray in round 18, 2023, in which it lost by 157 points and was held to its lowest-ever score of 0.4 (4), also the lowest score in the VFL for more than a century.
Former Collingwood player Brodie Holland coached the club in 2023, and former Carlton and Dandenong player Rohan Welsh coached the club in 2024. In a tumultuous start to the 2025 season, Welsh and the club courted controversy after expressing interest in signing former North Melbourne player Tarryn Thomas, who had been suspended from the AFL in 2024 following a number of legal issues, backing down after social media criticism and the threat of losing sponsors and members.
A new president and board took over the club in early 2025. They reverted the club from the Northern Bullants name to its traditional "Preston Football Club" name on 20 August 2025, immediately after the conclusion of the home-and-away season. The new board intended to continue in the VFL under the Preston name from 2026; but in October 2025, after years of uncompetitive performances, having struggled to pay its players and staff in 2025, and with questions over its long-term viability without the annual subsidies that clubs had received from the league prior to the pandemic-interrupted 2020 season, the VFL revoked the club's licence. Two months later, faced with no viable path to readmission, the club entered voluntary liquidation.
Honours
Other Division 1 Awards
Runners-Up (6): 1971, 1978, 1981, 1982, 2009, 2010
Minor Premierships (8): 1968, 1969, 1971, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990, 2006
Wooden Spoons (9): 1904, 1905, 1907, 1910, 1911, 1964, 2022, 2024, 2025
Records
Record by opponent
Updated to the end of round 3, 2025.
Seasons
Source:
Seniors
The 1912 to 1915 seasons overlap with the season records for the Preston Districts Football Club.
Club song
The club song is sung to the tune of "The Yankee Doodle Boy", which is also the basis for the Hawthorn/Box Hill and Sandringham club songs.
We're from Preston, we’re the Bullants
The good old red and white, are we
All good stickers for the red and white
Always we fight for victory, at Preston
We're the best in the competition,
We won't give up while there's a chance
We're a team of champions, full of fighting spirit
That's why they call us the Bullants