Resolving Resolution Of The Statistical History

I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions, but after three trips to the State Library Victoria over the holidays to chip away at compiling the statistical history of competitive Victorian football I am making it a mission to have it as completed as possible by the end of the year.

Since regular, organised, league football began in 1909 I have 44 years in which all the relevant data I consider important is complete. What do I consider important? Final league tables for all the senior divisions. The names of the champions in the Reserves, District and Amateur Leagues below them. Line-ups and goalscorer details for State Grand Finals and Dockerty Cup Finals. The results of all other senior and reserves Cup finals. The results of any play-off matches for promotion/relegation between leagues. The names of all League Best and Fairest Award winners. Top goalscorers for the senior leagues. On that last one, with most goalscorers not listed in many early years and no tallies published, I allow seasons prior to the 1960's that have all other information but leading scorers to be classed as complete.

This leaves 57 years where information is still incomplete.

Some of these could be wiped out as impossible to find and moved into the complete column. For instance all 1955 is lacking is the name of one of the goalscorers in The Sun Cup Final. I still hold out hope of finding a match report that list it, but can assure you it wasn't in The Sun.

1910, 1913, 1919, 1921, 1924, 1942, 1943, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1958, 1959, 1963, 1964, 1968, 1970, 1973 and 1990 are all years where Dockerty Cup Final and Final Replays need more details regarding team line-ups.

Early Grand Finals/Play-Offs used on odd occasions in 1920 and 1923 also lack line-up details.

The modern age, which should really be online somewhere, but sadly isn't, sees years like 2000, 2002 and 2003 missing the names of the reserves league champions across all divisions. 2002 is also the one year without the winners of the State and Provisional League Best and Fairest Awards.

Funds have been allocated in this financial year for Trove to digitise The Sporting Globe up until 1954. If that is up and running in the latter half of the year it will help in finding results to make some incomplete league tables in the period at least more respectable.

In most cases I have now gone through the major papers (The Age, The Sun, The Herald, The Argus) in looking for information. I've tried Il Globo for Dockerty Cup Final details in years involving Juventus. I looked through some Jewish newspapers to see if there was any information about Hakaoh in the Second World War years when the major papers cut down coverage to a paragraph but they had more important things on their minds. I will now need to try more local suburban papers.

So if anyone out there knows of anyone with a collection of old soccer papers or records that I could have a look at, please get in touch.

'Cause Night is Day and Day is Night - Bits and Pieces II

Another random thoughts column, losing on penalties in the indoor soccer semi-final taking up most of the time tonight. Making the loss worse is the preliminary final is on Sunday afternoon and will clash with VPL game between Oakleigh Cannons and Richmond, which is where I will be.

Great win by the Socceroos last night, giving us the reasonable equation of winning against Iraq next Tuesday equaling World Cup qualification. Milligan, Kruse, Holman and Bresciano amongst our best with opening goalscorer Bresciano far and away still the best passer of a ball we have. Or maybe it just stands out more amongst those that are more athletes than footballers like Wilkshire.

The things that infuriate most when going through The Age and The Argus online archives can be too numerous to mention. But I will have a crack. Results are often listed in the format of Winner 2 d Loser 1, rather than Home Score Away Score. Results are pretty consistent, but actual league tables are few and far between. Some years the results are conveniently placed at the bottom of the match reports, but some they are not and you have to read the full match reports to determine final score and scorers which is fairly time consuming. There are some times when not all goalscorers are listed in high scoring games, with only those that, in Aussie Rules parlance, "kicked a bag" rating a mention. 

In the time before lights and longer working hours, there were no midweek catch-up games. There were no penalty shoot-outs, so postponements and replayed cup ties would often extend the season to the point where it could not be finished because clubs lost venues when the cricket season began.

I would probably change my stance on the whole NPLV shambles if Flinders Naval Depot had put in an Expression of Interest and were brought back to top flight Victorian football. Is there a scoreboard big enough to accommodate the name Northumberland and Durham United? Footscray Thistle and Melbourne Thistle used to give us a great Thistle Derby. 

John Wren's Motordrome was one of the early homes of Melbourne football. The pitch was surrounded by a concrete saucer track used for cycling, motor bike and speedway racing. The latter two were not particularly safe events, and it's a sobering thought that more than a few lives were lost at the arena.

The above mentioned online archives are all well and good, but the true gold can only be found on the microfilm at the State Library Victoria, in the little reels marked Sporting Globe. I'm old enough to remember The Sporting Globe being in publication, with the primary sport if covered always having been horse racing. Many pages were devoted to Aussie Rules (for a long time the Victorian Football Association (VFA) was almost on par with the VFL (now AFL) and other sports though. Soccer was usually pretty well covered, exceptionally so in the 1960's in the post-War migrant boom years. The Globe came out twice a week, a midweek edition on Wednesday, and a Saturday evening edition which contained all that days race results and footy match reports. This was of course largely in the pre-television era.

Actually, there is greater gold than even The Sporting Globe. Accordingly it is also even harder to come by. Have a look at:

http://www.ozfootball.net/museum/index.php/en/downloads

where you can find a few of these beauties:

http://www.ozfootball.net/museum/downloads/SoccerNews1953May16.pdf

Next bits and pieces I will ponder the question, does the FFV have a copy of each of the Yearbooks the VASFA and VSF used to produce?