Town a

By Justin Robertson
IN THE late 1800s, Beaconsfield was home to a roaring business trade.
It had everything a small bustling town could ask for: a general store, a bookmaker’s shop, hotel, a state school, carpenter and builder, a bakery and a butcher’s shop.
An extract from the Dandenong Advertiser of that era labelled the people of Beaconsfield as “enterprising”.
The town was also known for its busy railway station. Traders would load up carriages with fruit and vegetables, picked from nearby orchards and farms and send them to the city markets.
Taking a stroll down the main street of Beaconsfield on a Sunday afternoon would find city folk under their parasols feasting on lunch at the Gippsland Hotel – now the Central Hotel. People from out of town would spend a day – if not the weekend – in Beaconsfield to soak up the fresh country air.
On 21 April 1890, at a public meeting at the Gippsland Hotel, 40 young men and secretary Mr Manger decided the town would form its first football club.
Two months after that meeting they played their first match against Cranbourne on the centre of the racetrack opposite the hotel.
This Sunday marks the 120th anniversary of the Beaconsfield Football Club, which will see it battle it out with Cranbourne as it did 120 years ago.
The Beaconsfield football team will hope for a different result 120 years on, as it was Cranbourne who was victorious in that inaugural match – by 15 points.
During that match, as reported by the Advertiser, Beaconsfield was referred to as the “yellow and black men”, as their supporters wore those colours. After the game, both teams stayed for an elegant dinner in the clubrooms, toasting, drinking and dancing.
A week later Beaconsfield invited Berwick to play its second friendly and suffered another loss – by 48 points.
But it was the Beaconsfield correspondent’s report in the Dandenong Advertiser that caused angst among the two clubs. In his report he spoke of the “30-mile” rule, suggesting that Berwick had drafted players from within a 30-mile radius – something that was frowned upon during that era.
This evoked a furious response from Berwick’s secretary the following week. And so, a rivalry began.
Lawrie Canning, Beaconsfield’s club historian, life member and former premiership player, has been recording and researching the club’s history since 1993, and says the rivalry between the two clubs has been intense ever since.
“It’s always been that relationship,” Canning said. “You sense the rivalry in that article and I know that rivalry every since I’ve played here for 40 years, how intense it is and how much we like to beat Berwick and they like to beat us. It goes back 120 years that we’ve been at each other.”
After another game against Pakenham, then return trips against Berwick and Cranbourne all resulting in losses, the Beaconsfield Football Club was born.
The first team photo was taken in 1909 and is the only piece of evidence that the club existed during the early 1900s. The image shows a number of players wearing jumpers with a star in the centre, titled, “Beaconsfield Stars”.
It is still an unknown period for the club, one that Canning is still researching, with no records of performances, awards or trophies during that time.
During the 1930s the club had evolved and played in the district competition against clubs such as Pakenham, Gembrook, Clayton and Belgrave.
Because of the distances to some of the far-fetched football grounds, a club official turned his own beaten-up furniture van into a team bus, which he used to pick up all the players during away games.
“At the time it seemed like quite a good way to get around to some of these areas,” Canning said. “It’s just something they did.”
The club was in a hiatus in 1939 – during the war years – and reformed in 1947 as Officer-Beaconsfield and played in the Dandenong District Football Association. Canning said they had just enough to form a club.