A unique celebration
Canning Vale’s Stephen Jones speaks to Cam Palmer
In recent years the majority of new clubs to the Perth Football League have come through other leagues, whether that be other metropolitan leagues or country leagues. Few have been able to start from scratch like the Canning Vale Football Club did back in 2011. Even less have the instant success that Canning Vale has had.
After all, few teams have gone back to back in their first two Perth Football League seasons.
As both the junior football club and growing area in and around Canning Vale grew across the early 2000’s, the need was apparent for a senior club. Officially forming in 2010, the club was formed based on a goal to provide a pathway for young people to keep playing football beyond junior grades. It is a goal that has remained from the first days of the club, through to today.
The other thing that has remained from the early days is the moniker of being a city club, with a country feel. Nothing typified this moniker more than the club’s first premiership celebrations in 2011.
As inaugural Canning Vale coach Stephen Jones recalls, it was a unique night for the club.
“Our first year when we won, we didn’t have a clubhouse, we just had a couple of dongers and a donger for a canteen,” Jones said.
“When we went back to the club after the game, we put some star pickets up and a strip of black plastic around, had an open fire going outside the canteen, everyone was sitting around having a good time.”
Clifton Park, the home of Canning Vale has always had a country feel and as one would imagine, just like in a country town, when an open fire is going, accompanied by the good times of a premiership success, in the early hours of a Sunday morning, it was a recipe to receive some unexpected attention.
“All of a sudden the cops stuck their head around the corner,” Jones said.
With the police hosing down these debut season premiership celebrations, Canning Vale set about their second season, having graduated to ‘C3 Grade’ by virtue of their ‘C4 Grade’ premiership success. Just as they had done in their first season under Jones, Canning Vale would again dominate their competition.
Losing just one game for the season, Canning Vale would win the ‘C3 Grade’ minor premiership and progress through to their second straight Grand Final with a second semi final win. They would be pushed all the way by SNESA on Grand Final day, but would overcome, taking out the ‘C3 Grade’ premiership and making it back to back flags.
Once again following this win, the premiership celebrations for Canning Vale were big, though on this night, the police were nowhere to be found.