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 - 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

Vandendriessche

Vandendriessche. It's big name in the past of Victorian football, that is largely forgotten today. It's also probably the most misspelt name in local football history. Van den Drishe, van der Drishe, vanderdrische, vandendriske and another dozen permutations when you move around the capitals and spaces a bit, they all got an airing at some stage.

Who am I talking about, you may well ask. Maurice Vandendriessche is the answer, one of the most interesting stories in the annals of Victorian football history, if only we got the full picture.

What we do know, is the Maurice Vandendriessche was born in Lille, France on the 2nd of April 1887. It says that on his French Wikipedia entry. He has a French Wikipedia entry because after winning two national championships with his club Racing Club Roubaix he gained two caps for his country in 1908.

The national championship of France, the USFSA League, had already been won on three occasions by Roubaix prior to the wins achieved in 1905-06 and 1907-08 with Vandendriessche in the side. He first represented France in a game against Switzerland in Geneva on March 8, 1908. The French recorded a  2-1 win at the Stade des Charmilles. His final appearance was less triumphant, a 0-12 defeat at London's Royal Park ground against England Amateurs later in the month. The Amateurs were captained by Tottenham Hotspur star Vivian Woodward, who scored a hat-trick but was upstaged by partner William Jordan who netted six times.

What brought him to Australia I have yet to uncover, but by 1911 he was playing in Melbourne with the St Kilda club. He was in their Dockerty Cup winning side that year, the Final seeing Williamstown defeated 4-2 at Richmond City Reserve.

St Kilda were beaten Dockerty Cup finalists in 1913, though the full-line ups of the teams that day are currently not know and he is not among the few listed in brief match reports. After 1915, the local competition was suspended for the duration of World War I, and when football returned in 1919 St Kilda did not. It was not until 1920 that the club returned to the field, and once again Vandendriessche was with them. The club finished on top of Section A of the Metropolitan League, and then defeated Section B Runner's-Up Spotswood 2-1. Vandendriessche scored St Kilda's goal in the 1-1 draw with Northumberland and Durham United for the League Championship Grand Final. In the Replay it was "N&D" who prevailed 2-0.

In 1923, St Kilda finally captured the elusive Victorian Championship. Finishing level with Footscray Thistle at the end of the season, a Championship Play-Off was used to split the clubs. A 2-2 draw was followed by a goalless Replay before St Kilda emerged victorious 2-1 in the Second Replay. It was a League and Cup double for Vandendriessche and his Saints, as they had earlier defeated Preston 1-0 in the Dockerty Cup Final in August.

The following year St Kilda were Runner's-Up in the League Championship. In 1926 they placed third, and were beaten 4-3 by Naval Depot in the Dockerty Cup Final with Vandendriessche still a mainstay of the side. He did not feature in their next Dockerty Cup Final defeat, 2-3 at at the hands of Footscray Thistle in 1929.

Towards the and of his career he once again gained representative honours, playing for Victoria in games against New South Wales, South Maitland, South Coast and a touring Chinese XI in 1923. When his career came to a close is hard to determine. In a great blog by Mark Gojszyk on shootfarken.com.au it mentions he played in Sydney, whilst almost getting Australia into the 1930 World Cup due to his friendships with French football pioneers Robert Guerin and Gabriel Hanot.

Flight listings in Lismore newspapers having him regularly flying across the country in the 1930's, by which time he was based in Sydney as a wool buyer. In the late 1940's he was a Director of Hollins Mills Australia Limited, living in the affluent Eastern suburb of Vaucluse.

His wife, Simone, had passed away in 1942. His French Wikipedia entry has no date of his passing, and a football database that may have drawn on that entry has him listed as 127 years of age, and not surprisingly, retired. He died on November 18, 1959 at the age of 72.

The modern equivalent of his career in Europe would place him above most A-League imports, if not quite as a marquee signing, though he left home at an early stage in his career. His success in business may have validated his decision to emigrate, given top level football in France did not turn professional until the 1930's. Still, it seems strange to picture someone going from French Championships and Internationals to playing in an open field at Middle Park within a couple of years.

It was certainly a most interesting career, and we may not even know half of the tale.