West Preston Lakeside Football Club

The West Preston Lakeside Roosters, also known as the Lakies, is the result of a merger between two of Darebin’s football clubs: West Preston and Reservoir Lakeside. The merger took effect in March of 1998 and has been a successful union so far.

The West Preston F.C. was formed in 1948 in the CYMS competition. It remained there until 1963 when it joined the very strong church based YCW National Football Association.

The club had a reasonable amount of success and it was decided that it should field junior sides as well and from those early days more than 10 players from those sides went on to join the ranks of the then VFL.

The club has continued to grow which led the club to apply for membership in the Diamond Valley Football League in 1981. The DVFL is one of, if not the strongest of Melbourne’s suburban competitions and thus the successful application was a great moment for the club.

Since 1981 the club has won 9 Senior and 6 junior Premierships and provided 18 Best and Fairest winners in the DVFL. In 1988 and again in 1993 it won the Div. 2 A Grade flag and promotion to Div. 1, only to return to Div. 2 the year after failing both times in the very strong competition.

In 1996 the club was again successful in winning both the A and B Grade Premierships, however this time we remained in the elite level just missing the finals. We have stayed in Div. 1 ever since.

West Preston joined Reservoir Lakeside in the DVFL; the ‘Lakies’ had already been playing in the League since World War II and had achieved significant success including three Division 1-A Premierships.

On March 23rd 1998 members of both the West Preston and Reservoir Lakeside F.C.’s met and voted on merging the 2 clubs as Lakies who had just competed in the Div. 2 finals were struggling to get players to fill both sides. Reservoir Lakeside was to bring with it a history steeped in success with 3 Div. 1 A Grade flags and a total of 20 senior pennants as well as 20 competition Best and Fairest winners.

From this day on the West Preston Lakeside F.C. Inc. emerged. They were to be known as the Roosters and Lakies were finally reunited with their old stomping ground J.E. Moore Park, Preston. The new club has never looked back. In its first year despite the haste of putting this new side together missed out on the finals by only 4 points. It was to be the same result in 1999. Then along came the year 2000. The club finished on top of the ladder only to be beaten in the Grand Final by a very committed Northcote Park side. The club has remained competitive since and will no doubt be contesting finals once again.

In addition West Preston Lakeside has a strong commitment to junior football, fielding nine teams under the West Preston Junior banner. The Club also has a strong association with Preston YCW Cricket Club.

West Preston Lakeside - Founded 1998

Premierships

Honour Board

Reservoir Lakeside - Founded 1947

Premierships

External links

* http://www.westpreston.com.au/
* http://www.nfl.org.au