Geelong West Giants
| Geelong West Giants | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Names | |
| Full name | Geelong West Giants |
| Nickname(s) | Giants |
| Club details | |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Colours | Orange Charcoal White |
| Competition | Geelong Football League; Geelong & District Football League |
| Premierships | nil |
| Ground(s) | West Oval, Geelong West; Bakers Oval, Geelong West[1] |
The Geelong West Giants is an Australian rules football club that fields senior teams in both the Geelong Football League and Geelong & District Football League.
The Geelong area's first new club since 1990 was born out of the merger of the town's two previous teams, Geelong West St Peters Football Club (the Roosters, also known as "Red West") and Geelong West Sporting Club (the Cheetahs, also known as "Blue West"). With both Geelong West clubs having sustained periods of minimal success in recent years, it was decided by both sets of members to pursue a merged entity. The Giants now field senior football teams in the GFL and GDFL, both respective competitions of their predecessors, while also operating junior football, senior netball and junior netball teams.
Initially, the Giants name was to be used as part of a rebrand by the Roosters to align with AFL club Greater Western Sydney Giants, given the similarities between the Roosters' oft-used abbreviation, GWSP, and the AFL Giants' abbreviation, GWS. Roosters officials met with officials from the GWS Giants in July 2016 to facilitate the move, with the potential to incorporate the Cheetahs into the new club should it be agreed upon by all parties.[2] Later that month, members of the Roosters voted unanimously to rebrand the club under the new moniker and to continue fielding teams in their current respective leagues, the GFL and GDFL.[3] A fortnight later, the merger became a formality as an "overwhelming majority" of Cheetahs members voted to join forces with the Roosters, to create what then Cheetahs executive chairman Paul Westcott described as a "super-club".[1]