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 - 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.

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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  

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1928

1928 was the second, and final, divided season in the wake of the 1927 schism. The previous year a District system had been brought in to replace the old League structure. The clubs opposed to it, or not accepted by it, established the Melbourne and Districts Association. The Melbourne Soccer Football Association, with the authorisation of the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association, ran the Metropolitan League and the Suburban League.

The established body weakened the rebels at the end of the 1927 season by poaching that League's top team Naval Depot before they could play in the M&D Association League's Grand Final. For 1928, the Metropolitan District League was expanded to two divisions, of Southern and Northern Sections with the winners of each to meet in a Grand Final. Below that sat the Suburban League. Conversely, the rebel league went from having two divisions (A & B) to a single league.

Having two divisions tested the depth of the top league, and lead to some one-sided match-ups, none greater than Naval Depot thrashing Richmond 14-0 on July 14, with Percy Lewis notching nine goals. Naval Depot were unbeaten in winning the Southern Section, as were Footscray Thistle in claiming the Northern Section. In the Grand Final at the Motordrome it was the Navy who emerged triumphant, a 2-1 win taking the title to Crib Point. They made it a double by defeating the country team of Wonthaggi Magpies 6-0 in the Dockerty Cup Final.

Essendon won all their games in winning the Suburban League then disappeared before the 1929 season. The District League ran two reserves divisions, with the intention of staging a Grand Final between the two winners. This was scuppered when the northern section saw Footscray Thistle and Williamstown finish level on points. With goal average or goal difference not yet in vogue a Championship Play-Off was held, which ended up going to five replays before Thistle claimed honours. By then it was cricket season and the Grand Final was abandoned.

A new team, Caledonians (Scots playing out of Royal Park) took the M&D Association League by storm in taking a League and Cup double. After the split was resolved they were added to the new Second Division in 1929. Their rivals, former powerhouse Melbourne Thistle, were welcomed back into the First Division with the reunion of the factions.

There is one result missing from the Suburban League, as well as known results not matching up with the final published table in two cases, Alphington and Albert Park so something has happened there.

There are many more missing results in the "rebel" M&D Association League. The Age didn't give it much coverage, and only one table was published all season, in The Herald making it hard to determine any of the missing results.

Anyway, here it is:

1928 Victorian Season File

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1924

The 1924 Victorian soccer season saw Footscray Thistle take out the First Division Championship, whilst Naval Depot captured a double by winning the Dockerty Cup and the Second Division Championship.

The Metropolitan League now had the Second Division divided into two sections of eight teams, with a Grand Final between the top of each section to determine the overall champion. With three divisions of eight teams each operating, it may have been too much for the papers to cover as many results were missing from the publications. When compiling this file many teams still had 4, 5, or 6 results missing, a lot in a 14 game season. Thankfully The Age regularly published the senior tables on a Friday, and these have allowed me to figure out all League results. Sadly some Cup scores remain missing.

The First Division operated with a quirky fixture this season, teams playing the same opponent home and away consecutively throughout the season. The lack of information in the papers can be seen when we look at the record of the champions, Footscray Thistle, and notice the number of their games where goalscorers were not noted, as well as a missing score for their First Round Dockerty Cup game.

Naval Depot, playing out of Crib Point, denied Thistle the double by beating them 1-0 in the Dockerty Cup Final. They went through the season unbeaten.

As well as the Local International, representative games included a North v South clash on the King's Birthday to aid in the selection of the state team for two games against the touring Canadian team.

In the days before floodlights and penalty shoot outs, we can see how the Dockerty Cup really messed a season around. Replays would see league games postponed and pushed back, and teams knocked out early could go a month without playing a game.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

Victorian Season File 1924

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1930

In 1930, there were enough senior clubs in Melbourne to field four divisions of eight teams. There First Division season would be marred by an issue between the Brunswick club and the VSFA which would see the club expelled, and has previously been covered here.

The expulsion of Brunswick paved the way for Footscray Thistle to complete a League and Cup double. With Jock Lyons banging in the goals, Thistle took league honours with a three point gap over Caledonians, who they would also beat 3-2 in the final of the Dockerty Cup. The quirks of the Cup draw and replays saw Thistle play games against the same opposition in successive weeks twice, and on one occasion three times in a row. Their record is below:

The biggest winning margin of the top flight season was St Kilda thrashing Prahran 8-0 in May, with eventual league top scorer Alec Forrest notching four. Footscray Thistle also managed eight in one game, smashing the hapless Prahran 8-1 on June 21 with Jock Lyons getting the most goals of any player in the one game that season with six. Forrest also managed to bag five on the same day as St Kilda defeated South Melbourne 6-1.

In the Second Division it was Collingwood who romped to the championship, five points clear of Brighton. The Third Division title was a closer affair, South Yarra edging Sunshine on goal difference. In the Fourth Division it was Middle Park who took the trophy.

There were many results not published in the Fourth Division, and with the league tables not appearing every week working them out was further complicated when it became apparent that a few games early in the season were replayed later on, presumably after a protest of some sort. In the end I stumbled upon getting the scores right for the missing games which would have accounted for all teams finishing with the correct W-D-L and goal difference as found in the final table published in the newspapers.

So here it is, the complete record of senior Melbourne soccer for 1930:

1930 Season File

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1923

By 1923, the Melbourne Metropolitan League was back to being a two division affair, as well as having a reserves league divided into two sections. The league and cup double was completed by St Kilda, who featured the notable Maurice Vandendriessche in their ranks. Their record was as follows:

St Kilda's stuttering finish to the season saw them have to win the league the hard way, via a Championship Play-Off that went to a second replay. As they and Footscray Thistle had finished on equal points, the Play-Off was decided as being a preferred way of determining a champion, ahead of using either goal average or goal difference. At the bottom of the table Northumberland and Durham United, the 1919 champions, were relegated. With second and third last Windsor and Melbourne Thistle also finishing on equal points, it was ruled that they would also face off in a Relegation Play-Off.

The Relegation Play-Off was full of drama, with Thistle deeming the ground unfit and refusing to play the game. Windsor kicked off, scored a goal and claimed a 1-0 win, and though the inference in the newspapers was that the result would stand, a second game was staged the following week. This time Windsor won 2-1, but Melbourne Thistle claimed that Windsor's W.Smith has moved to another club that season and was ineligible. There is no evidence of another play-off being held, and Thistle remained in Division One in 1924 while Windsor went down to Division Two.

Having defeated Preston 1-0 to clinch the Dockerty Cup Final, St Kilda blew a lead in the league with two successive losses to that side in September to end the season. This saw them joined by Footscray Thistle, necessitating the Championship Play-Off. After a 2-2 draw, then a goal-less one, the Saints finally emerged triumphant with a 2-1 win at the Coburg ground (Merlyston).

Spotswood bounced back from being relegated in 1922 to win the Second Division by a point from Newport. Though not all results can be found, a report noted after a late season win that Yarra Falls had captured the championship of their league (Reserves League Section B). From the results available it is most likely that Northumberland and Durham United A won the Reserves League Section A title.

There were a few results missing from Division One, but publication of the league table in The Age made one of them easy to work out. The latter missing results have been worked out by comparing known results to the tables and matching against fixtures.

In Division Two there were more results missing. There is a final table (complete), which does not come from Trove so I assume I found it in The Sun. That allowed a few results to be worked out, but there are still some missing.

In Division One, Footscray Thistle's 5-1 win over Albert Park in the final round was the most goals scored in a game and equal with 4-0 wins by St Kilda over them, Northumberland and Durham United over Windsor and Brunswick over Melbourne Thistle for the biggest winning margin. Hat-tricks for Morris (Albert Park) v Preston and Maxwell (Windsor) v Preston were the most goals scored in a game. Maxwell finished the league's leading scorer with 12 goals.

So here it is:

Victorian Soccer Season 1923

Also I've made a file for the reserves league:

Victorian Soccer Season Reserves 1923

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1919

The time has come to clean up the various scraps of paper lying around which are the result of trying to figure the hidden mysteries of Victoria's soccer past. A new page is being added to the History Documents section of the blog - Victorian Season Files. These Word Pad files contain the scores and some notes on each season, as best as I can uncover. I will put up the seasons prior to the more comprehensive records than can be found on OzFootball.net 

A few disclaimers and excuses. I am not a trained academic or historian and began compiling records haphazardly. In many cases the source of the information is not noted. A lot of that is due to the changing nature of my hobby research. My first visits to the State Library Victoria to look through microfilms were to find Moorabbin City results and tables. In the years after they folded I looked to find final tables for the Victorian top division since 1909. That later spread to all senior leagues. After a diversion looking for Richmond Alemannia first team results, the focus turned to what I try to cover in the Victorian Football Statistical History - final senior league tables, reserves league championship winners, Dockerty Cup Final scores and line-ups, other Cup Final scores, League top goalscorers and League Best and Fairest Award winners.

Since then further lists I began compiling include Victorian state team game details/line-ups, junior league champions, regional league champions and Cup/Grand Final scores and now women's league champions and Cup Final scores. A few of these I've only just taken up, previously assuming/hoping someone more interested in those areas would have started establishing records/history.

It should be noted when I first hit the microfilms, Trove and mobile phones with inbuilt cameras did not exist. This further accounts for the patchy notes. If one newspaper in a particular year was not coming up with much, I would skip a decade or so in the hope of finding something to make the visit worthwhile. This lead to exercise books full of notes in no particular order. Cross referencing between the main papers was also very time consuming, which with limited time meant it did not often occur.

Another factor to consider was I always assumed that at some point the VSF/FFV would make a push to uncover all it's Yearbooks and more issues of Soccer News. There was a hope that if they went from having (rough estimate) 65-75% availability to above 90% a lot more information would be uncovered, especially beyond what the major daily newspapers of the time were prepared to publish. Sadly...

So because it's Anzac Day, and it was the smallest file to clear of typos and other notes accumulated over the years, I shall start with the 1919 season, the resumption of competitive football after the Great War.

This is the only file I include the results of club friendlies on. That is because clubs began gathering at Middle Park in May and playing games, which the papers published results of (often including the line-ups for one game each week). However, the league competition did not get under way until July 12. Due to the late start, the eight teams would play each other just the once. Which means the champions Northumberland and Durham United are probably the team to take the honour with the fewest wins in a season, despite winning 6 of their 7 league fixtures. They were denied the double by Windsor, who defeated them in the Dockerty Cup semi-final before losing to Footscray Thistle in the final. Not only did Windsor deny the "All Digger Team" the double, their 1-1 draw in the final round meant "N&D" fell narrowly short of winning every league fixture at the final hurdle.

The delay in commencing the season came about because though the returned soldiers were keen on having a kick, officialdom had been in recess for four years and establishing a new committee required a few meetings. As luck would have it, when the league season finally commenced, the first week's games were all abandoned around half-time when Melbourne was struck by a ferocious hailstorm.

The full record of Northumberland and Durham United's season can be found here.

Going through what can be found on Trove, the league season came up with two results missing. After writing out each clubs results, then compiling a league record and comparing it to a published final table, I was able to deduce that on July 26 Footscray Thistle must have beaten Preston 2-1. Also on September 13 Preston must then have had a walkover win against Spotswood. So we have all the results, but too many games without goalscorers noted to attempt uncovering a leading scorer.

The biggest winning margin, and most goals scored in a game, were the two 7-0 wins recorded by Northumberland and Durham United, on July 26 against St Davids and on August 16 against Preston. In the latter game Miller scored 4, the most of any player in a single game that league season.

It was the days of 2 points for a win, not 3. The custom for a forfeit or walkover was to record the win/loss but not touch goals for or against.

Anyhow, here it is:

Victorian Soccer Season 1919

Silly Second Divisions

This week's trip to the SLV didn't yield too much to add to the work in progress that is the Statistical History. Opting to take a spell from the early 1920's Second Divisions that make no sense (Is it a Second Division? Is it a Reserves League? Is it one League? Is it divided into two Sections? Is it a bit of all of these?) I started looking for details on the Dockerty Cup Finals that are lacking in information at the moment.

Firstly, there is the return to action after World War I, the 1919 edition. All I had was the date, September 6 at Middle Park, and a final score of Footscray Thistle 2 Windsor 0. One was an own goal, the other scorer not known. No line-ups at all have been revealed, and nothing was found yesterday. Worryingly, with The Sun and The Sporting Globe not yet in existence, I'm running out of places where more information may be found.

From just after a War, to slap bang in the middle of one, the 1942 Dockerty Cup Final is also scarce for detail. Every report gives the same information, on September 5 at Olympic Park it was Prahran A who defeated Moreland-Hakoah 3-0. Glasson got two goals, the other coming from H.Gray. No other players get mentioned in reports of about three sentences. Another cause for concern is that even the VFL coverage in the papers was greatly reduced. There was a push for sport to be abandoned to aid the war effort, so it seems everyone was trying not to draw too much attention to themselves.

I ended up checking out Nimrod's coverage of the 1946 season in The Sun, looking for Division Two results. It was a classic season of the times, with the Division split into North and South Sections with a mixture of senior and reserves teams. There didn't always seem to be a full complement of results, and it takes a few weeks into the season to work out how many teams are in each Section. This also gets turned on it's head mid-season in the North Section when Hakaoh B seem to disappear. They are probably replaced by the R.A.F. (or R.A.A.F. as it does vary) who start to appear in July. In the South Section, Flinders Naval Depot also seem to join in a little late. Curiously, Northcote High School Old Boys fielded a team in each Section, with no indication as to which was the senior side.

So the tables I made on the basis of these results are all over the shop. In North Section I've got 5 games out of Hakoah B, going up to 14 for Moreland B. Still, it's pretty clear Coburg took the title. In the South Section it ranges from 6 games for Flinders Naval Depot through to 15 for their Northcote. Park Rangers took the title.

Other items of interest include the Second Division having it's own Cup that year, the Final seeing Sunshine United beat Park Rangers 2-1 after extra-time. Shellackings were commonplace, and in an epic 15-1 win over Hakoah B (you can see why they packed it in) T.Sharp racked up a solid 8 goals.

I've added a few new pages to the blog, where you can download some of the documents I have scanned. The old Soccer News magazine has it's own page, and I will be going through them again as I add them to the page to check if any clues to the 1942 Cup Final are found in the early post-War editions. If anyone has access to any copies that I can scan to add to this library, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Seasons Lacking Closure

In the course of researching the history of local competitive football, several black holes have emerged. Sporadic media coverage means we may never discover the answer to some puzzling questions, especially that whilst the papers often reported about match results and informed about upcoming tribunal meetings, the upshot of those meetings was rarely covered ins subsequent editions.

The Second Division of 1921 is a little murky. Published results do not give us a complete table, but newspaper reports tell us that Brunswick, Welsh United and Melbourne Thistle A all finished on 22 points. they would have finished in that order had goal difference been employed, but in those days it was not. So instead play offs were to be used to determine the champion.

On September 24, Welsh United defeated Brunswick 2-0 in what was listed as a "semi-final". A fortnight later, in what was labelled a "final" Welsh United drew 1-1 with Melbourne Thistle A. And that seems to have been that, with no more soccer appearing in the papers from that point on. Was the Championship ever resolved?

It may well not have been, and the answer may not be hidden in an old newspaper somewhere. The season was not always able to be completed before the grounds and players were lost to cricket. One such instance was the Dockerty Cup of 1920, in which the Final was never staged. The semi-finals were played on July 31, with Albert Park beating St Kilda 1-0, whilst Northumberland and Durham United defeated Footscray Thistle 3-2.

The drama in this one involves Northumberland and Durham United having fielded an ineligible player in that game, with the Council ordering the game to be replayed as a result. This was scheduled for Middle Park on August 21, but United failed to appear for the game. The following week they defeated Melbourne Thistle 1-0 in the semi-final of the League Championship play-offs, reaching the Final against St Kilda the following Saturday. The League Championship Grand Final was drawn, necessitating a replay. That may have been enough to have extended the season too far, or the problem may have been with resolving the matter of United refusing to replay the semi-final.

Old VSF Yearbooks contain the only documented history of the game we have, and for the 1920 Dockerty Cup they have listed the following: Finalists - Albert Park, Northumberland and Durham United (Game Abandoned).

Another unresolved issue was the District League Reserves Championship of 1928. The Southern Section was won by Naval Depot, who were to meet the Northern Section champions in a Grand Final. Only the Northern Section Championship required a play-off between Footscray Thistle and Williamstown. The two teams could not be split, with Thistle finally scraping a 1-0 win in the fifth replay of the tie. Having reached November, the plug was pulled on a clash with the Naval Depot for the overall title.

There's and even bigger head-scratcher with the 1928 season, but I'll save that for the next blog.

A Shambolic History

Friday was just another day in a long line of shambolic episodes from those that have run the game in this state. It was the day the FFV had promised to make significant announcements about this year's NPLV, but yet again it came up with a website update two minutes before close of business which failed to deliver.

On Thursday various clubs hit the internet to announce they had been accepted, but come Friday the FFV were only able to deliver a list of 30 clubs offered licenses. No further structure of the competition was revealed, with speculation that the league may be divided into two divisions (either First and Second or North West and South East) or left as a massive single division in which teams played each other only once.

Maybe next week we will be a little more the wiser, but I'd advise against holding their breath.

There is a history of poor administration in the state, but the well meaning honorary officials of the past should be given some allowances when compared to well-staffed FFV of today. Still, 1927 was a particularly chaotic season.

It was the year of a major schism in Victorian football, as the old First Division became the District League, in a predecessor of the zonal top flight the FFV have been trying to implement recently. There ten team District League, and the six team Sub-District League below it, were run by the Melbourne Soccer Football Association. Dissenting clubs who did not like the changes formed the Melbourne and District Association League, which was divided into two equal divisions, Section A and Section B.

The District League was well covered in the newspapers, with results from the Melbourne and District Association League not always being published. Only players from the MFSA league were eligible to play for Victoria or Australia. 

Both competitions began in April, and it wasn't until the end of the season that things became ridiculous. The Dockerty Cup does not seem to have been planned with much notice (when are the NPLV fixtures coming out?) and it's commencement in late September ruined the Melbourne and District (M&D) Association League season. Naval Depot, you see, the reigning Cup holders, were playing in the M&D League, not the District League. In fact, they had wrapped up Section B and were due to play Section A champions Heidelberg in a Grand Final for the League Championship. 

In what seems to have been a bit of a suprise, the Naval Depot were included in the Dockerty Cup draw. Or was it an act of sabotage? The game clashed with the M&D League Grand Final, and when they chose to play the Dockerty Cup tie, the M&D League expunged their record from the it's competition. It got worse though, as Heidelberg refused to play the new Section B winners Melbourne Thistle, demanding a game with the Navy or nothing. Which seems to have been the outcome, as I've yet to find any indication there was a Grand Final played.

Prahran won the District League Championship, with Naval Depot beaten 5-2 in the Dockerty Cup Final by District League runner's-up Footscray Thistle after extra time. The next season Naval Depot joined the District League and claimed a League and Cup double. The feuding leagues came back together in 1929 with four divisions of eight teams competing under the one umbrella.

Highs and Lows of History Research

After two successive Sunday's at the State Library of Victoria looking through on newspapers on microfilms, more steady progress has been made on the epic (it's up to 200 pages now) journal. The latest draft can be viewed here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ru1oas24op99izx/VictorianFootballStatisticalHistory.5.pub

The usual frustrations remain. How hard is it to publish a league table at the end of the season? No table, okay, I'll get the results and compile my own. Not all the results published, okay this is hopeless.

Just when you feel like packing it in, along comes something to lift the spirits. This week it was The Winner. A weekly sports newspaper that the was around during the years of the First World War. It was late in the day when I decided to give one of the six microfilm rolls a go, and I will be back to have a further look.

Now "sports" newspapers in those days could be pretty varied. For some the only sport was horse racing, not much more than form guides. Some were about eighty per cent horse racing, ten per cent Australian Rules Football and ten per cent other sports. The Winner seems to have adopted more of a 60-20-20 split.

The football writer for The Winner was J.W.Harrison. I have not seen his name in any subsequent publications, which was a shame for he was rather good. He also occasionally was able to get photos to accompany his pieces, including one of the Dockerty Cup as well as team shots of the leading clubs.

Returning to the things doing your head in angle, 1923 has been a big source of that. Strange doings were afoot in the First Division that season. It was a time before goal difference had been accepted as the means of splitting teams level on points. With St Kilda and Footscray Thistle heading the table together, a Play-Off was undertaken to determine the League Champion. After a second replay, it was the Saints who took the honours.

The drama came with the two teams to be relegated. Northumberland and Durham United were gone, adrift at the foot of the table, but above them Windsor and Melbourne Thistle finished level on points, so a Play-Off was also required to determine the second relegated side. Come match day, the appointed referee failed to turn up. After discussions an acceptable fill-in referee was agreed to, but when it came time to go out and play Thistle now refused to accept the substitute ref. Windsor went out, the ref blew the whistle, Windsor took the ball up the park and put it into the empty net, but you didn't need someone from TAB Sportsbet to tell you to "hold all tickets". Obviously there was a protest during the week, and they all went back to have another crack a week later, with Windsor emerging 2-1 winners.

So the bit that does the head in? The next year Melbourne Thistle was still in the First Division and Windsor were in Division Two? Why? Where is the explanation? Was there another protest? No evidence of another replay. The papers tell us nothing. Chances of finding closure look slim. Another low.

Back to Business

Progress on "The Victorian Football Statistical History" remains steady. The new draft has the titled amended, with the 1909-1979 removed. Even put in a cover, well, wrote THE VICTORIAN FOOTBALL STATISTICAL HISTORY in a massive font on the first page with a view to putting a few pictures around it.

1911, 1912, 1926, 1932, 1941, 1976, 1977, 2010, 2011 and 2013. Those are the seasons which I have all the information I need to complete their pages. That's means there are still 92 years incomplete. A lot of them in modern times where such information should be readily available at the click of a mouse.

What information do I want to consider a season complete? Obviously final league tables for the senior leagues. I have something for each year of what is now the Victorian Premier League. There are some years where lower league tables are lacking, but I still believe enough information can be found to complete the task. 

The full details of all the Dockerty Cup Finals is the next aim. Date played, venue, referee's name, result and scorers and both team line-ups are what that entails. Though gaps have narrowed, I fear there will be a year or two where the team line-ups cannot be found. Probably the referee's names as well, but I won't cry about that. But if I get down to just one or two years with no team line-ups, it will burn.

After that come the Reserves (later Harry Armstrong) Cups and the other senior Cup Final scores and scorers. This is still very sketchy, especially in the Cup crazy 1970's, when there was the Ampol Cup, State League Cup, Federation Cup, Cumberland Cup, Provisional League Cup and District League Cup at times. The results for the last four frustratingly come and go.

I'm not including tables for the District/Amateur League, but would like to list the champions of each division along with the champions of the various reserves leagues. Again this information is still somewhat patchy.

A few breakthroughs were made recently. In previously looking at the results from 1923, the lower league picture was very murky. Complications faced including the usual issue of not all the results being published in a paper, let alone regular league tables. In some cases there was mention of a Third Division, but more often it was called the Reserves League. Now back then reserves teams were not compulsory, and often clubs with a reserves team fielded them as an "A" teams playing in a league against standalone senior clubs. So there may be still some debate as to whether this was a Third Division or a Reserves League. Either way, tallying up the results produced an unwieldy mess, more teams than made sense all having played too varying numbers of games to persist in trying to work it out. The breakthrough? Finding out that it was actually divided into an A and B section, therefore two different leagues. Why the fuck this couldn't have been mentioned in the results section every week I do not know.

Once I've narrowed down a season to a vital result or two, some of the suburban newspapers on Trove have come in handy. The Footscray papers gave good coverage in the initial years, even after the club changed it's name to Northumberland and Durham United. When Footscray Thistle came along both clubs had coverage, as did Sunshine United and Sandringham at times.

Trove and it's online newspaper archive is about to add The Australasian to it's collection, there may be something there. Then it will be a winter of visits to the State Library.

But All You're Doin' Is Leavin' Me In Pain - Bits And Pieces III

It's been very quiet on the NPLV front since the countdown clock to get the EOI's hit 0.00, eerily quiet. It was a busy time with clubs taking to MFootball or twitter to announce their intentions, and the FFV website making wild claims about the number of clubs interested in getting involved. Apparently 44 EOI's were received (NPLV gaining momentum with 44 clubs on board), but that momentum may have been lost as little news has come out since. Has the FFV succeeded in it's attempts to blackmail the Geelong and Gippsland clubs? Which regional clubs would remain viable if being uncompetitive early on leads to players opting out of grueling travel requirements? Will we get a countdown clock until the 5.00pm July 31st deadline for NPLV Applications? Any chance of letting the vast majority of football stakeholders, the so-called "community clubs" aka average shmucks, where they stand next season? Or will it like the case of Melbourne Heart being put into State Two North West earlier this year where clubs will only find out when the fixtures are released nest year a few weeks before the start of the season?

Reading a lot of old newspapers at the moment, it's apparent that even in the days when many were openly hostile to our code, the coverage of local football was better then than it is today. It was certainly a different world then. A few things younger readers may not know:

High scores - not all down to bad defending or more adventurous attacking. Sometimes eleven players did not always turn up, which brings us to...

Reserves - there were no reserves teams at all in the early days. Before there was a Reserves League, larger clubs entered a reserve team in the lower leagues which went under the name of the club with the suffix "A".

No substitutes - the reason eleven players didn't always start a game was because squads were smaller as substitutes did not enter fray until the late 1960's. Without a bench, any setback to a player on game day would leave a team short.

Smoke Nights - clubs would occasionally advertise social functions known as "Smoke Nights". Not sure what went on, doubt it was smoking of the Cheech and Chong variety though.

Replays and no penalty shoot-outs - Drawn cup ties meant a replay, another draw meant another replay and so on and so forth. The 1923 Grand Final between St Kilda and Footscray Thistle went to a second replay, and the VABFA Council declared another draw would have seen the Championship shared as no ground could be obtained and players couldn't be retained with the cricket season having commenced to allow for another replay.  The famous win of Wonthaggi Magpies in the 1931 Dockerty Cup Final came after a Second Replay. The 1914 Dockerty Cup was shared between Thistle and Northumberland and Durham United (imagine their Twitter account) after a Second Replay could not be scheduled.

The headline on a recent article on the FFV website had me wondering if justice had finally been served. Port Phillip Prison visit had me thinking the FFV staff may have gone to visit some of their colleagues who were doing time for the crimes against football they have committed.

Breaking news of high drama at South Melbourne, be sure to keep an eye on South of the Border for more details as they come to light.

Weekend and Millennium Wrap

VPL action for the weekend began with a 1-1 draw between Bentleigh Greens and Port Melbourne. Graham Hockless gave Port the lead from the spot, Greens equalised through Luke Pilkington and then held on for a point after having Luke Sherborn sent-off with a quarter of an hour remaining. Both sides remain contenders in 2013.

The same night saw Dandenong Thunder go down 0-1 to the flying Northcote City. In a game the FFV Facebook updater seemed to have fallen asleep at, it was Milos Lujic who produced the winner on 65 minutes. Northcote are still unbeaten, and Thunder should still be in the mix come the business end of the season.

Two goals from Osagie Ederaro saw Green Gully defeat Southern Stars 2-1 at Kingston Heath. Stars only have Richmond below them on the table, and Gully look unconvincing as they try and bridge the gap to the pacesetters above them.

Hume City moved up into third place with a hard fought 1-0 win over Pascoe Vale at Broadmeadows Valley Park. Hume can mix their form, but if goalscorer Nick Hegarty can retain it are set to be in contention for a while yet. Paco continue to battle away and remain closer to the Finals contenders than they are to what would normally be the relegation places.

Richmond missed a few easy chances, which mixed with conceding soft goals is a recipe for disaster and went down for the eight count, 2-4 to Oakleigh Cannons. Oakleigh have plenty of new signings lined up, but money can't buy you love and may not get them back in the Finals mix for 2013.

Finally the old NSL Derby saw honours even, with South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights playing out a draw at Lakeside Stadium. Much mirth has been made of big mouth Ljubo Milicevic scoring an own goal which made the final score 2-2. 

Onto the wrap from the last millennium. 1929-1931 was a tumultuous time for the Brunswick club. I'm not able to come up with a final table for the lower leagues in 1929, with a few results still missing, but Brunswick were promoted to the First Division as runner's-up in Division Two behind Caledonians. 

Beginning their time in the top flight with consecutive wins before a loss to Melbourne Thistle. Three more wins followed before the upheaval of Saturday June 14. The expulsion of Croatia from the State League in 1972 is well documented, but Brunswick being thrown out of Division One in 1930 is less well known.

The year prior the Victoria Soccer Football Association had taken a lease of the Motordrome for the winter sporting season. The venue was used to host a weekly match of round at a time when soccer clubs were having trouble getting access to enclosed grounds. In fact the practice of taking around a collection plate whilst playing in open park was still taking place in the 1950's.

On that fateful day in June the proverbial hit the fan when Brunswick refused to play their "home" game against Footscray Thistle at the Motordrome. They were not happy about having another game moved there by the VSFA. Their May 10 clash with Melbourne Thistle had already been allocated as a Motordrome game by the Association. With a succession of away games and a weekend off for the annual England v Scotland fixture, they faced going three months without playing an actual home game at Royal Park. They argued that such a break made it hard to gain an enclosed ground from their council given it would be used so infrequently. A letter was sent to the VSFA and the game was announced as not going ahead the day before with the Division Two clash between Caulfield and Williamstown moved to Swan Street instead. The VSFA Council then suspended Brunswick for the remainder of the season, their results expunged from the records.

Footscray Thistle went on to retain their State Championship, with Caledonians runner's-up. Appeals were dismissed, with the great Harry Dockerty resigning from the Council in disappointment. Unlike Croatia, Brunswick's exile would be brief. South Melbourne were relegated after finishing last, losing all 12 games. Travel from Crib Point every second was becoming an issue for 1928's unbeaten Champions Naval Depot, and they withdrew from the League. Therefore upon the end of their suspension Brunswick remained in the First Division for 1931.

1931 would be their year, winning the Championship by six points from Caledonians, winning 12 and drawing 2 of their 14 games. In J.Lyons they had the league's top goalscorer with 14 goals. In an epic Dockerty Cup Final, which required two replays, they finally lost out 0-1 to Wonthaggi Magpies after two goal-less encounters. Their decline was imminent and just as dramatic, finishing only fifth in 1932 before being relegated when coming last in 1933 when conceding 103 goals in the course of an 18 game season, picking up a solitary point.   

'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?

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.