Moorabbin City v Hamlyn Rangers 1982

The footage above is from the Metropolitan League Division Four game at Victory Park between Moorabbin City and Hamlyn Rangers in 1982. The game was played on Saturday June 19, with Moorabbin winning 3-2, to do the double over Rangers after winning 3-1 in Geelong on the opening day of the season.

Moorabbin City folded at the end of 1998, while Hamlyn Rangers are now known as Geelong Rangers. The league was won by the now defunct Caulfield City, with South Oakleigh runner's-up and Sandringham City in third. Moorabbin City would finish eighth, while Rangers wound up twelfth of fourteen.

Sandringham City's team included former Socceroos Jimmy Mackay and Jimmy Armstrong. There were three Geelong teams in the division, with Rangers competing in local derbies with Geelong and North Geelong. For a full look at the season check out OzFootball here. Drago Krajina of North Geelong won the League Best and Fairest Award.

Moorabbin's Matchday programme made a couple of appearances early in the season before going into recess, so there was no issue for this game. There was a special edition produced for Presentation Night, which can be found here.

I got to play with some of those first team players a decade later when they'd dropped down to the thirds, including goalscorer Trevor Bishop who once slammed one in from near halfway on the back pitch at Bailey Reserve. Tony Wynton, Gary Carlisle, Steve Martin, Tony Morgan, Peter Crawford, Steve Thomas, Mick O'Neill, Dave O'Gara and Brian Barlow were the others still playing for the thirds at times during the 1990's. Steve Thomas would often back up in the thirds on a Sunday after playing seniors or reserves on a Saturday, I wonder if that still happens anywhere?

Moorabbin's Best and Fairest votes for this game were 3 for Paul Tierney, the eventual winner. John Rigby picked up the 2, and Steve Gregory got the single vote. Gregory would win the Metropolitan League Division Four Best and Fairest Award the following season.

Random Black and White Photos

Since belatedly discovering that Microsoft Paint and Microsoft Photo are a little more advanced on Windows 10 than they were on Microsoft XP over ten years ago, I thought I'd go through some documents and cut, paste, straighten and crop some old photos.

A shot from the famous 1962 VSL game between South Melbourne Hellas and George Cross at Olympic Park. The stands are a mass of humanity, as over 22,000 people crowded the venue.

Another big crowd at Olympic Park watches Torpedo Moscow's Brednev go to ground as he tackles Victorian star Mike Jurecki in their 1965 clash.

On to another lost ground with this great wide shot of Middle Park in 1968.

Only just a star at the time, later to be a South Melbourne Hellas legend, Jimmy Pyrgolios in 1968.

A great Victorian state team from 1967. Willy Schroif, who played in a World Cup Final. Johnny Sanchez, an early Bill Fleming Medal winner. Jimmy Armstrong, goalscoring legend of Hakoah and South Melbourne Hellas who still helps out at Lakeside. Hammy McMeechan, who remained active in the game until his passing. Tommy Stankovic and Frank Micic, who were probably the two greatest ever J.U.S.T. players.

Nino Borsari, Olympic Gold Medalist, Patron of Victorian Football. A great gentleman of Carlton.

The ground remains, the grandstand does not. Action from Jubilee Park in 1963 as Layt of Ringwood Wilhelmina lead's Richmond Alemannia's Zammit to the ball in their VSL game.

Ringwood City 1982. Brooksy of the Music Men in the front row. Coached by Sjel de Bruyckere. Sjel was often referred to as Mike, but since the NCIP scandal I have amended all my records to include his proper name.

Richmond Alemannia player hi-jinx on the front page of Soccer News as Rudi van Altena holds back Peter Erasmus so Billy Copeland can cut his beard.

Prahran City team shot from 1969. Got the nod ahead of other team photographs found in Soccer News from that era simply because the goalkeeper is sporting a flat cap. You can't beat goalkeepers that wear flat caps.

                                                          (Click on images to enlarge)

Random Research Musings

After two days in which I arrived at the SLV newspaper reading room at 10.a.m and didn't leave until just before 6.00 p.m. closing (without any food, drink or toilet breaks) in a week and then trying to make sense of my appalling note-taking, I may as well share what little discoveries I made.

Deciding to work back in time for a change I had a look for reserve's league champions, League Best and Fairest and Top Goalscorers from the early and mid 2000's. Gave up on that pretty quickly as it was futile. It's stuff that should already be available on the net but to to incompetence it isn't. For another day.

I then moved on to mid and early 1990's Cup Finals of the State League, Provisional League, Amateur League and Armstrong variety. A bit more success here. Found the line-ups for the 1992 Dockerty Cup Final, as well as the score from the curtain raiser, a 1-1 draw between the Victorian state team and South Melbourne Hellas.

1991 saw a play-off between the NSWPL and VPL champions. It was Sutherland v Brunswick Juventus over two legs. Both won 1-0 at home (home city in the case of Juve who used Northcote's John Cain Reserve) leading to a penalty shoot-out won 4-3 by Brunswick.

Always a bittersweet moment finding a Cup final line-ups but no record of the substitutions made. That was in the case of the 1990 Dockerty Cup Final. Melbourne Croatia only had two on the bench, whilst Brunswick Juventus had the full five, with Charlie Egan at least being brought on being gleaned from one match report.

OzFootball has the South Melbourne line-up for the infamous 1988 Dockerty Cup Final, but not that of Melbourne Croatia. Which is of main interest being the Final is infamous for seeing winners Croatia stripped of their win on protest after bringing on Frank Valentic as sub when he was under suspension from a Youth league game apparently. Did not find their full line-up or substitutions.

Found enough scores from 1954 to finalise the Third Division table. Almost enough to do the same for the Fourth Division, though that picture is muddied by Shell and Slovakia both pulling out, and Victorian Colts being added halfway through the season.

A puzzle stubbornly refusing to be solves is the Third Division of 1951. One score missing, Coburg v Olympic from June 30. I know Coburg won, because going on promotion/relegation the next season they must have secured the two points they needed to jump from fourth to second. The Coburg Courier has the score from the week before and after, but not that week.

Still don't have full line-ups for the 1958, 1959 and 1970's Dockerty Cup Finals. I must say the The Sun's Morrie Buckner was the worst of the old time correspondents I've come across. One match report barely mentioned a single player amid his whinging about the pitch and weather.

Since then I've had a look at some missing goalscorers from the OzFootball records), as I still think that working out a lineage of Top Goalscorers for the VSL/VPL back to 1960 is possible. As of now, there are seven goals unaccounted for in 1964. Will need to go back to see if there are any details around on the replayed game of Alexander 1 Melbourne 3 on Wednesday September 9. As it stands, Mike Mandalis of South Melbourne Hellas heads the list on 16, with all of South's goals accounted for. This puts him two clear of Frank Soffels from Willhelmina, who have one goal missing, so he has him covered. Jimmy Malloy of Melbourne sits on 13, and a hat-trick in that game would have him share honours, and it may be possible because he did most of his scoring in braces or hat-tricks that year.

I've found the missing scorers for 1967, and it was a climactic finish tallying the goals. Tony Hughes of J.U.S.T. scored twice in the final round to draw level on 19 with Jimmy Armstrong (Hakoah) and Attila Abonyi (Melbourne) who went head to head at Middle Park. Abonyi scored the only goal of the game to clinch the Golden Boot.

In 1961 four games from the Public Holiday Monday round on April 3rd remain elusive in terms of goalscorer details. And I mean elusive. Tried the Italian paper Il Globo, as Juventus played Richmond Alemannia that day, but they only covered the subsequent Saturday game in their next issue. Tried the German newspaper Neue Welt and would you believe it there was a "this issue is missing" slide on the microfilm for the relevant week, the only one on a reel covering two years worth of the paper. A tally of the goals sees Alex Beattie of J.U.S.T. on top with 21 goals, again with all their goals accounted for. Joe Haasz is the only one who can catch him, sitting on 19 and with both goals in Slavia's 4-2 loss to Moreland that fateful day still unknown.

An Honour Disrespected

In the course of compiling a history of the results of senior men's football competitions in Victoria (for draft click here) I've also started a few files for other relevant information. One such file is a list of  the bodies and committees governing of the game in this state, which can be found here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cm4nx9j04jtpri0/Officials.rtf

From early newspaper reports I have included the names of any people awarded life membership of any such body. In later years the Victorian Soccer Federation Yearbooks contained a current list of life members, and I have included any people added each year since the initial list published in 1968. When I say current, I mean the Yearbook lists those able to enjoy the privileges of life membership i.e. those still alive. Names do drop off the Yearbook lists, and I'm assuming that's because those that have passed away no longer being included rather than people having been stripped of the honour.

Obviously life memberships of the VSF were often awarded to those that had worked in the service of the organisation. Which is totally understandable, but leads to an imbalance. The VSF may have run the game, but they did not own it. It would have been nice if a few more people from outside the organisation were awarded life membership in honour of their service to the sport.

We know the AFL automatically confers life membership on those that have played or coached a combined 300 games. This has avoided what happened with VSF life membership, which is top heavy in VSF officials and light on for players, coaches, referees and those who's work as officials was restricted to club duties as opposed to being involved in VSF politics.

It's a shame more of these people weren't given life membership. It's a massive oversight that all Victorian-based members of the 1974 World Cup Finals Socceroos squad were not instantly given membership (sure Peter Ollerton would had to have had his stripped after he assaulted referee Jim Fearn). The likes of Billy Vojtek and Jimmy Armstrong should surely have been included. Referees like Eugene Brazzale, Gerry Connolly or Dennis Voutsinas too.

This week, the Football Federation Victoria called upon nominations for life memberships for new inductions to be made at the upcoming Annual General Meeting. Whilst honouring people for their efforts is good, restoring the honour to previous life members would be better. There is no list of those awarded life memberships on the FFV website. Is their any prestige to an award where one can be forgotten about so quickly? It seems like a lack of respect to me.

Has the FFV Hall of Fame overshadowed those that have received life membership? Hall of Fame inductees get a mention on the FFV website, whilst the names the life members must rest in an unmarked grave somewhere.

Would it be too difficult for the FFV to add a page to their site to truly honour their life members? The names, dates of birth (and death for those that have passed) of recipients and perhaps a brief line describing what the did for the game should not be too hard to muster. If anyone actually cared, that is.

Until the memory of former life members are given due recognition, should we consider present inductees as being put through an exercise in lip service and a token effort at thanking them for their services? If the FFV is genuine in respecting these people, it needs to do more.