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The “Contents” tab works best when accessed on the web version. You can press the heading to be directly taken the article you desire. Eg. Press “Senior Women” for Sacha’s sensational read about our women footballers.

Additionally, you can press the embedded links within the newsletter to directly access sites. Use the link for the Toyota Good For Footy Raffle to purchase tickets, support our club and enter the giveaway draw.

A heads-up that with Round 14 being a split round, and Olinda playing the weekend of 25/7, there will not be Thursday night dinners 16/7.

Players and supporters are encouraged to attend Micawber Tavern from 7pm onwards for dinner.

Fundraising · Live Now

Back in 2026, Toyota Good For Footy Raffle has been a significant fundraiser for the club since its inception.

In 2025, our club raised $17,000.

Money raised through the program is reinvested into our netball and football programs. We've seen some excitement updates this season at the club, including new equipment, such as fresh netball bibs, netballs and yellow footballs for winter training.

The great thing about the raffle is the amazing prizes to be won — including brand-new cars…the chance of winning a new car is definitely worth a ticket.

The soldier is the Army. No Army is better than its soldiers.

General George S. Patton

Military quotes in a Women's football match report?! Why? Because Olinda Women's season is on a knife's edge. Saturday night was a do or die battle for fourth spot against an Upwey side equal on points. And Olinda Women's ran out of soldiers.

Upwey pulled away to a 4.11.35 to 1.3.9 victory in cold, wet conditions at the Bloodery Saturday night. Olinda had 8 players missing, due to injury, travel and assorted other reasons. Star forward Olivia(The Weapon!)Edwards pinged a hamstring in the warm-up and could be seen hobbling bravely throughout the game. Livewire defender Maeve(Maverick)Gilson suffered an injury in the third quarter and was out for the rest of the game. Olinda played the whole game with 16 on field and no bench. Gaffer Simon Gilson wore out his phone on Thursday and Friday trying to drum up reinforcements. Some Olinda royalty heeded the call to come out of retirement and help their former team. It was heart-warming to see Premiership hero Emmalee(Bruce) Keegan, inaugural skipper and multiple B&F winner Maddy(MadDog) Collins, and former leading goal kicker Phoebe(BigDog) Dixon running around in the red and white once again. U16 young gun defender Willow-Rose Gordon has filled in a few times this year and looks completely at home in senior football, playing an excellent game down back Saturday night.

2 things that glaringly stood out from the game were Upwey’s ability to get free and unmarked, and if caught their ability to wear the tackle and either break free or fire off a handball. Olinda’s tackling and close checking defence has been a great strength but fell short Saturday night.

2 players stood out in the disappointing loss and played inspired footy for the full 4 quarters. Word is surely out at The Bloodery about Sky(Rocket)Wilson and her sure intercept marking, smooth running and long kicking. Sky displayed all her wares Saturday night and repelled Upwey’s forward attacks time and time again.

Miss Football Lily(Laser)Carlin was back to her 2025 League B&F winning best Saturday night and was totally maniacal in her hunting of the footy and the opposition. Double figure tackles and ground ball gets, intercept marking and laser accurate disposal are Lily’s brand, and it was on full display.

Charlotte(Webby)Edwards is in a purple patch of form and continues to rack up touches and pressure the opposition at will.

Jacquie(Parrot)Ring continues to morph into a top flight ruck in the Competition. While the ruck battle effectively had little bearing on the result , Jac’s work around the ground as a fourth midfielder was very impactful.

Chloe(The Smiling Assassin)Kanally and Kyah(The Missile)Barry are both in fine form and regularly in Olinda’s best and were again Saturday, with their hard running, tough contested work and creative disposal.

All Olinda players had awesome moments but unfortunately not often enough. With the battle lost, the war is still alive but Olinda will need to get back to it’s best footy and have a bit of luck to avoid missing the finals for the first time ever in it’s history. The side earns a well-timed bye this week which should help heal some of the nagging injuries. With the Senior Men’s having a Competition bye the following weekend The Women’s head out to Officer for “Gather Round”, a full day of all Women’s football games at the one venue. It is a great initiative and should be a fantastic spectacle. We hope we can get plenty of the red and white army there to support our girls.

Sky Wilson, Kyah Barry, Chloe Kanally, Jacqueline Ring, Lily Carlin, Charlotte Edwards

A healthy dose of PTSD is on offer this week as last year’s barnstorming winners Et’s Aliens sit atop the weekly winners list for the first time this year.

All this with skipper ET himself not even in the country!!

A limited pool this week with no C&D Grade or Vets. 

The Aliens salute this week with a BOG to Matilda Brewster in B Grade and a big vote winning game to Cass Hine in the Buzzies (That’s Rezzies with a big buzz!)

Beware The Jets, whenever Hennessy and Chen are on the court together votes are guaranteed!

When you follow the Seniors and Ressies in both divisions there have been no real surprises this year except for one absolute standout- OFC’s Twos. Back in May they were on the bottom of the ladder and looked set to spend another season in the cellar.

A month and a half later they have beaten two top five teams among their four wins on the trot and suddenly find themselves in finals contention. What a story!

Bloodlines is going to put forward the name of one guy who typifies the improvement- Cass Hine.

Cass is one of the large group of U/18s who’ve transitioned to senior footy over the last two seasons. He dominated at both ends of the ground in the Unders last year and has been forced to step up as a big bodied defender in the Twos. As the season has progressed Cass has found the magic ingredient which allows him to not only compete against the older Two’s forwards but to actually beat them- that ingredient is confidence.

He’s just one of more than half a dozen guys in the team who’ve been coached by Scott Tonkin and have very good grasp of the footy fundamentals.

Senior “apprentices” Bon Sullivan and Campbell Hutchins added a bit of polish to the group- Bon kicked a clutch goal at a crucial time from 35m out and made it look like it was just a training run and we’re not sure what career Campbell is going to pursue but he should be a sparky because he’s electric when he gets the ball.

There were heaps of good stories propping up this win but we have to give a massive shout out to Gus Nelson who is in great physical shape and demands the ball every time it’s in our forward 50. Once he has the pill Gus is very seldom dispossessed. He’s booted 16 goals in his five matches in the Twos this season and has become an absolute handful for the opposition.

Some stats- OFC is in fifth place on the ladder with a percentage of 62! Normally top five teams have a percentage of at least 90 so it gives an indication of the improvement in this group. Finally Saturday’s loss was only Upwey’s third of the year, the two top teams Mt Ev and Officer are the only sides to beat them.

A Sober Thought- we play Mt Ev and Officer in the last six rounds so it’s a hard road ahead, although the way these guys are developing anything can happen.

Mitch Low, Cassian Hine, Brody-stone Edwards, Campbell Hutchin, Jack Lucas, Tom Higgins

Short on numbers, undersized and undermanned up against a more experienced side the boys showed great fight and effort only to run out of legs in the last quarter and hand Upwey a comfortable win. It was still pleasing to see improvement in individual players with Cooper Kanally putting together a solid block of consistent footy, Khevin Chumber continues his stellar season and Jake Boyd showed plenty in the ruck. Our leaders continue to lead from the front, and it is a real development season for our new players and bottom agers.

Stay positive.

Keep focusing on the process and the wins will come.

Lachlan Tonkin, Lennix Barry, Luke Clifford, Cooper Kanally, Will Meyer, Jesse Desta

There’s a massive amount for our Vets to play for on Friday night when the boys host Andrew Shipp and his Gembrook team.

It doesn’t get much bigger than this for the Bloods who can lock away a finals berth in their first season if they beat The Brookers.

Gembrook, led by Shippy who played a few seasons with Fremantle, is the top team and reigning premier but Bloodlines is confident Big Geroge’s guys have the ability and the form to beat them.

In our last hit out we accounted for the other leading team in the comp, Belgrave, by 15 points at the Magpie’s nest.

Complicating our finals prospects is the fact that we have a bye in the last round so we automatically pick up four points. This means even if we lose we could still be in finals contention, but lets make sure of it boys and give the comp something to think about by knocking off Gembrook!!

The match starts at 7pm. Be there- and dress warmly, Ben is playing in the game so we’re now sure if he’ll have the fires going!!

We know that a team pic of One Tree Hill was taken in 1902 but we have been unable to locate it.

With our League celebrating it’s 60th anniversary this month (tickets are still available to the big “memory lane” function) it seems it’s the right time to highlight the fact Olinda Ferny Creek will be celebrating it’s 125^th birthday next year.

It was in July 1902 when “40 gentlemen” held an impromptu meeting at the home of William Breen in Ferny Creek and agreed to form a team called One Tree Hill. In those days Ferny Creek was widely referred to as One Tree Hill because of a lone Mountain Ash on Government Rd which was used as a navigation guide by ships in Port Phillip Bay.

The “gentlemen” who attended the inaugural meeting were mostly from One Tree Hill and Sassafras. Our first colours were red and black and club membership was 2/6 or 25 cents.

Matches were played at Breens paddocks, adjacent to the junction of the Tourist Rd and Sherbrooke Rd, One of our Life Members, Paul Jones, recalls playing  cricket at that venue in the 1950s.

Monbulk, Bayswater and Fern Tree Gully played matches against One Tree Hill in 1902 but in 1903 clubs off the mountain also chose to play games against Camberwell and Canterbury. This meant the One Tree Hill boys had to get a coach and horses, or walk to Upper Gully station and then catch a train most of the way to the City. Many of them worked on Saturday mornings before matches, which usually started at 3pm, and were unwilling to entirely give up a day’s labour.

We know that One Tree Hil played six matches in 1902 against FTG and Monbulk and one game against Bayswater. It was common at the time for clubs to play “challenge” matches when they challenged other communities to a game of footy. It’s likely the Bayswater game was one of those matches while it seems there was a more formal arrangement for games between the other three teams, which would make this the first football competition in the Dandenongs.

Between 1903 and 1905 a team from One Tree Hill or, in the 1905 case, Sassafras played a handful of challenge games, and by 1908 Olinda was also fielding a team for the first time.

One Tree Hill had been reborn as Ferny Creek United, the “United” moniker was due to the fact that the players and office bearers came from the communities of Ferny Creek, Sassafras and Sherbrooke.

It was noted in 1910 that the key members of the Ferny Creek United club were C Earney from Sassafras (president), skipper W Sharpe from Sherbrooke and secretary G Bird from Ferny Creek. Earney and Bird were well known names in their communities and one of the Earney family was still playing with OFC in the 1960s.

League Life Member, the legendary Charlie Hackett from Ferny Creek, recalls playing four games against Monbulk and four against Olinda in his first season, which was 1910.

It seems this was a semi formal arrangement and the beginning of the Mountain District Football Association. The following year Belgrave joined and the four clubs each played 11 games.

So while our League, which has gone through many incarnations, celebrates it’s 60^th birthday this year it’s an ideal time to remember that the original foundation clubs, Ferny Creek, Olinda and Monbulk were playing each other almost 60 years earlier.

We suspect that our opponents on Saturday were unaware that Nick Keegan was back in  town, that a guy who won the League U/18 goal kicking from a half forward flank/wing and was among the best small forwards in the comp for  decade was sitting quiety in the forward pocket at the start of the game.

 Then all hell broke loose.

Inside 20 minutes Keegan had four of OFC’s eight goals and the match had essentially been killed off. The stallion had bolted.

Although the stats show both teams kicked six goals after quarter time it was the home side with 6.15 to Upwey’s 6.6 which dominated the inside 50s. At one stage in the third quarter OFC had booted 1.6 and the ball hadn’t travelled beyond the centreline.

Failing something unforeseen or a Monbulk miracle it looks almost certain OFC will play Mt Ev in the first week of the finals- and of course we also meet them this Saturday in a mouth watering match up at Rover HQ.

Anyway- on to the take aways-

-              We’ve already mentioned Keegs and three of the other former star players who rejoined us this season- Dyl Troutman, Lachie Meadows and Cal Beattie were among our best. They bring strength and experience to the line-up and boast over 800 senior games between them.

-              Squid Troutman knows where and when to run and is a serious asset to the team. Lets hope he plays against Healesville in round 16, the big ground will give him more room to go to work.

-              It was an even team performance and two guys were a tad unlucky to be left out of the best- Noah booted three and was strong in the air, on the ground and in the ruck. Shep was also a handful for our opponents to contend with. When he took a typically courageous and difficult overhead mark late in the last quarter and a father of one of the Upwey girls playing in the next game said “wow, who’s that?” your Bloodlines correspondent thought about answering but concluded it would have taken too long to tell the story. So the reply was “his name is Matt, goes OK doesn’t he?”.

-              Percy Hyett. Again if you just came to the footy to watch this guy you’d leave feeling like just seen something a bit special.

-              Was great to have Zach back from injury. He looked a little bit rusty overhead (yeh, OK the ball was slippery) but when you watched him slot home a rare goal from outside the arc it’s easy to forget he’s only a year out of the juniors. And who noticed late in the game when he again had the ball outside 50 and appeared to size up the goals before bending his kick 45 degrees and honouring a Lachie Taylor lead on the half forward flank without looking at Lachie!

Percy Hyett, Dylan Troutman, Peter Lucas, Lachlan Meadows, Lachlan Taylor, Callum Beattie

With the return of our VNL stars, A-Grade were determined to return to the winner’s list.

Talk about an emphatic first quarter. Our ladies confined Upwey to a solitary goal and led by a dozen at the first break.

Defensively, things looked as coach Jake had desired and there was little to improve on in that regard. Offensively, our play lacked the brilliance desired to crack the match open and well and truly in the home sides’ favour.

That’s why the second quarter was a crowd pleaser as Olinda’s speed and movement stunned Upwey. B Ryan and J Ashton-Smith were no match for their opponents and piled on 20 goals to Upwey’s three.

With the match wrapped up by HT (33-4), Olinda had Upwey in a spot of bother and refused to let-up.

Another brilliant third quarter, where C Chen and S Hennessey dominated. The lead blew out to an unassailable 47 goals.

Olinda pressed down harder on the accelerator in the final quarter, arguably saving the best for last. 21 goals in the final term was A-Grade’s best scoring quarter of the match and once again, limited Upwey’s attacking opportunities.

M Pringle enjoyed scoring five goals herself while J Ashton-Smith shone with 20 herself. B Ryan was a long way ahead of the scorers though. Her 47 goals an emphatic display of accuracy.

Cheryl Chen, Bridget Ryan, Soph Hennessey

With Upwey not fielding C and D Grade sides, our netball coaches were relieved to experience a simpler week at the selection table.

Having the VNL players return to A-Grade meant coach D King enjoyed greater stability in our B-Grade side.

M Brewster has been a great player and continued her impressive form with 24 goals. Her effort was matched by C McCallum.

Z Rexhepi played arguably her best match of the season and enjoyed some time as a shooter, scoring three goals.

C Rickards contributed to the 15 point triumph over the Tigers with a great display.

Matilda Brewster, Zana Rexhepi, Charlotte Rickards

Facing the impressive ROC U17 side presented another difficult challenge for our U17’s. Add the foggy and freezing conditions, it was a test of attrition.

The girls were able to three goals in the first quarter with Pringle, Brooks and Makaay each scoring.

Unfortunately, scoring opportunities were limited in the proceeding three quarters and ROC ran away.

Despite the challenges, our U17’s have made significant strides this season, with many stepping into open grade and backing up from their game with D-Grade.

Sophie Pringle, Zara Nicholson, Eliza Watson

Round 13 if First Nations Round in the OEFNL.

OFCFNC is delighted to have collaborated with an Indigenous artists, Maya, to produce our first Indigenous guernsey.

The artist will be in attendance at Mt Evelyn this Saturday.

A big shout-out to Percy and Claire Hyett, who have worked behind the scenes to bring this to fruition.

A big thanks to Lilydale Safety Wear (‘LSW’), who has provided the club with a weekly $50 voucher, to be awarded to players that reflect the values of OFCFNC, through their conduct.