User:Pudgey/Sandbox/SANFL

Consisting of a nine team, single division competition, the season is based around a 22 week "home-and-away" (regular) season starting in April through to September. The top five teams play off in a series of finals culminating in the Grand Final, always held at AAMI Stadium in October, generally the week after the Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final.

When not playing with the two Adelaide-based AFL clubs, Port Adelaide Power or Adelaide Crows, AFL-listed players can play for their SANFL clubs. Those recruited to the AFL clubs who have not previously played for an SANFL club are allocated to a club by means of a "mini-draft".

Clubs
Several clubs share their nicknames with  AFL/VFL clubs. This is purely coincidental: the teams are not named after each other. The SANFL's Eagles, for example, came into existence almost 90 years before the AFL's Eagles.

The current Port Adelaide Magpies club is a spinoff of Port Adelaide Football Club which moved into the AFL (changing its nickname to the Power in the process.) The two clubs share the same history prior to 1997.

Current clubs
^Note: Port Adelaide Magpies share the history of Port Adelaide Football Club prior to 1997. Port Adelaide Football Club entered the competition in 1877 and had won 34 premiership to the end of 1996.

Former clubs
In the period 1877 to 1886 South Park, Willunga, North Adelaide (the original club of that name, not the current North Adelaide), Prince Alfred College, Gawler, Kapunda, Bankers, Woodville, and Victorian all left the Association. A brief profile of some of these clubs follows:
 * Adelaide (the original club) - formed in 1860; disbanded in 1873; reformed in 1876; merged with Kensington in 1881; disbanded in 1882; reformed and merged with North Park in 1885. Their colours were black, red and white and they were premiers in the SAFA (forerunner of the SANFL) in 1886.
 * Bankers - formed in 1877 and after losing all 15 of the matches it contested that year it disbanded at the end of the season.
 * Kensington - formed in the early 1870's, Kensington affiliated with SAFA in 1877, but by 1881 it had merged with the Adelaide club. The clubs colours were scarlet and white and its home ground was Kensington Oval.
 * South Park - formed in 1877 and disbanded in 1884.
 * Victorian - formed in 1877 and with their home ground at Montefiore Hill, the Victorian team were premiers in 1877 (equal with South Adelaide). The clubs colours were orange and black.  The club changed their name to North Adelaide in 1883, although it was not linked to the modern day North Adelaide, which formed from the Medindie club.  Victorian disbanded after the 1884 season.
 * Willunga - formed in 1874, and affiliated with SAFA from 1877 to 1885. Willunga then joined the newly formed Southern Football Association, a rural league.
 * Woodville (the original club) - formed about 1868 and affiliated with SAFA 1877, the club forfeited two matches in its first season due to lack of numbers and disbanded at the end of the season. Many of the Woodville players then moved to the newly formed Norwood club.

At the end of the 1990 season the Woodville and West Torrens clubs merged to for Woodville-West Torrens which competed for the first time in 1991.
 * West Torrens Eagles (1897 - 1990)
 * Woodville Warriors (1964 - 1990)