[1] The presence of established WANFL players like inaugural captain-coach "Judda" Bee from East Fremantle and Fred Sweetapple from West Perth was critical to the fledgling club's competitiveness.

In 1935, Swans finished sixth on the WANFL Ladder with six wins and twelve losses and George Krepp won the Sandover Medal.

The 1937 season saw Swan Districts, under new coach Jim Ditchburn, finish in third place on the League Ladder with 14 wins and 7 losses, and play in their first finals series.

During this period they never finished higher than sixth of eight teams, and overall won only sixty-one and drew one of their 301 matches, suffering from the fact that much of the area around Bassendean was "un-allotted" so that players such as Keith and Roy Harper, and Frank Coulson moved to more successful clubs.

In 1957 Swan Districts won their first Colts Premiership, repeating the dose in 1958,[5] and these teams provided the nucleus of their successes in the early to middle 1960s.

Swans in this era were hindered by the lack of a full-time coach or secretary that made it harder for them to recruit than other WANFL clubs.

Swan Districts were also last in 1970 and 1971, and not until 1974 did they again make the finals, under the coaching of Jack Ensor, who most unusually never played senior League Football.

John Todd, who took the coaching reins at Bassendean in 1977 and began with a big clean-out of players, brought with him a new winning culture, one which would emulate that of the Haydn Bunton era.

Swan Districts fell drastically to be last in 1986 and 1988, but rose equally rapidly and after a stint coaching the West Coast Eagles in 1988 and 1989, Todd returned to the club and after being fifth with ten wins in 1989 they won a seventh premiership, beating Claremont 16.7 (103) to 10.17 (77) in 1990.

They could not challenge Subiaco or South Fremantle for the flag, and in 2006 fell to only seven wins before Turner gave way to former Eagles star Chris Lewis early in 2007.

Brian Dawson took over as coach of the seniors in 2008 and the club rebounded from disappointing results in the previous two years to play in the 2008 Grand Final which they lost to Subiaco.

Sandover Medallists: George Krepp 1935, Jim Davies 1944, Haydn Bunton Junior 1962, Bill Walker 1965–1967 & 1970, Phil Narkle 1982, Mick Grasso 1990, Jeremy Wasley 1996, Shane Beros 2003, Andrew Krakouer 2010, Samuel Fisher 2020, Nik Rokahr 2024.