Tasmanian Devils Football Club

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**Tasmania**

Full name	Tasmanian Devils Football Club
Nickname	Tasmanian Devil
Strip	Green, Gold, with devils insignia
Founded	2001
Sport	Australian rules football
League	Victorian Football League (2001-)
Ground	Aurora Stadium, Bellerive Oval
Club song	-
President/Chair	Guy Abel
Coach	Daryn Cresswell
Captain	Ben Beams
2006	9th

The Tasmanian Devils Football Club is an Australian rules football team, in the Victorian Football League in Australia. It is the only non-Victorian team in the league and is currently run by Football Tasmania.

1 Brief History
2 Attendances
3 Alignment with AFL club
4 Premierships
5 Players
6 External links

[edit] Brief History

See also: Australian rules football in Tasmania

To quell bids for a Tasmanian team in the AFL, the Australian Football League largely instigated the formation a Tasmanian team for the VFL.

The Tasmanian Devils Football Club formed in 2001 and was admitted into the VFL in its inaugural year. The team is owned by the AFL.

The club chose as a moniker the tenacious marsupial predator the Tasmanian Devil indigenous to the island of Tasmania.

To deal with the long established north-south rivalry, the Devils established a home ground each in Hobart and Launceston.

The team moved from the North Hobart Oval to Bellerive Oval at the end of 2005.

At the start of the 2006 session the Devils and the AFL football club, the Kangroos began a partial alignment.

In the middle of 2006 the coach of the club, Mathew Armstrong was forced to step down, due to internal pressure from the players. This ended his 6 year term as Devils coach.

[edit] Attendances

Despite belonging to a smaller league in the VFL, the Devils have generated the largest crowds in the VFL, averaging around 4,000 per match at both Bellerive Oval in Hobart and Aurora Stadium in Launceston (but considered modest by AFL standards).

[edit] Alignment with AFL club

Following the trend of AFL clubs to align themselves with VFL clubs for match fitness of reserves players, in 2005 the Kangaroos Football Club of the AFL expressed its intentions to align with the Devils. A deal was struck that involves a capped number of players from the Kangaroos in both the Devils and the North Ballarat Football Club in the VFL.

[edit] Premierships

Nil. 3rd in the league is the highest that the Devils have finished.

[edit] Players

Players for the club have included Ben Beams, Jason Heatley, Ken Hall, Cameron Thurley, Ian Callinan, Brad Davis, Barry Brooks and Cameron Blight.

Cameron "Pies" Blight became a cult figure with the Devils fans in his time with the club. Cameron Blight arrived mid way through season 2003 clearly overweight. When he returned for season 2004 he was in great nick and a leading player for the team. "Blighty" was deployed by coach, Matthew Armstrong, to either Full Forward or Full Back depending on were the team was struggling.