Past, Present and Future

The present: Only attended two games last weekend, Richmond 1 Bentleigh Greens 1 on Friday night and then Eastern Lions 1 Western Suburbs 2. Richmond took the lead when Tom Cahill converted a penalty just before half-time on his return to the club, but conceded shortly after the restart. It was less auspicious return to his former club for Tom Matthews, who picked up a second yellow card to see Bentleigh reduced to ten men for the final half hour, but Richmond were unable to capitalise on their numerical advantage.

Eastern Lions went down 1-2 at home to Western Suburbs, conceding two "coach killer" goals from horrendous errors. First the Number 4 made a hash of a back pass, playing in his opponent and exposing his keeper for Suburbs to take the lead. A good team goal saw Lions level before half-time, but a late keeper howler saw the Ralph Reserve boys take all three points. The Lions keeper came out to take a long ball, but it became apparent that it would arrive outside the penalty area. It appeared he looked to leap out and head the ball away, but miss-timed it horribly, overshooting the mark and having the ball bounce by him and to the Suburbs player who got ahead of the defender and finished well from an angle.

The future: No news is bad news on the NPLV front. What chances of an early resolution for how the leagues will be comprised next season? Slim to none you would reckon. Hopefully they will be able to get the fixtures out at least a couple of weeks before the season begins.

The past: Started to track down some missing line-ups from past Dockerty Cup Finals. It's a shame that the South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights websites don't have all their winning teams listed in their otherwise excellent History sections on their websites.

Worked out a final table for the Second Division in 1948, won by Bradford from South Yarra. In the Third Division, in which 12 teams played each other just the once, only a score from Heidelberg B v Macedonians that didn't come to hand on August 7 leaves the table incomplete. Melbourne University won the competition from Olympic, with Heidelberg A and George Cross just behind.

In the First Division of 1928 P.Lewis scored 9 as Naval Depot thrashed Richmond 14-0 on July 14. May be close to the record. Lincoln Mills were revived in that year, in the Melbourne and District League which ran alongside the Metro District League and Suburban League in the midst of a split in the administration of the game.

The 1927 Dockerty Cup Final will go down as having the earliest ever kick-off time, commencing at 10.15 am. It was on Melbourne Cup day, hence the early start.

Enjoying the past a little more than the present at the moment with worrying concerns for the future.