Bombers looking for glory 100 years later

That win launched Kyabram into one of club’s most successful eras in its 125-year-old history.

The club claimed six premierships in the next 10 years, including a streak of three successive flags in 1926, 1927 and 1928.

It is a feat no Kyabram team has managed to do since, although Paul Newman’s team was an agonising three points away from achieving it last year.

When Kyabram won that first flag in 1919, the league comprised of teams from Tatura, Shepparton, Murchison, Echuca and Rushworth.

Kyabram’s grand final rival that year was Tatura, which it defeated 5.11 (41) to 5.6 (36) at Murchison.

Tatura actually won the final, beating Kyabram by five points at Mooroopna.

But in those days the minor premier - the team that finished on top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away series – had the right to challenge if beaten in the final.

Kyabram was the minor premier, so readily took up this option - known as the grand final - and coincidentally won by five points.

One of Kyabram’s players in that premiership side, captained by Tom Holmes, was William "Billy" James, who has an unique place in Australian Rules football today.

The following year in 1920, James became a Richmond premiership hero when he kicked the goal that sealed the flag for the Tigers in the VFL grand final against Collingwood.

In the week leading up to the grand final, Richmond had boldly plucked James – described as a ‘‘pocket rocket’’ in one Melbourne press report - from Kyabram to play in the season decider because one of its forwards was injured.

In the summer of that year, James was involved in an accident shooting rabbits on Kyabram’s outskirts and blew part of his foot away.

He never played another game with Richmond and still has the distinction of being the only player to be in a AFL/VFL premiership winning side in his one and only league game.

But James managed to play again for Kyabram in the 1920s and at one stage was the club’s secretary.