A Brief look at the beginnings of the Parndana Football Club
Parndana is located in the middle of Kangaroo Island. Our heritage in part extends from the local Soldier Settlement Scheme which began after the second World War, when returning soldiers and their families were given land leases to begin a new life. Great mateship and camaraderie was formed with all hands on deck required to survive these pioneering days. Out of this emerged the Parndana Football Club. Parndana fielded 3 teams in 1948, 1949 and 1951 during the early days of the land clearing operations, but then lapsed for want of numbers. Some players then played with Wisanger and some with United (American River).
The Club, as we know it today, resulted from preliminary organisation by Don Crawford, Des Murton and Chris Cooper and was admitted to the League on the 27th of February 1956 after representations from Delegates D.Murton and Barry Graham.
Parndana’s home ground was an area north of the LDE administration buildings (now part of the Research Centre), a big improvement on the ‘cow paddock’ used in the early days, which was hardly accessible to car or person in the wet, not to mention the stumps and cow pats.
Parndana won the Premiership that year, a great start to a wonderfully patriotic club.
In 1961 the club was shifted to the new Parndana Oval and clubrooms were built under the valued direction of Clive Halloran. It was a community effort as the mammoth task of carting sand into Parndana began. They had to cover the whole rubbly oval area with 2 inches of sand.
Of course, thousands of volunteer hours have been worked to get the club where it is today, and hundreds of men and their families have played a role. We thank them for their foresight and enthusiasm.
Club Song
Oh we're from Rooster land
A fighting fury
We're from Rooster land
In any weather you will see us with a grin
Risking head and shin
If we're behind never mind
We'll fight and we'll win
For we're from Rooster land
We'll never weaken till the final siren's gone
Like the Rooster of old
We're strong and we're bold
For we're from Roo-ster - red and the white
For we're from Roo-ster land!