competitive matches began to be played with the first inter-club match held on the Western Oval in June of that year between Yarraville and the recently formed Footscray. Williamstown, established in 1938, and Newport, established in 1939, followed Footscray. These four teams then came together in 1940 and formed the Victorian Trugo Association. While the War years were often disruptive to sports, trugo was far less affected and continued to develop. This was mainly because the sport focused on providing recreation for pensioners with the VTA setting 60 years as the minimum age for players. Trugo's emphasis on improving the quality of life for senior citizens aligned the sport with government programs promoting a similar focus. In 1940 the Victorian fitness director, Dr. A. Scholes praised the game and the Lord Major of Melbourne Frank Beaurepaire organised a demonstration in the Carlton Gardens for the National Fitness Council. This resulted in the setting up of the Carlton Trugo Club, the first of the non-Western suburban clubs. By the late 1940s, early 1950s, clubs began to establish themselves outside of Melbourne with the strongest being in Shepparton, established in 1946, and across the border in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, established in 1952. Generally, these were optimistic times for the sport but while new teams were added to the Melbourne competition there were also setbacks. Williamstown, one of the founding members of the VTA lost traction and by 1954 had disappeared from the competition with the Carlton Club experiencing a similar fate around the same time. With increasing prosperity and greater security for the country's senior citizens, the 1960s proved a boon for pensioner sports in Australia and Trugo followed this trend. While it was never a rival for lawn bowls which was popular amongst a broad class of pensioners throughout Australia, Trugo celebrated its parochial nature and retained its unique position in Melbourne's working class suburbs. The 60s saw the number of trugo clubs expand but never too distant from the inner ring of Melbourne's older suburbs. Clubs in Coburg, Prahan, Preston, South Melbourne, Port Melbourne and Moonee Ponds now played alongside the founding inner-west teams of Newport, Yarraville and Footscray. It is difficult to pinpoint when the downturn to trugo occurred, but by the end of the 1990s it appeared trugo had reached the peak of its popularity with 12 men's clubs and 6 women's clubs. Along with other