The Sydney Swans/South Melbourne Football Club is on the verge of winning their 1000th game in the 112–year history of the VFL/AFL following last Saturday’s 11-point win over Port Adelaide.

With five wins this season the Swans currently sit on 999 victories from 2173 games with a further 22 draws.

One more victory will see Sydney Swans/South Melbourne as the sixth of the eight foundation Clubs to reach the historic 1000th win milestone with the Melbourne Demons the last to hit the mark back in round 17, 2006.

The initial incarnation of Sydney Swans/South Melbourne kicked off with their inclusion in the 1897 VFL season winning eight games and just missing a place in the final-four with Essendon crowned winners after what was then a “round robin” final series.

In 1904 South Melbourne won 10 games for the first time however this wasn’t enough to make the finals, missing the top four on percentage.

It was to be another three years before South Melbourne made the finals for the first time, courtesy of 11 home-and-away victories in the 17 round competition.

They were beaten narrowly by Carlton that year but two years later, in 1909, the tables were turned when South Melbourne took out their first premiership beating The Blues by four-points. That year South won 16 of 20 games with the competition having been expanded a year earlier to 10 teams.

It was to be a further 25 years before South again won 16 games in a season. By that time, 1934, the competition had been expanded to 12 teams however while they won 16 games South were beaten by Richmond in the Grand Final.

South Melbourne had won two premierships in the meantime, in 1918 winning 15 of a possible 16 games and in 1933 winning 15 of a possible 20 games.

The mid-30’s were a highly successful winning period for South despite just the one premiership in 1933.

After the 16 wins in ’34 they won 17 games and finished runners-up to Collingwood in both 1935 and 1936.

However times turned tough through the next four years with the Club winning just 18 games over the period which encompassed the start of WWII.

Come 1945 and South were back in the race again winning 17 games but being knocked over at the final hurdle, beaten by Carlton in the Grand Final and the winning drought quickly returned.

Over the next 37 years, before the 1982 move to Sydney and the birth of the Sydney Swans,  South Melbourne only won 10 games - or more - on five occasions, with the biggest haul coming in 1970 when the side won 14 times and finished fourth, beaten in the first semi-final by St Kilda.

In the 26 completed seasons since arriving in Sydney the Swans have played a further 594 games returning 276 wins, or a winning percentage of 46%. But in the 12 seasons between 1996 and 2007 only once has the Club recorded less than 10 wins in a season; that was the nine victories of 2002.

The competition has obviously expanded and more games are being played but during the past 12 completed seasons the Swans have played 284 games and recorded 162 wins, a winning percentage of 57% with the high-point obviously being in 2005 when the Club won 18 games including the Grand Final.

The only other year in the Clubs history that 18 wins were recorded was when the Club again appeared in a Grand Final - 1996 - however on that occasion the silverware went the way of North Melbourne.

And so the record stands as of today;

South Melbourne/Sydney Swans: 2137 games played – 999 wins, 22 draws