Giants history
Originally founded as the Dulwich Dragons the club has competed in the AFL London league since 2007. Mark de Stefanis, an Australian living in Dulwich at the time, recognised the need for a new AFL team in the south of London due to the large number Australians living locally. With the support of AFL London, Mark established the team in 2008 and recruited friends, workmates and others to form the Dulwich Dragons in the Social division of the AFL London league. The team's first home ground was Honour Oak Park and the team often trained at Peckham Rye Common alongside The Dulwich Harps Gaelic Football Club. Several members of the Dulwich Harps also played regularly with the Dragons during this time, ensuring strong European involvement in the club. The Dulwich Dragons won several games in the 2008 season and made the divisional finals in its inaugural year in the competition.
After overseeing the Dragons' impressive debut, Mark de Stefanis left London in 2009 and founding team members Alistair Chisholm and Matt Guthridge stepped up to manage the team. From 2009-2010, Chisholm and Guthridge focused on professionalising the team without losing its strong focus on playing "social" football with the team motto "99% social, 1% football". The team adopted new jumpers (replacing the Essendon Bombers jumpers it wore during the 2008-09 seasons), established a web presence, secured generous sponsorship from the Walkabout Finchley Road, and recruited several high quality players into the club. The team also adopted a club song ("Oh we're from Dragonland") in 2010, sung to the tune of the Richmond Football club song. With a bold new image and focus, the Dragons moved into the Conference division of the AFL London league in 2010 and managed to defeat the Putney Magpies in its first season as a demonstration of the team's highly competitive spirit.
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In 2011 the Dragons had a new home ground - Gladstone Park in Dollis Hill - that allows them to tap into the quality playing talent in North West London and take full advantage of the Finchley Road Walkabout's sponsorship. In 2010, the Dragons shared the Motspur Park home ground of the Wimbeldon Hawks in 2010 and were grateful to the Hawks for their support and collaboration during these early days.
2012 saw the club start an affiliation with the Greater Western Sydney Giants to become the South East London Giants. In 2012 the Giants fielded just one men's team who competed in the Conference division. The initial season was a tough one for the club with a struggle for numbers on the field and financial pressures leaving it on the verge of being dissolved by the end of the season.
In the early months of 2013 with a complete reorganisation and reboot of the Giants under new management and a massive push for new recruitment including reaching out to get new players involved who had never heard of the sport before let alone played it. The first preseason training of 2013 saw just six people down at Victoria Park in East London to train in the snow. With a hesitant approval from AFL London, the Giants were given a second chance, this time only competing in the Social division of the league. This season forced the other clubs in the league to reassess the Giants as win followed win and they missed out on a place in the finals by percentage, whilst membership numbers hit a level they had never reached previously.
2014 saw the club determined to hit the ground running. A preseason trip to Sweden to take on the Malmo Giants in a friendly contest was swiftly followed by the Giants hosting and reviving the AFL London Pre-season Cup on our home ground, Peckham Rye. This was the first time in three years that this special one day contest had taken place and the first time the club had taken on the mammoth duty of arranging such a large event. The day was a roaring success with most clubs in the league taking part in the contest and the Giants being praised in the press for putting on such a great event. The home and away season then got under way with the Giants starting with 5 consecutive wins, and undefeated by the half way point of the season.
Following a successful finals' campaign, the Giants qualified for the AFL London Grand Final for the first time in club history, and even received a video message on the eve of the contest from AFL legend and former GWS coach, Kevin Sheedy. The 2014 Grand Final was a hard fought and bitter battle that saw the Giants missing out on the top spot in the final moments of the match by just one point.
In 2015 the Giants became a founding member of the new AFL London Women's league alongside Wimbledon Hawks, Wandsworth Demons and North London Lions, taking Aussie Rules to a wider audience. On April 25th 2015 the South East London Giants hosted North London Lions in the first ever official AFL London Women's Match marching through a banner that read "one small step for the Giants, one giant leap for AFL London".
The 2016 season started with the Giants hosting the preseason cup on a very wet Peckham Rye Common (maybe not the best day to debut the new kit). Despite the weather the day went relatively well with the sponsored Fosters tent providing much needed drinks and cover for those not playing. 2016 was also the first year of the AFLW in Australia which resulted in a boom for AFL in London and South East London Giants Women’s team. Many recruits joined the team and for the first time in club history there were surplus players each week. For the Men’s team it was the first time the club had two men’s teams with a men’s socials team and men’s conference team within AFL London.
The Giants started 2017 with a preseason trip to Iceland becoming one of the first teams in London to travel to the country to play a game of AFL. The tournament featured teams from USA joining both Iceland and the Giants. The season was memorable on many occasions. The Men's team went up a grade and played in the AFL London Premiership and Social division. The jump from Conference to Premiership proved quite difficult for the men's side. The Women's team on the other hand had a great season. They continued having great numbers and for the first time made their first Grand Final, unfortunately losing to a well drilled Wandsworth Demons team.
Pre-season trip in 2018 was spent in Zagreb playing in wet weather footy, with some synchronised ice skating as part of the team bonding session. After a difficult 2017 campaign the rebuild phase begins with the men’s team dropping down a league and fielding a Conference and Socials team for the season. Women’s continued to play in Women’s Premiership and fielded their first GB Representative in AFL London.
2019 started with a trip to Belfast to take part in the Leprechaun Cup. The Giants put up good effort in both Men’s and Women’s teams against tough opposition. Both sides continued in the same leagues as 2019 with the Women's team making it through to the Elimination final against West London Wildcats.
2020 started with a bang with a friendly and quiz in Sussex followed by successfully helping AFL London fundraise for the Bushfires that spread through Australia in February 2020. Little did we know the world was being turned on its head that year and with Covid hitting us in March 2020 the season was curtailed with no formal league matches played. This didn’t dampen our spirits with the Giants partaking in a handball challenge whilst stuck in lockdown. The club also helped raise funds for the NHS with the solidarity jersey being created and sold to members.
2021 was still mostly affected by Covid with a shorter five week season for both Men’s and Women’s teams. Due to the effects of Covid the club went back to fielding just one Men’s team in the Men’s Conference competition with the Women's team continuing to play in premiership division.
After a tough few years with the Global pandemic, 2022 celebrated the 10th year as the Giants. The club celebrated with anniversary training jerseys. In the 2022 season Joe Arthur of the Men's team was awarded the AFL London Men's Social Best and Fairest.
In 2023 the Giant's Women's team made the AFL London Conference Grand Final beating Wandsworth Demons and West London Wildcats in the path. They fell short to London Swans on the day. Arthur secured back to back AFL London Best and Fairest awards this time sharing the prize with fellow Giant, Geoff MacKay. During this season the Giants began live streaming their games on their YouTube channel so friends and family from abroad could watch the action from wherever they were in the world. They continue to be the only club to live stream all their home games with live commentary provided by players.
In March 2024 Peckham Rye hosted the AFL Masters event where UK based masters took on a team visiting from Australia. Over 400 people gathered throughout the day to watch two great matches.
The Giants secured their first premiership flag in 2024 with the Men's Socials side beating the Wandsworth Demons in the Grand Final to take home the cup at Motspur Park. The final score was Demons (6.1) 37 Giants (8.8) 56, with goals kicked from Brett Boyle (2), Geoff McKay, Joe Arthur, Ben Hislop, Matthew Pert, Nathan Brown and Harry Brookes.​​ In this year the women's team made it to another Grand Final against the London Swans, losing out (1.2) 8 to the Swans (3.4) 22.
In 2025 the Giants returned to the AFL London Season having lost a lot of key squad members from both teams that had seen success the year prior. However with great recruitment coming from friends, flyering on the street and social media they were able to recruit strongly and gain even more GB and ROW players to their side. The Women's Team made it to the Preliminary Final just missing out on the big dance after a defeat to North London Lions.