Historical Artefact Monday - The Drinks Cabinet

The drinks cabinet at Melbourne Soccer HQ contains two football-themed glasses, both adorned with quality, old school emblems.

The following glass was made for the 50th Anniversary celebrations for Moorabbin City in 1999, the club having folded at the end of the previous season. For the history booklet from the same event, click here.

The glass featured the 1970's-1980's club logo on one side, with a 1950's logo on the other.

The classic 1950's "The Dominoes" logo, with 1949 foundation date.

The other anniversary themed drinking glass in my collection is a shot glass commemorating 60 years of Melbourne Croatia/Knights from 2013.

                                             (Click on images to enlarge)

More Random Pictures

More as in additional rather then extremely random.

The gratitude you get for getting a club promoted. Moorabbin City win promotion on the final day of the 1994 season, the banner reading "WHO ATE ALL THE PIES? STIRTS U FAT B'TARD".

No longer Croatia, not yet the Knights. Melbourne CSC 1993.

Pre-renovation (2010) home dressing room at Knights Stadium.

VSF President John Dimtsis gives junior State Team representative Mark Viduka his new gear at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve clubrooms.

Not Vin Cattoggio, but the enigmatic Ulysses Kokkinos. The greatest afro of 1970's Victorian State League soccer.

Richmond 1969 at a sunny Burnley Oval.

An earlier incarnation of Rosebud in the VSF leagues, Provisional League club Rosebud in 1981.

The great John Punshon takes a snap of a Richmond goal celebration against Bentleigh Greens at Kevin Bartlett Reserve in 2012.

Richmond skipper Erhan Karahan keeps an eye on Dandenong Thunder's Nate Foster at George Andrews Reserve in 2012.

The 1994 VSF Yearbook cover, featuring Bulleen and Paul Trimboli.

                                                      (Click on photos to enlarge)

Soccer News, Of Late 1965

I've reduce copied, scanned and uploaded four issues of Soccer News from 1965:

Thursday August 12

Thursday October 14

Thursday November 18

Thursday November 25

Morrie Buckner had page two, with Jim Cook having the back page. Martyn Harris did a round-up of the Metropolitan League. Fred Villiers was editor.

In the August 12 issue, one of the letters to the editor came from controversial J.U.S.T. President Tony Kovac. South Melbourne Hellas sat top of the State League. Jim Cook asks has the Argus Medal had it, and it has because the award would eventually be renamed in honour of Bill Fleming.

The October 14 edition came after the conclusion of the league competitions. The Australia and Dockerty Cups were being contested, and the silly season of interstate/national league talk was underway. Victoria, a first division club from Adelaide, defeated Richmond Alemannia 2-1, probably taking the crown of top German club in Australia in the process. George Scott of Juventus won the Argus Medal, which was presented to him by Stuart Beaton on Channel 7's World of Sport the previous Sunday.

A Dockerty Cup Final preview can be found in the November 18 issue, with Croatia and Slavia set to face-off. Page 4 features a special on South Australian football. Jim Cook's page reveals the chance to see films of Torpedo Moscow v Victoria and Torpedo Moscow v New South Wales at North Melbourne Town Hall. I wonder if those films still exist somewhere?

The Cambodia Catastrophe is covered in the November 25 number. Australia's World Cup qualification chances were crushed with a 6-1 loss against North Korea in Phnom Penh. A double page centrespread celebrates Slavia winning the Dockerty Cup Final. Jim Cook's page list a few honours, including Tommy McPherson (George Cross) winning the Soccer News Best and Fairest Award, with Alistair Scott (Melbourne) taking out the Sporting Globe Best and Fairest Award for the State League. Again, highlights of the Adelaide Croatia v Melbourne Croatia match were shown on Channel 9 in Adelaide the previous week. Another treasure probably lost.

NSL Transfer List 1989

1989 NSL Transfer List

The file above contains a list of player's "open to transfer" from NSL clubs in 1989. Even not allowing for inflation, there are some expensive cattle among them.

On the Sunshine George Cross list, current NPLV coaches Andrew Marth and Chris Taylor are listed side by side. The first two on Melbourne Croatia's list have both had sons go on to play for the club.

St George B.S.C, (they were being discrete with the name Budapest by this stage) rated Scotty Ollerenshaw ($75,000) and Andy Koczka ($60,000) way above Andy Harper ($15,000).

A young Craig Foster was priced at just $15,000 with his nemesis Robbie Slater valued at a whopping $150,000 by Sydney Croatia. Don't reckon that burns?

Sydney Olympic and Wollongong City seem to have their whole squads open for inspection. Alistair Edwards could be had for $50,000 with Steve Georgakis their most expensive at $100,000. Wollongong's Jimmy Srbinovski had $150 on his head, why not just list him as FREE?

Adelaide City put up David Clarkson for $10,000. Wollongong's Pat Brodnik was listed at $15,000. Can anyone remember if he didn't play on Saturdays due to religious reasons? Caveat emptor if that was the case.

Any chance of an explanation?

There's been a bit of debate about the FFA's National Club Identity Policy. Those who support it have pointed out that it is not being applied retrospectively, often ignoring that previous purges from the governing bodies have already seen clubs forced into changing parts of their identity (names and emblems). South Melbourne Hellas became just South Melbourne, Melbourne Croatia became Melbourne Knights, Heidelberg Alexander became Heidelberg United and the list goes on. Marconi were forced to remove the colours of the Italian flag that were on the boomerang in their emblem.

Which is why I was surprised to see this recently:

Under changes forced on other clubs by the VSF years ago, the name Maccabi appearing on this website, and the star featured in the emblem would contravene FFV rules of competition.

Here's an explanation from the FFV's Maxwell Gratton from 2007:

(Click on images to enlarge)

As highlighted by the FFV, the name "Alemannia" appearing alongside the club name and in the version of the club emblem was unacceptable. It poses the question as to whether the FFV discriminates against some clubs in how it enforces it's rules.

When I started Richmond Alemannia Magazine in 2002, the Alemannia name had officially been removed for many years. Even in the 1960's, the club generally appeared on league tables as just Richmond. I put the name in the title as a tribute to the tradition of the club, not in any attempt to spread German nationalism. It was as much a fanzine at times as a programme.

You may note the date on the letter is March 22nd, 2007. It arrived on the day of a home game against Essendon Royals, when 150 copies of that week's magazine had been printed and stapled. As a result of the letter, these were not allowed to be distributed. Annoying, but is any club volunteer not really wasting time that could be better spent elsewhere anyway?

@footballvic Any chance of an explanation? http://t.co/vC9FRzbNPn pic.twitter.com/R8U14ZxDb2
— Mark Boric (@MarkBoric) August 18, 2014

So I tweeted the official FFV account to ask for an explanation. Could I be mistaken in my assumption that the rules are not being applied consistently? I'm willing to be convinced, but as yet there are no takers.

Random Research Musings

After two days in which I arrived at the SLV newspaper reading room at 10.a.m and didn't leave until just before 6.00 p.m. closing (without any food, drink or toilet breaks) in a week and then trying to make sense of my appalling note-taking, I may as well share what little discoveries I made.

Deciding to work back in time for a change I had a look for reserve's league champions, League Best and Fairest and Top Goalscorers from the early and mid 2000's. Gave up on that pretty quickly as it was futile. It's stuff that should already be available on the net but to to incompetence it isn't. For another day.

I then moved on to mid and early 1990's Cup Finals of the State League, Provisional League, Amateur League and Armstrong variety. A bit more success here. Found the line-ups for the 1992 Dockerty Cup Final, as well as the score from the curtain raiser, a 1-1 draw between the Victorian state team and South Melbourne Hellas.

1991 saw a play-off between the NSWPL and VPL champions. It was Sutherland v Brunswick Juventus over two legs. Both won 1-0 at home (home city in the case of Juve who used Northcote's John Cain Reserve) leading to a penalty shoot-out won 4-3 by Brunswick.

Always a bittersweet moment finding a Cup final line-ups but no record of the substitutions made. That was in the case of the 1990 Dockerty Cup Final. Melbourne Croatia only had two on the bench, whilst Brunswick Juventus had the full five, with Charlie Egan at least being brought on being gleaned from one match report.

OzFootball has the South Melbourne line-up for the infamous 1988 Dockerty Cup Final, but not that of Melbourne Croatia. Which is of main interest being the Final is infamous for seeing winners Croatia stripped of their win on protest after bringing on Frank Valentic as sub when he was under suspension from a Youth league game apparently. Did not find their full line-up or substitutions.

Found enough scores from 1954 to finalise the Third Division table. Almost enough to do the same for the Fourth Division, though that picture is muddied by Shell and Slovakia both pulling out, and Victorian Colts being added halfway through the season.

A puzzle stubbornly refusing to be solves is the Third Division of 1951. One score missing, Coburg v Olympic from June 30. I know Coburg won, because going on promotion/relegation the next season they must have secured the two points they needed to jump from fourth to second. The Coburg Courier has the score from the week before and after, but not that week.

Still don't have full line-ups for the 1958, 1959 and 1970's Dockerty Cup Finals. I must say the The Sun's Morrie Buckner was the worst of the old time correspondents I've come across. One match report barely mentioned a single player amid his whinging about the pitch and weather.

Since then I've had a look at some missing goalscorers from the OzFootball records), as I still think that working out a lineage of Top Goalscorers for the VSL/VPL back to 1960 is possible. As of now, there are seven goals unaccounted for in 1964. Will need to go back to see if there are any details around on the replayed game of Alexander 1 Melbourne 3 on Wednesday September 9. As it stands, Mike Mandalis of South Melbourne Hellas heads the list on 16, with all of South's goals accounted for. This puts him two clear of Frank Soffels from Willhelmina, who have one goal missing, so he has him covered. Jimmy Malloy of Melbourne sits on 13, and a hat-trick in that game would have him share honours, and it may be possible because he did most of his scoring in braces or hat-tricks that year.

I've found the missing scorers for 1967, and it was a climactic finish tallying the goals. Tony Hughes of J.U.S.T. scored twice in the final round to draw level on 19 with Jimmy Armstrong (Hakoah) and Attila Abonyi (Melbourne) who went head to head at Middle Park. Abonyi scored the only goal of the game to clinch the Golden Boot.

In 1961 four games from the Public Holiday Monday round on April 3rd remain elusive in terms of goalscorer details. And I mean elusive. Tried the Italian paper Il Globo, as Juventus played Richmond Alemannia that day, but they only covered the subsequent Saturday game in their next issue. Tried the German newspaper Neue Welt and would you believe it there was a "this issue is missing" slide on the microfilm for the relevant week, the only one on a reel covering two years worth of the paper. A tally of the goals sees Alex Beattie of J.U.S.T. on top with 21 goals, again with all their goals accounted for. Joe Haasz is the only one who can catch him, sitting on 19 and with both goals in Slavia's 4-2 loss to Moreland that fateful day still unknown.