The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The club's origins trace back to March 21, 1873, when a meeting was held at the Clarendon Hotel in South Melbourne to establishing a junior football club, to be called the South Melbourne Football Club. The club commenced playing in 1874 at its home ground; Lakeside Oval in Albert Park. Playing as South Melbourne, it participated in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) competition from 1878 before joining the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL) as a founding member in 1897. Originally known as the "Bloods" in reference to the red colour used on players' guernseys, the Swan emblem was adopted in 1933 after a journalist at the time referred to them using the moniker following a large influx of Western Australian players. In 1982, it became the first professional Australian football club to permanently relocate interstate (from Victoria to New South Wales). In the following year, the club was renamed the Sydney Swans. The club has a rivalry with the Greater Western Sydney Giants, with whom they contest the Sydney Derby. Their headquarters and training facilities are located in the Moore Park sporting precinct, with offices and indoor training at the Royal Hall of Industries and outdoor sessions conducted on the adjacent Tramway Oval and Sydney Cricket Ground, the latter being the site of the club's senior men's team home matches since 1982. The Swans have won five VFL/AFL premierships including 1909, 1918, and 1933, before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest of any team in the competition's history. This premiership drought ended with the 2005 premiership, which was later followed by another title in 2012. They won five times and lost twelve grand finals. According to Roy Morgan, the Swans are one of the most supported clubs in the AFL with more than a million fans in 2021.
