At its peak during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were no fewer than twenty-six working mines in the locality supporting a floating population that on occasion was reckoned to number as many as 40,000 inhabitants.

Rushworth had returned to the Goulburn Valley competition when football had resumed after the Great War, and over the ensuing decade the team's performances had steadily improved.

[3] During the 1940s and 1950s country football in Victoria gradually became more outwardly professional, and hence more expensive to administer, a state of affairs that made life increasingly difficult for small clubs such as Rushworth.

Swallowing a hefty dose of pride, Rushworth bravely opted for the latter course of action, and the 1965 season saw it fielding teams in the somewhat lower profile, but still intensely competitive, Heathcote District Football League.

However, just as had been the case in the GVFL earlier in the century, the team increasingly found the going difficult, and in 1998 it was deemed necessary to make what amounted to another calculated narrowing of focus by crossing to the Kyabram District Football League.

Nagambie proved to have the Tigers’ measure on that occasion, but it was nevertheless clear that the Rushworth Football Club had found a playing level commensurate with the team's ability.