The Subiaco Football Club, nicknamed the Lions and known before 1973 as the Maroons, is an Australian rules football club in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). It was founded in 1896, and admitted to the WAFL in 1901, along with North Fremantle. The club is currently based at Leederville Oval, having previously played at Subiaco Oval. History Subiaco was incorporated in 1896, establishing its base at a small playing arena within the environs of the Shenton Park Lake. During the club's embryonic period it played in the "First Rate Juniors" competition from 1896 to 1900 and enjoyed premiership success. As a result, along with fellow First Rate Junior powerhouse North Fremantle the Subiaco Football Club joined the then West Australian Football Association competition (known today as the West Australian Football League – WAFL) in 1901. However, it struggled so much that there were long debates as to whether it should continue after it won only eleven games in its first seven seasons but with the construction of Subiaco Oval on what was formerly called the "sand patch", the club's performances improved: very slowly at first, but very rapidly after the acquisition of two key forwards in Phil Matson and Herbert Limb for the 1912 season. That year Subiaco rose from second last to their first ever premiership despite a thrashing from East Fremantle in the final, and they again won premierships against Perth in 1913 and 1915 before loss of players to World War I gave them the rare ignominy of plummeting from premiers to the wooden spoon in 1916. During the inter-war period Subiaco were mainly a middle-of-the-road outfit, though they did win a premiership from third in 1924 and played in three grand finals for the rest of that decade, only to lose each time to East Fremantle or East Perth. They were noted for a large number of outstanding players during this period, including ruckman Tom Outridge and rover Johnny Leonard, but as these players declined Subiaco began a period of struggle that would rival their experiences in the 1900s (and from 1975 to 1983). They plummeted to their first wooden spoon since 1916 in 1937 and made an extremely ambitious recruiting coup by providing local employment for three Victorian champions in Haydn Bunton, Keith Shea and Les Hardiman. Although Bunton lived up to his Fitzroy reputation and at times did work