Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1926

The 1926 season saw Footscray Thistle once again claim the Victorian Metropolitan League Championship. They were, however, knocked out in the first round of the Dockerty Cup by Melbourne Thistle. The Cup would end up being won by Naval Depot, the boys from Crib Point edging out St Kilda (featuring Sandy Lowe and Maurice Vandendriescche) 4-3 in the Final.

                                             Click on images to enlarge

Johnny Orr, Lyons, Calderwood and Templeton were again prominent for Thistle. They would lose J.Jeffries late in the season, after he was banned for life for striking a referee.

As in the previous season, there were now four divisions of the Metropolitan League. Albert Park, Prahran City, Box Hill and Heidelberg were all on the rise. Issues of promotion and relegation were not to be that straightforward though, as reports throughout the season contained talk of a proposed "District" scheme, which was eventually adopted.

Footscray Thistle became the team of the Footscray district, and in 1927 the Thistle name was not always used in reports. Cup winners Naval Depot, along with Melbourne Thistle and Melbourne Welsh, were among first division clubs that were not accepted into the District League for 1927. Neither was Northumberland and Durham United, which virtually killed them off (a Footscray United would emerge in the Melbourne and District League).

The discarded clubs hastily established the Melbourne and District League, which would end up comprising of two divisions of eight teams in 1927. The split was quite acrimonious, and after two seasons the District Scheme was abandoned, probably having done more harm than good.

The season's representative fixtures included the Local International (a huge win for Scotland), a North v South clash and a First Division v The Rest match. There does not appear to have been any state team games.

It took a bit of work to reconcile published results with the final published tables, as a few lower division results were missing. In this season 1-0 was the standard method of dealing with forfeits/walkovers though there was once case of a team being awarded a win and two points without the goal difference being altered.

Pleasingly enough goalscorers were named in the First Division results to establish that Preston's Doncaster was the top goalscorer with 11 goals for the season. Unfortunately I have yet to see his first name, or even an initial, appear in any newspaper reports. Especially sad given that he was a Victorian representative player, having scored twice in his only (known, as yet) game for the state against South Australia at the end of 1925. It is a shame a complete Victorian state team record has never been established, no "caps" have been awarded and we don't even have the first names of many of those players from that era.

Anyway, here it is, the...

Victorian Season File 1926

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1913

1913 saw Yarraville win the Victorian Championship for the third year in a row, though for the first time under that name (1911 they were Williamstown, in 1912 it was Williamstown-Yarraville). The clubs were divided into an eight team First Division and a Second Division of six teams. This year there were no reserves/A teams in the Second Division as in 1912, as they had their own competition, won by Burns A. The Dockerty Cup was held once again, and there was a secondary Cup, the Junior Cup, for the Second Division and Reserves/A teams to fight for. It was won by Second Division champions Preston after a second replay.

Yarraville completed a league and Cup double, pipping the unbeaten Burns by a point to take out the Championship and beating St Kilda 3-2 in the Dockerty Cup Final. Their prominent players included Joe Grieves, Percy Dowker, E.Jones D.Dick and Hatch. They won the league without playing Albert Park in it, who forfeited on both occasions. They did meet and beat them in the Dockerty Cup semi-finals, twice after the first attempt was abandoned due to rain.

Click on images to enlarge

The season had the now traditional Local International, won 3-1 by England, as well as New South Wales visiting Victoria for two games.

Not all the goalscorers names were published, but it is most likely J.Guthrie of Thistle would claim the honour of top goalscorer.

There were numerous walkover and forfeits. In the season file I've included two of those involving Albert Park for the same day after the season was over. The original fixture published in the newspapers went out of the window following a washed out weekend on May 31 when most games were abandoned after a storm hit early in the second half. Complicating the fixture revisions were the numerous Dockerty Cup replays as well as the weekends of the Victorian state team games and the Local International being reserved solely for those fixtures.

Anyway, here it is:

1913 Victorian Season File

The Forgotten Grand Finals

Many hours of looking at the online archives of The Age and The Argus have left me closer to insanity than usual and neglecting the blog for the longest time in it's brief history.

I guess most casual observers of the local game may know that the VPL switched from a first past the post Championship to a Finals series in 1992, with North Geelong taking the first Grand Final 4-1 after extra time against Brunswick Juventus. Despite the old First Division, and then from 1958, the old State League awarding the Championship to the side the headed the ladder at the conclusion of the season, there had been "Grand Finals" prior to 1992.

In 1915 the fledgling League was contested in two Sections rather than Divisions. In the Semi-Finals, Albert Park (top of Section A) defeated St Kilda (runner's-up in Section B) 4-0. Section B leaders Thistle got past Section A runner's-up Northumberland and Durham United 3-2. Thistle claimed the Championship of Victoria by triumphing 1-0 over Albert Park at Middle Park, Brown being the scorer.

With the disruption caused by the First World War, soccer in Melbourne went into recess as most players enlisted to serve their King and Country. When organised football got back underway in 1919, there were only enough teams for one division, but in 1920 the two section set-up was back in use. The first Grand Final between Northumberland and Durham United and St Kilda was drawn 1-1, leading to a replay in which N&D (a much needed abbreviation) claimed the title with a 2-0 win.

The competition then went back to the traditional divisional structure, but again a Grand Final of sorts was required in 1923. This time it was because deciding the Championship on goal difference or goal average was considered inadequate, so St Kilda and Footscray Thistle, locked on 20 points each faced each other in a Championship Play-Off. The two sides still took a bit of separating, the first encounter ending in a 2-2 draw. The replay was also drawn, this time without any goals, before St Kilda finally took the honours 2-1 in the second replay, making it a double by winning the Dockerty Cup 1-0 over Preston as well.

There was upheaval in the administration of the game in 1927, with a "District" competition set up by the new Melbourne Soccer Football Association. Some older clubs were cast aside and played in their own competition, which was not covered by the major papers.

In 1928 the District League was divided into North and South Sections, again requiring a Grand Final to determine the Championship of Victoria. Naval Depot, playing out of Crib Point, went undefeated in the Southern Section, and Footscray also failed to taste defeat in the Northern Section. The Grand Final at the Motordome saw the Navy men take the honours 2-1 with goals from Crowe and Lewis. P.Lewis would go on to represent Victoria and play for Brunswick and Hakoah before his death on May 26th, 1936.

The District set-up was abandoned in 1929, as was the use of sections in the top league. They say war is hell, and it certainly was for local football in the latter part of World War Two. The league continued to shrink, back to a single division for much of the hostilities. In 1945 the teams played each other once, before the second phase saw the top five play each other once again, the bottom five doing likewise.

By 1947, it was back to the two sections top division concept, this time with ten teams each. It turned into a farce, as the difference between some clubs was vast. Sunshine United hammered Heidelberg Rangers 21-0, South Melbourne United won 13-0 at Woodlands, the R.A.F. beat Olympic 12-1, Moreland crushed Woodlands 15-2 and Park Rangers defeated the same hapless Woodsmen 18-1 amongst the many uneven contests which resulted in numerous double figure scores. Angus Drennan netted 8 goals in the above mentioned romp by Sunshine United. The Grand Final was also a high scoring affair, with Sunshine United getting up 6-2 against Moreland at Olympic Park.

The debacle saw a permanent return to the traditional divisional league structure from 1948. So there were Grand Finals before 1992, but I've yet to ascertain enough information from match reports to see if we can declare retrospective Jimmy Rooney Medal winners.