Geelong Cats, Aussie Rules Football

The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, are a professional Australian rules football club based in the city of Geelong, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level of Australian rules football in Australia. The Cats have been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with three in the AFL era (since 1990). The Cats have also won nine McClelland Trophies, a record shared with Essendon.[3][4] The club was formed in 1859, making it the second oldest club in the AFL after Melbourne and one of the oldest football clubs in the world.[3] Geelong participated in the first football competition in Australia and was a foundation club of both the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1877 and the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897.[5] The club first established itself in the VFA by winning seven premierships, making it the most successful VFA club leading up to the formation of the VFL in 1897. The club won a further six premierships by 1963, before enduring a 44-year waiting period until it won its next premiership—an AFL-record 119-point victory in the 2007 AFL Grand Final.[6][7][8] Geelong have since won a further two premierships in 2009 and 2011. The Cats play their home games at Kardinia Park (known for sponsorship reasons as GMHBA Stadium), while sporadicly playing home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Docklands Stadium. Geelong's traditional guernsey colours are navy blue and white hoops. The club's nickname, "The Cats", was first used in 1923 after a run of losses prompted a local cartoonist to suggest that the club needed a black cat to bring it good luck. The club's official team song and anthem is "We Are Geelong".