Welcome to the home of the Devonport Magpies
The origins of football in Tasmania's north west coastal region are uncertain. It is possible that the game was played in mining settlements as long ago as the early 1870s, brought there either directly
from the mainland, or by miners who travelled west from Launceston, where Tasmania's oldest known football club was formed in 1875. By 1881, however, the game was definitely being played in both Latrobe, then the largest town in the area, and Devonport, and June of that year saw the formation of clubs in both settlements.
The Devonport-based club was known as Formby, and was the precursor of the Devonport Football Club of today. On 6 March 1890 the club was formally re-constituted under the name Devonport, and with the exception of the 1900 season, when it went into temporary recess, has been a permanent fixture of the Tasmanian football scene ever since.
A major landmark in the development of football in the region came in 1910 with the establishment of the 5 club North West Football Union which Devonport was to join the following year. The club reached its first grand final in 1914, downing Latrobe by 32 points, and it repeated this success the following year with a hard fought 2 point win over Ulverstone.
Football went into abeyance owing to the war from 1916 to 1918, and its resumption in 1919 was curtailed throughout Tasmania because of an influenza epidemic. In 1920 and 1921 Devonport fielded a 2nd team, known as 'Diggers', which comprised returning servicemen. This 2nd team won the 1921 NWFU premiership with a 7.11 (53) to 4.6 (30) grand final defeat of Latrobe.
Consolidating into a single entity again in 1922 Devonport initially found the going tough, but in 1924 the side once again played off for the flag, only to succumb by 14 points to Latrobe. The following year finally brought success as Devonport comfortably overcame Ulverstone, 11.11 (77) to 6.13 (49).
New club Burnie proved Devonport's nemesis on each of its next 2 grand final appearances, in 1927 and 1928, and the following year the entire competition was thrown into disarray when the Forth Bridge, which linked Latrobe and Devonport to the other settlements in the area, washed away. The 1929 season saw Devonport and Latrobe, together with Deloraine and Kentish, form a temporary competition, known as 'the Central Combine', which in 1930 became the Eastern Division of the NWFU. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, Devonport withdrew from the NWFU the following year, and spent the next 3 seasons participating in the NWFA, winning a premiership in 1933.
In 1934 Devonport re-entered the NWFU, which now employed a single division format once again. Far from undermining its prowess, its brief stint in an ostensibly inferior competition had obviously been of benefit to the club, which promptly reached the next 5 grand finals, winning in 1934, 1936 and 1938. |
Our Club's History