Adelaide Blue Eagles

Sunday afternoons at the Marden Sports Complex still bring the Azzurri name out on the terraces, decades after the club stopped carrying it officially. The 6,000-capacity ground on Adelaide's eastern side is where the Blue Eagles play their South Australian football, in blue and white, under a name they did not choose.

That name arrived in 1993, when a national directive told clubs to drop ethnic identifiers. It was the fourth title the club had worn. Italian immigrants from Campania founded it on 8 June 1958 as Napoli Sports Club, then had to become Eastern Districts almost immediately because league rules allowed only one Italian-named club per area. Eastern Districts Azzurri followed in 1966, an attempt to widen the appeal. A merger with Seacliff Austria in 1968 bought the club First Division status.

The winning came later, and it came in a rush. Frank Schafer took the First Division championship in 1981 and again in 1982. Ten First Division titles in all, the last of them in 2011.

Since then the club has been better known for what it produces than what it wins. Thomas Deng came through here before playing for the Socceroos at the 2022 World Cup; his brother Peter went on to represent South Sudan.

Adelaide City is the other one that matters.

Fifteen years have passed since the last championship.