North Western Football Association

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North Western
Football Association

Current season, competition or edition: 2017
Sport	Australian rules football
Founded	1894; 130 years ago (1894)
Official website	nwfa.net.au

The North Western Football Association is an Australian rules football competition based on the North West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.

The North Western Football Association was formed at a meeting at the Formby Hotel in 1894 and is the oldest continuously running football competition in the state of Tasmania. The first clubs were Devonport, Latrobe, Mersey and Ulverstone.

The NWFA was the senior football body on the coast until a break away group of teams formed the NWFU in 1910.
The NWFA was then looked upon as a junior competition feeding the NWFU and later the TFL Statewide League until their demise and later the NTFL teams.^[1]

The competition has seen more than fifty teams participate in its history from all parts of the North West Coast indicating the rise and fall and changing fortunes of many towns throughout history. Clubs such as Burnie Tigers, Cooee Bulldogs, Penguin, Mole Creek, Wilmot, Barrington, Don, East Devonport, Moriarty, Sassafras, Melrose and Gowrie Park are among many to have played in the NWFA.

From mid-1938 until it went into recess during World War II, the NWFA played under VFA rules, a code of rules established by the Victorian Football Association as a rival to the national rules. This most notably meant that throwing the ball was legal during those years. The NWFA was one of the highest level competitions outside the VFA to play under those rules.^[2] Upon its resumption after World War II, the NWFA returned to playing under the traditional rules.^[3]
The Association currently operates as a nine club competition and the medal awarded to the Association's Best & Fairest player is the Les Hicks Medal.

List of NWFA Seniors Premiership teams.^[4]

Colours	Club	Nickname	Founded	Premierships	Premiership Years
	East Ulverstone	Crows	2000	1	2002
	Forth	Magpies	1904	20	1922, 1935, 1937-40, 1948, 1950, 1956-58, 1965, 1972, 1974, 1980, 2005, 2007, 2015-16, 2018, 2022
	Motton Preston	Demons	1967	10	1985-86, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2012-13, 2020-21, 2023
	Rosebery-Toorak	Hawks	1987	2	1998-99
	Sheffield	Robins	c.1910	8	1964, 1973, 1987-88, 1994, 2000, 2003, 2024
	Spreyton	Eagles	1921	9	1954, 1975-78, 1984, 1990, 2001, 2011
	Turners Beach	Seagulls	1971	5	1981-83, 1994, 2014
	Wesley Vale	Roos	1903	21	1910, 1921, 1925-26, 1929-31, 1934, 1936, 1949, 1959-60, 1963, 1979, 1989, 1996-97, 2008-09, 2017, 2019

Colours	Club	Nickname	Founded	Premierships	Premiership Years
	West Ulverstone	Lions	1973	-	-

• Sheffield Seniors – 69.29 (443) vs Rosebery Toorak 0.0 in 2021. Rosebery-Toorak set an unfortunate new NWFA benchmark with an all-time low percentage in the 2021 season of 1.635% (68 points scored, 4160 points conceded in 15 games). 60% of their points were scored in one match against West Ulverstone, when they only lost by five goals. For the other 14 games, they kicked 1.0.6 four times, 0.1.1 three times, and went scoreless seven times. Their leading goalkicker was Nick McElwee with two goals, both against West Ulverstone. It was the only time he played for the club all year.^[5]

• Forth Reserves – 66.24 (420) vs Spreyton 0.0 in 2013.

• Ben Holland – (36) – Wesley Vale v Rosebery Toorak in 2024.
• Note: This is a current Tasmanian state record.^[6]

• Official website
• Tasmania on FullPoints Footy