The Great Schism 1927-28

The local game was split in 1927 when the Metropolitan District League was introduced. This was the landscape prior to the revolution:

Division One 1926
Footscray Thistle, Melbourne Thistle, Melbourne Welsh, Naval Depot, Northumberland and Durham United, Preston, Spotswood, St Kilda

Division Two 1926
Albert Park, Brunswick, Caulfield, Collingwood City, Coburg, Essendon City, Newport, Prahran City

Division Three 1926
Austral, Box Hill, Brighton, Middle Park, Moonee Ponds, Sunshine United, Union Jack, Werribee United

Division Three 1926
Bentleigh, Box Hill United, Croydon, Heidelberg, Lancashire & Yorkshire, R.A.A.F., Springvale

The 1927 District League comprised the following teams:

Box Hill, Brunswick, Collingwood City, Essendon City, Footscray Thistle, Prahran City, Preston, South Melbourne, St Kilda, Williamstown

Melbourne Thistle, Melbourne Welsh, Naval Depot and emerging clubs Sunshine United and Heidelberg all joined the breakaway Melbourne and Districts Association League. Their Association was not affiliated with the overall ruling body, the Victorian Amateur British Football Association. Both The Argus and The Age seemed reluctant to acknowledge the breakaway group, not publishing their results or news. Whenever they felt the need to mention them, it was never by name only via a reference to "the unaffiliated" league or competition. Former powerhouse Northumberland and Durham United seem to have faded into oblivion,

The District League, run by the Melbourne Soccer Football Association (affiliated with the V.A.B.F.A.) was set up with clubs having their district zones from which their players had to come from. Maybe the excluded clubs chose not to participate because they wanted to keep their players who lived in zones outside their own? Without knowing how the District League clubs were selected, we can't tell if all these clubs were omitted, or if they opted out themselves. That may have been the case with Naval Depot, who were a strong Dockerty Cup side before they made their mark in League competitions. The tyranny of distance to their Crib Point base saw them late to the party in joining the Melbourne leagues, and even when they found success in them returning to a more local competition was often mooted.

The main source of news and results we get from the Melbourne and District Association in 1927 and 1928 is from The Sun. It intended to run two divisions, Sections A and B, with a Grand Final between the two champions. They also had their own Cup, often abbreviated as the Melbourne Cup rather than it's full name as the Melbourne and District Association Challenge Cup. This also had a reserves version.

As mentioned previously, the Grand Final was abandoned when Section B champions Naval Depot were suprisingly put into the draw of the Dockerty Cup by the V.A.B.F.A. Section A champions Heidelberg refused to meet Section B runner's-up Melbourne Thistle in the Grand Final, and before the arguments were resolved the season was over. Naval Depot lost in the Dockerty Cup Final, but did take the Melbourne Cup with a 4-1 defeat of Sunshine United before they departed the M&DA.

In 1928, the expanded District League was divided into Northern and Southern Sections, with an affiliated League, the Suburban League, below them. Naval Depot, Sunshine United and Heidelberg were all back in the fold. The Melbourne and District Association League reverted to a single division, including the newly formed Caledonians and a re-formed Lincoln Mills. Caledonians won the championship as well as the Melbourne Cup. Naval Depot also completed a League and Cup double, claiming the District League Grand Final as well as the Dockerty Cup.

It was a turbulent time and the hostilities were bitter. The District League took umbrage at the M&DA continuing with their League on weekends set aside for State team and other representative games, affecting their gates. The M&DA even staged their own version of the Local International of England v Scotland. Eventually Harry Dockerty sought to make peace, with increasing talk towards the end of 1928 that reconciliation was on the cards.

Indeed peace was brokered. An initial plan included 1929 having four equal sectioned Divisions. There would be play-offs and a Grand Final to determine the Champions, and the top two in each section would then be placed in the new First Division for 1930 and the lower leagues set by similarly including the next two teams down in each section. That didn't come to pass, and the First Division of 1929 included the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th placed teams from the District League Southern Section, the 1st, 2nd and 8th placed teams from the District League Northern Section as well as Melbourne Thistle from the Melbourne and District Association League.

There must have been some great politicking from District League strugglers St Kilda (Harry Dockerty's old club) and Williamstown, the 7th and 8th placed teams who somehow managed to get into the eight team First Division. M&DA League champions Caledonians were unlucky to be placed in the new Second Division. Though not all results from that season are available, those that are show them having won all 16 of their games, scoring over 100 goals in the process. Melbourne Thistle, also with only 16 known results (there should have been 20 games in an eleven team competition) would only have finished third or fourth behind them.

So by 1929 the first attempt at running Victorian football along zonal lines was dead in the water. After 1930 Naval Depot would once again depart the Melbourne scene, returning for a one off year in the Second Division of 1935. They would again return post World War II, now known as Flinders Naval Depot, but would never recapture their former glory. A tradition of clubs at loggerheads with the governing body and dirty politics had been born.