Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1932

1932 saw Footscray Thistle claim the Victorian championship for a fifth (and final) time. They did it in emphatic style as well, remaining unbeaten in claiming the league and Dockerty Cup double. They scored an impressive 80 goals in their 14 league games, Jock Lyons leading the league goalscoring charts with 34, 20 more than it took him to claim that honour the previous season when he was with Brunswick.

                                                 Click on images to enlarge


It would prove to be the high point of the club's history, a fifth state title going alongside a fifth Dockerty Cup win and a third time the club had completed the double. They would prove to be the club's last major triumphs, a gradual decline and the shrinking of the game during the Second World War seeing them play their last ever game in 1940.

The V.A.S.F.A. Metropolitan League comprised of 4 senior and 2 reserves divisions in 1932. The Fourth Division contained a few reserves sides of some Third Division clubs, and was reduced to just 6 teams when one of those, Glenroy A, and the Preston third team (playing as Preston B) withdrew in the early stages of the season.

Royal Caledonians A won the First Division Reserves League and Preston A won the Second Division Reserves League. The emerging Hakoah side won their way into the top flight.

The Carrick Cup, also known as the Inter-Association Cup, saw Wonthaggi defeat the Metropolis 2-0 in the replayed Final after an initial 3-3 draw.

Establishing all the league results was not without it's challenges. Some were missing, but able to be calculated by comparing league tables, which thankfully were published regularly in the papers. There were spanners in the works such as the major papers publishing a score of Nobels 4 Caulfield 3 when only the match report in the Sunshine Advocate revealed the scoreline was the wrong way around. There was also a Third Division game which must have been the subject of dispute and protest, as it was clearly replayed again later in the season. Finally, the tables published at the end of season contained errors when compared to the known results and earlier published tables. For instance the penultimate table in Division One showed Footscray Thistle on 71 goals for. The next week, in the same column as the scoreline of their 9-1 win over Brighton (and with goalscorers named to account for 9 goals) the table lists them as having scored 79 for the season.

So here it is:

1932 Victorian Season File