RAMS history

The Marion Rams were first established in 1891 and we are a strong active club today.

The organisation that evolved into the Marion Football Club was originally formed in 1891, and is one of the oldest football clubs in South Australia. Originally known as the Sturt Football Club, the club changed their name to Marion in the 1950’s.

The club is currently affiliated with the Adelaide Football league (SAAFL).  Our junior football is part of the SANFL Juniors competition.

The club colours are green and gold, and our emblem is the Ram which was adopted in the 1970’s.The Marion Football Club has had an eventful history that has produced a total of 11 senior premierships; two in the Mid Southern League (1921, 1926); one in the Glenelg Districts Football Association (1931), three in the Glenelg South West Football Association (1951, 1957, 1958); one in the Glenelg South Adelaide Football Association (1967); in the Southern Football League (2000); and in 2018 in the SAAFL Div 7 Competition. During the war years Marion joined with the Brighton club to form Sturt Brighton. The combined team were premiers in 1944 and 1945. (Neil Stallard 2009). When the Marion Rams joined the Southern Football League in 1987 they featured among the competition front-runners. During the 1990’s the league side reached five grand finals suffering narrow defeats on each occasion. Finally in 2000 they made amends defeating Noarlunga by 7 points. The Reserves also went top, defeating Brighton by 1 point.

In 2018, the Rams joined Division 7 of the SAAFL, along with fellow local SFL Club, OSB/Lonsdale. Both clubs have played some thrillers throughout the years against each other during their time in the SFL, and this year was no exception – with the Lions beating Marion twice during the Home and Away season, and again with a close win at Lonsdale in the Qualifying Final. But the Rams proved too good on Grand Final day at Kenilworth!

A packed crowd of Green & Gold saw the Rams break an 18 year Premiership drought with a 21 point win.

In 2019 the Club started up a Senior Women's and an U12's Girls side for the first time with great success. The Open Women made the Preliminary Final and had Zoe Smith claim the Amos & Clarke Medal for best player in Open Women’s Under 18 for the entire association, and also won the Division 5 Best & Fairest League Medal. The Senior Women's side backed it up in Season 2020 with another Preliminary Final appearance, unfortunately going down to Flinders Park FC.

In 2020 the A Grade and B Grade both suffered narrow Elimination Final defeats to Trinity OS and Blackfriars OS respectively. The C Grade knocked off the undefeated Adelaide University at Kenilworth by 6 points and claimed the 2020 Premiership!

The end of Season 2020 also marked the retirement of Club Captain, Steve "Sauce" Saunders. Recruited from Morphett Vale in 2017, Saunders made an immediate impact on the football club in his 50 Games at the club. The midfielder booted 67 goals (including a bag of 10 from the middle against Flinders University), he was the 2018 League Medalist, a 2x Best & Fairest Winner and the 2018 Premiership Captain.

It's hard to think of any other player who has made such a big impact at the Marion Football Club in such a short amount of time.

The club currently has teams in the SAAFL, SAAWFL and the SANFL Juniors Sunday competition.