Some History of the Australian Women's Soccer Association National Championships

Thanks to Ian Syson passing on to me some items from the Betty Hoar Collection I have been able to scan and upload a heap of programmes for the Australian Women's Soccer Association National Championships.

The AWSA ran the women's game until it was absorbed into the FFA in the 2000's. It's Senior National Championships were first held in 1974, before Youth (changed between Under 16-19's over the years) and Junior (ranged from Under 15-16's at times) versions were late added.

The programmes range from small, typrewritten and photocopied efforts to glossy printed brochures. They are a great time capsule for the state of the game at the time, and showcase how the tournaments traveled to different host cities or towns each year. Most have the squad lists for each of the competing states and territories.

It's a shame the couldn't have a full wrap up of the previous year's tournament (scores, scorers, line-ups) as that information now appears to be gone forever. It's disappointing that in the latter years the stalwarts milestones were only able to measured in terms of number of tournaments they went to, rather than the number of games played (and goals scored).

The programmes can be found on the general Programmes page and scrolling down until the mid-1970's.

http://melbournesoccer.blogspot.com/p/programmes.html

I've tried completing a history of the tournaments by adding to the lists published in them and here's what I've been able to come up with. Still a little more to do, and it should probably be expanded to include stuff like player of the tournament where it was awarded etc but that will have to be another thing added to the backburner for now.

Australian Women's Soccer Association National Championships

Year         Venue Champions Runner's-Up

1974 Sydney New South Wales Northern New South Wales
1975 Brisbane         Western Australia South Queensland
1976 Melbourne New South Wales Victoria
1977 Perth New South Wales South Queensland
1978 Newcastle Western Australia New South Wales
1979 Darwin New South Wales Victoria
1980 Adelaide         New South Wales Northern New South Wales
1981 Sydney New South Wales South Queensland
1982 Brisbane         South Queensland Northern New South Wales
1983 Perth New South Wales South Queensland
1984 Canberra         South Queensland South Australia
1985 Melbourne New South Wales South Queensland
1986 Adelaide         New South Wales South Queensland
1987 Alice Springs Victoria Northern New South Wales
1988 Newcastle New South Wales South Queensland
1989 Canberra         Victoria South Queensland
1990 Sydney New South Wales &
          Northern New South Wales
1991 Canberra         South Queensland New South Wales
1992 Brisbane         Victoria Queensland
1993 Perth New South Wales Queensland
1994 Melbourne New South Wales Victoria
1995 Adelaide         New South Wales Queensland
1996 Darwin New South Wales South Australia
1997 Lake Macquarie  Northern New South Wales New South Wales
1998 Devonport Victoria Queensland
1999 Kuala Lumpur        Queensland
2005 Canberra         Queensland

Australian Women's Soccer Association National Youth Championships

Year Venue         Champions Runner's-Up

1985 Hobart New South Wales Western Australia

1986 Sydney New South Wales Northern New South Wales

1987 Brisbane Northern New South Wales Western Australia

1988 Perth New South Wales South Queensland

1989 Darwin South Queensland New South Wales

1990 Melbourne New South Wales South Queensland

1991 Woy Woy New South Wales South Queensland

1992 Hobart New South Wales &

                Queensland

1993 Sydney         Queensland New South Wales

1994 Canberra         New South Wales Queensland

1995 Southport New South Wales Queensland

1996 Perth New South Wales Queensland

1997 Melbourne A.C.T.                         Victoria

1998 Adelaide         South Australia         New South Wales

1999 Darwin Victoria Queensland

2000 Sunshine Coast       South Australia         Northern New South Wales

2001 Coffs Harbour New South Wales Northern New South Wales

2002 Coffs Harbour New South Wales New South Wales Country

National Talent Identification Championships Under 18's

2003 Sydney New South Wales Metro Queensland

National Talent Identification Championships Under 17's

2004 Sydney South Australia Victoria

Australian Women's Soccer Association National Junior Championships

Year Venue          Champions Runner's-Up

1982 Melbourne Northern New South Wales New South Wales

1983 Canberra         New South Wales Northern New South Wales

1984 Newcastle New South Wales Northern New South Wales

1985 Hobart New South Wales Northern New South Wales

1986 Sydney New South Wales South Queensland

1987 Brisbane         New South Wales Tasmania

1988 Melbourne New South Wales South Queensland

1989 Adelaide         New South Wales A.C.T.

1990 Brisbane         New South Wales South Queensland

1991 Woy Woy South Queensland New South Wales

1992 Renmark         New South Wales South Australia

1993 Bendigo New South Wales Queensland

1994 Swansea         New South Wales Queensland

1995 Hobart A.C.T.                      Victoria

1996 Southport

1997 Canberra

1998 Qld

1999 Perth New South Wales City Northern New South Wales

2000 Sunshine Coast New South Wales Queensland

2001 Coffs Harbour New South Wales Country  Queensland

2002 Coffs Harbour Queensland New South Wales

National Talent Identification Championships Under 16's

2003 Sydney Queensland New South Wales Metro

National Talent Identification Championships Under 15's

2004 Sydney New South Wales Metro Queensland

Expansion!

Expansion is on the agenda, of the blog not the A-League, that is.

Thanks to the ongoing contributions of George Cotsanis, Ian Syson, Damian Smith (in conjunction with the late Kevin Christopher) and Greg Stock, and the faithful reliability of the old HP Officejet Pro 8610 the library within the blog continues to grow.

The main areas of growth are within the Australian Soccer Weekly Archive. At the moment at least half a dozen new issues are added weekly, but there is still a long way to go before everything I have is scanned.

Everything below the blue page on the pile on the left has been scanned. On the pile on the right those below the blue page at the bottom and above the upper blue page have been scanned, So still a long way to go.

Thanks to Greg Stock we now have a Soccer Weekly News Archive. Soccer Weekly News was the NSWSFA magazine, and it predates any publications emanating from Victoria. Greg is also contributing NSWSFA and NSWSF Yearbooks and Handbooks, which can be found in the  Yearbooks and Annuals Archive within the History Documents page. To complement the 17 volume History of Soccer in New South Wales series of Sid Grant and Harry Hetherington, Greg has also provided Sid Grant's book The History of Coalfields Soccer, which can be found in the Books section of the History Documents Archive.

Also in the Book section is Laurie Schwab's The Socceroos and Their Opponents, scanned by Todd Giles ( @nfhistory on Twitter ). It's a book that probably surpassed Jack Pollard's Soccer Records as the great Australian football history tome of it's day.

Ian Syson recently provided me with some photocopies for scanning, which saw several more VASFA and VSF Yearbooks and Handbooks added to the Yearbooks and Annuals Archive. There were some also some early 1960's issues of Soccer News and the renamed (for one year only, Soccer Weekly) that are now in the Soccer News Archive.

There are also programmes coming through from Greg, so keep an eye on on the Programmes Archive for updates.

Evaporating History

Back in 2001 Roy Hay put out this appeal for old issues of Soccer News to aid in football research. It took up about an eighth of a page in Australian and British Soccer Weekly. I think I ended up going to the Oakleigh Public Library to makes photocopies (Pre-Officeworks days) of two issues that I had that he didn't to send to him. His collection can now be found at the MCC Library. I don't think the State Library would microfilm a collection which was so far from being complete.

What staggers, and infuriates, me is eighteen years later no governing body of the game has made any sort of concerted effort to make a similar appeal to redress the vanishing history of our game in this country. In these years how many more old newspapers, programmes, photos and yearbooks have ended up in landfill, many lost forever. We have competition histories that are incomplete and the resources to try and remedy that continue to disappear.

It makes me think of Dr Ian Syson's The Game That Never Happened. We have history rotting away, and only have ourselves to blame. Six paragraphs in ABSW in 2001, in one issue. Today we have social media. The FFA twitter account has 150,000 followers, Football Victoria over 11,000. There is a far greater platform now to appeal for historical documents by these well-staffed organisations, yet there has been absolutely nothing done. If they truly loved the game, these people would be ashamed.

                                      (Click on image to enlarge)

The WTF League Division Four 1930

On first looks, finding a final table for the Fourth Division of the Metropolitan League doesn't not appear to be too much of a drama.

The Age gives us a late table in early September. Eight teams. 7 times 2 makes for 14 home and away games. Most teams have played all 14. Four haven't, so surely it's just a case of working out which two results are missing, finding out when they should have been played and trying a few other sources to find the results. If nothing can be found, assume this is the final table and just worry about the blurry nature of Spotswood's goals for figure.

But it's not that easy. It rarely is. Here's the first problem. Why are Spotswood playing Malvern in a League game when they've already finished their 14 game season? Gathering known results into a wordpad file, I then get the pen and paper out and list each club's results. More anomalies. Why did Pascoe Vale play Malvern three times? Why did Bentleigh play Kingsville three times?

Using the tables published in The Age on Fridays, and the published fixtures, it was possible to figure out some missing results. But still the anomalies remain. It's a note alongside a Third Division result from Saturday August 9 that provides a breakthrough. "Replayed game after protest". It was the only Third Division game that day, no full programme because of a Dockerty Cup semi-final. So were the two Fourth Division games that day also replays after protests? It starts to make sense.

So why did Spotswood play Malvern again on October 4? It seems their August 16 clash may have been included in the table published by The Age on September 9. It was abandoned due to players fighting, with Spotswood 3-0 up. Maybe it was assumed the score would stand, before a ruling came through for the October 4 replay?

This leaves the two missing games as September 6 clashes between Malvern United and Kingsville, and Nobels v Croydon. As well as trying to figure why goals scored for and against don't seem to tally....

Would it have killed them to have have published the tables again on October 6? And does Dr Ian Syson place the blame for that at the feet of Michael Lynch?