East Torrens was founded in 1897/98, and is a club which is proud of its history. As you look around the clubrooms, it is impossible not to notice the premiership shields and photos stretching back as far as the first year of competition in 1897/8. That was our first season, and the first of our record 17 A Grade premierships.

We have won the A Grade premiership in the years:
1897/98, 1908/09, 1909/10, 1911/12, 1912/13, 1913/14, 1918/19, 1919/20, 1920/21, 1921/22, 1922/23, 1923/24, 1933/34, 1934/35, 1975/76, 1984/85 and 1990/91.

Added to this we have won 11 B Grade premierships, 2 C Grade premierships, 2 D Grade premierships, and the West End Cup (or Gillette Cup) twice.

Our juniors have fared quite well, too. Junior cricket in its current form has only been in place since the late 1980s, and in that time, we have won premierships in all junior grades. We have 3 Under 16 premierships, 4 Under 14 premierships, 3 Shell/BankSA Shields and 4 Ray Sutton (or State Bank) Shields.

Players and Officials

The club has been home to many notable entities in the game of cricket. There are far too many to list on this web site, but for the cricket historian, we recommend the book on the club’s history.

Aside from producing our own crop of First Class and Test cricketers, we have been fortunate to be the home of some great players who have either made their name elsewhere before playing with us, or gone on to better things in their home country. A fine recent example of the former is David Hookes who finished his club career with us. Good examples of the latter are players who went on to play Test cricket for England, such as Mark Illott and Nick Knight, or for Australia like Kim Hughes.

Anti-Smoking Group

In the 1980s, the club took a brave stand against tobacco company sponsorship of the game. The club made the decision to not accept money that was provided through tobacco sponsorship at the Australian Cricket Board level. Through the hard work of current President Dr Dean Southwood, an Anti-Smoking Support Group was established to, in part, replace the sponsorship that the club was forgoing. Not long after this turbulent period for the club, tobacco sponsorship was banned through Government legislation, which is still the case today.

Further Reading – ‘Parade to Paradise’

The club has produced a book detailing its history, titled “Parade to Paradise”. There are 352 pages of sporting history and abundant photographs. The book has been compiled by renowned cricket historian Geoff Sando and former East Torrens and State cricketer Peter Herbert. The book chronicles the complete history of the club, including the scorecards of every one of the club’s 17 A Grade premierships. There is a biography of every player to represent East Torrens at A Grade level (over 500), and recognition of all players to have represented the club in B through to E Grades.

The standard edition is a soft-back book, costing $45 plus $6 postage (if applicable). In addition, a special edition hard-back book is available in limited numbers, costing $88 plus $6 postage (if applicable). The special edition is limited to 100 copies, and is produced in leather style with gold titles, each book individually numbered.