SA Footy

My business partner showed me some information that Glenelg had sent him regarding their lighting proposal.
On the paperwork it stated that Glenelg Football Club was first established in 1876.I had never seen this date before on any publication, always believing that the current club was founded in 1920 and accepted into the league in 1921. I thought it was all pretty straightforward.
Can someone enlighten me as to this claim to 1876?, that would make it almost the oldest club, rather than one of the youngest ones. Hopefully they are not making a tenous link to some earlier club that maybe existed for a while before fading away.

"Pride Of The Bay" makes mention of early Glenelg Football Clubs - none of them connected to the current GFC - in its opening chapter. I do not have the book with me at the moment, so cannot say when any of these was founded. All I remember is that a precursor to the GFC played in the then Sturt Football League.

Researching the late 1800s I came across mentions of "a" Glenelg Football Club and - as Pseudo mentions - it's my understanding that they have no direct connection to the current club.
There was also a Woodville that bore no relation to the current Woodville-West Torrens and of course three different North Adelaides that have no connection to the current club.

Leaping Lindner wrote:Researching the late 1800s I came across mentions of "a" Glenelg Football Club and - as Pseudo mentions - it's my understanding that they have no direct connection to the current club.
There was also a Woodville that bore no relation to the current Woodville-West Torrens and of course three different North Adelaides that have no connection to the current club.

That's always been my understanding too, perhaps I misread the meaning of the sentence but i definitely took the meaning that the current day club commenced in 1876, which, as you point out, is just a nonsense.

South and Glenelg born in the same year

From Page 3 of The Pride of the Bay
the story of Glenelg Footballl Club 1920-2003
by Peter Cornwall & John Wood
Available for a reasonable price at the Glenelg Football Club

But the first mention of a Glenelg Football Club came as early as 1876. There reportedly was much cheering when Glenelg "opened their season on Saturday, June 10. by playing a scratch match on their own ground"............ The Advertiser neither recorded what the teams were named nor who won. However, it declared: "The play, on the whole, was very good and the Glenelg Club promises, with practice, to become an excellent one." This was far from the case, as the side disappeared without a whimper.

Another Glenelg Football Club was formed on March 24, 1880

Both clubs folded and have no connection to the present Glenelg Football Club

from page 5

The relatively minor Sturt (Football) Association was formed in 1912. It was in this association in 1913-15 that Glenelg football was to develop.