Provisional League Cup Finals

Like the Federation/Metropolitan/State League Cup, the Provisional League Cup also ceased to exist after the 2003 edition. Dominated late on by Brunswick City, other illustrious names to have won the Cup include Westvale, Pascoe Vale, North Geelong, Frankston Pines and Werribee City.

There was a Provisional League Cup in 1954, but there was not always a Provisional League until the early 1970's. In the 1950's if there was an influx of new teams there would be a Provisional League until they were absorbed into the Metropolitan League system. A boom in the 1960's saw the District Leagues established in the latter part of the decade. There was no promotion or relegation between the Metropolitan and District Leagues. In the early 1970's the Provisional League was re-introduced. It ranked above the District League and had promotion available to the Metropolitan League.

It is possible there were some years the Cup was played for between 1955 and 1976. Since then there are three years I have yet to find the score of the Final (1988. 1990 and 1992).

2003 Chelsea 1 (Filipovic) Moreland United 0

2002 Sydenham Park 9 (B.Trcpcevski4, Jovevski2, Pzeski2, Trajkovski)
Collingwood City 0

2001 Brunswick City 0 Clayton 0
        Brunswick City won 4-1 on penalties

2000 Brunswick City 4 (Kyriopoulos2, Minichello, Vouloumanos) Endeavour Hills 3 (Moothoo2, Filies)

1999 Endeavour United 4 Sydenham Park 1

1998 Brunswick City 3 Lyndale United 1

1997 Croxton Park 3 (Basic, Becirervic, Fermic) Templestowe Eagles 0

1996 Springvale Condors 3 (L.Trejo, Leficura, Aranda) South Yarra 2 (McCann, Weston)
        After extra-time

1995 Keysborough 4 (Dantas3, Duarte) North Glenroy 2 (Tokoglu, Tavolaro)

1994 Old Scotch 2 (Robb2) Brunswick City 2 (Arestis2)
        Old Scotch won 4-1 on penalties

1993 South Wantirna 2 Westvale 1

1992 East Richmond

1991 Westvale 3 South Springvale 0
        After extra-time

1990 Brandon Park

1989 Prahran 1 Forest Hill 0

1988 Ascot St.Marks

1987 Ardeer 3 South Yarra 0

1986 Seaford United 4 Cranbourne 0

1985 Pascoe Vale 3 Williamstown 1

1984 Seaford United 3 (Bryden, Gardiner2) Boronia 1 (Fisher)

1983 Mordialloc-Clarinda 3 Springvale United 2 (Kaim2)

1982 Rosanna 2 Holland Park 1

1981 North Geelong 2 Yarraville 1

1980 Sunbury United 2 (Little, Campbell) Melton 1 (Davies)

1979 Nunawading City 3 (Torelli2, O.G.) Geelong 2 (Pagett, Robertson)

1978 Frankston Pines 3 Nunawading City 2

1977 Werribee City 3 (Mantello, Collins, McNeil) Frankston Pines 2 (Kerr, Malcolm)

1954 B.W.R. 3 South Yarra 1
        After extra-time

Five Days, Five Games

I've been watching a bit of football lately (though Sunday also saw a solid session at the State Library Victoria which will be covered in the upcoming In Search Of...1912).

Friday June 28
Richmond 1 Pascoe Vale 1

Richmond recovered from a poor first half to probably be a little unlucky not to take all three points after an improved second-half showing. Poor marking from a throw-in and casual defending let Hernan Espindola stroll through the box before beating an exposed Aaron Romein from eight yards to give Paco the lead. There was an element of fortune with the Eagles equaliser, as Hamlet Armenian's shot appeared to many to be a cross initially. Sam Gallagher drove a shot into the underside of the crossbar which then bounced on the line, before he was dismissed for a second yellow card in the final minutes.

Saturday June 29
West Preston 4 Oak Park 3

It's fair to say this State League Division Five North clash had it all and then some. West Preston came back from 0-2 down to claim a late winner, with plenty of drama along the way. There was some questionable refereeing in the aftermath of a West Preston goal as a player looking to get the ball back for a quick restart was kicked across the shin by an Oak Park defender. The assistant referee flagged over the main official, which had some overly optimistic Oak Park fans and players hoping for the goal to be ruled out, a hope which would have evaporated when the assistant acted out a kicking across the shin motion for the referee. Suprisingly the end result proved to be a yellow card to the Oak Park keeper, who did not put in the kick whilst the perpetrator wearing No.2 escaped without sanction.

Further ill-discipline saw an Oak Park player sent-off late in the game, but as he crossed the line to exit the pitch he did a sharp turn to run ten yards back onto the field and throw a haymaker punch at the West Preston No.52 which saw chaos briefly ensue. Somehow the full scale riot which threatened to materialize was averted, and in the final minutes West Preston's No.8 completed a famous comeback.

Sunday June 30
Oakleigh Cannons 0 Melbourne Knights 1

Melbourne Knights were well worth their early lead, Adam Zilic heading in after a corner was headed across goal by Ljubo Milicevic. Wasting a couple of chances to extend the lead, it would be a nervy second-half for the Knights after Ryan Filipovic was sent-off following a second yellow card with half an hour remaining but they were able to hang on. In between abusing team-mates, Milicevic provides an amusing running commentary at times.

Monday July 1
Bulleen Lions 1 Heidelberg United 3

Heidelberg United went to the top of State League Division One with an emphatic win at the Veneto Club on Monday night. Star of the show was the Heidelberg Rooney, Daniel Heffernan with an impressive brace. Talk on the terraces mainly revolved around the unfolding drama at South Melbourne, with time of Peter Tsolakis as coach was coming to an end.

Tuesday July 2
Richmond 1 Melbourne Victory 2

Victory began their pre-season friendlies with a 70 minute game at Kevin Bartlett Reserve. They were led out by Leigh Broxham, even though Adrian Leijer was also starting, possibly an indication the Mark Milligan will be captain come the start of the season. In the second minute Leijer put in a double footed tackle on Timmy Purcell which would have seen him sent-off more often than not, but the referee was happy to give him just a warning.

The 2012 fixture was won 4-3 by Richmond, and in the eighth minute they took the lead with the sweetest of volleys at the far post by Hamlet Armenian. Victory equalised with a deflected shot from Jimmy Jeggo and then took the lead just before half-time when Andrew Nabbout got free on the right and finished well.

Victory only made one sub for the game, as Richmond changed their entire team over the course of a scoreless second-half. No flares this year, Blue Thunder Security cracking down hard.

An Incomplete Wrap

So the weekly VPL wrap is a little incomplete, as there is still no resolution on the likely outcome of the abandoned game between Richmond and Green Gully on Friday night. In the era of emails and smart phones, waiting for the FFV to take possession of the referee's report seems somewhat inadequate. Maybe they need the time to work out how to handle the situation, given the current rules are written in shades of grey rather than black and white.

The other Friday night games saw two outcomes of 4-2 scorelines. Oakleigh Cannons went down at home, 2-4 to Hume City. If Miron Bleiberg had a towel, he'd be contemplating throwing it in already, with Oakleigh only sitting above Richmond and Southern Stars on the table. Not good enough considering you could combine and then double those club's wage budgets and still not be close to what Oakleigh pay. Turhan Sumbul was a hat trick hero for Hume, with the ever dangerous Nick Hegarty on the also score sheet once again.

Port Melbourne triumphed 4-2 at home to Southern Stars. Stars let an early lead slip before Port gained the upper hand, and there was no coming back after Andrew Viola was sent-off for two yellow cards in quick succession.

Pascoe Vale and South Melbourne engaged in a 0-0 draw, Paco holding on to claim a point after having Luca Santilli sent-off inside the first ten minutes. After a rocky start to the season, Pascoe Vale have become the new number one plucky little club mixing it with the big boys in the VPL.

The top of the table clash at John Cain Reserve saw Northcote City drop their first points of the season in a 1-1 draw with Bentleigh Greens. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade has been negligent in their duty, as Dean Piemonte is still on fire, notching his seventh goal for the season.

The celebrations for Melbourne Knights continued from the Australian Croatian Association (A.H.D.) Croatian House in Footscray on Saturday night to Knights Stadium in Sunshine on Sunday afternoon. The day after celebrating 60 years of Melbourne Croatia/Knights, the Knights twice came from behind to claim a dramatic 4-3 win over defending champions Dandenong Thunder with a goal from skipper Adam Zilic in stoppage time. Zilic features in the following video on the club's history, a fantastic tribute to a great club.

 

A Weekend Wrap of the VPL

Time for a wrap of the weekend's action in the VPL. Only got to the one game, Richmond v Hume City on Friday night. Can't to any worse than The Football Sack's weekly VPL review that gets linked on the FFV website and it's simple rehashing of the round's results.

So on Friday night, Richmond threw away an early lead (again) to succumb to a seventh successive defeat. The drama for the Eagles had begun early in the week with senior keeper Rani Dowisha departing for South Springvale. An attempt to bring back Stuart Webster to the club was thwarted by the FFV on the grounds that only Griffin McMaster is allowed out of window transfer exemptions. So young Oscar Vonk was thrown into the deep end for his VPL debut.

When he spilled a free-kick from Naum Sekulovski it was Turhan Sumbul who was on hand to equalise, heavily collecting Vonk in the process. Hume took the lead in the fifty-third minute with a great counter attack seeing the ball played out to Ersin Kaya who broke down the right before crossing to an unmarked Jarryd Barnes to simply head the ball into the net.

With eighteen minutes left Richmond conceded another poor goal, a free-kick from Nick Hegarty wide out on the right eluded all those line up at the top of the box and then bouncing and curling in at the far post to make it 3-1 for Hume. A late Richmond rally saw them pull a goal back at the end of regular time, a neat chip over the defence by Sam Gallagher being well met and finished by Kliment Taseski. Richmond then had a couple of chances to snatch an equaliser, substitute Gideon Sweet blazing a shot onto Bastow Oval No.2 with some well placed passing options available, and then Nick Krousoratis volleying a free-kick that fell to him at the far post a little too hard back across goal for Timmy Purcell to be able to meet.

At the same time Bentleigh defeated Melbourne Knights 2-1with David Stirton and Like Sherborn scoring for the home side before Jacob Colosimo pulled a goal back for the Knights. It was not the best performance of the season from title contenders Bentleigh, and the Knights were certainly ruing the chance to grab all the points.

In the final closed doors game of their FFV Tribunal punishment, defending Champions Dandenong Thunder fell to a 0-2 defeat at the hands of Pascoe Vale. The experience and class of Michael Ferrante has lifted the youthful Paco squad, his return from injury leading to the club finally finding it's feet in their first ever season in the top flight. If the traffic on the Dandenong Bypass wasn't already doing it, the Dandenong crowd behind the fence on the way to Eastlink would have been silenced in the tenth minute when Marco Santilli opened the scoring. It was Ferrante who converted a second half penalty, as Pascoe Vale recorded their third win of the season.

A change of coach didn't fully bring about a change in fortunes at Green Gully, who drew 1-1 at home to Port Melbourne. Luke Bowen pounced on the rebound from a Daniel Visevic strike to give the Sharks the lead after twenty-four minutes. In the second-half it was Bowen who was the villain, his handball in the box to block a shot from Matthew Sanders leading to a penalty which was duly converted by Jason Hayne. Not sure if the draw gives the Gully powerbrokers enough to make a conclusion one way or the other on whether the interim appointment of Jeff Fleming as coach will be extended.

Northcote City have gotten off to a flying start in 2013, and made it seven in a row with what would have to be considered a reasonably comprehensive victory over Southern Stars. It was 4-0 in the end, with the in-form Dean Piemonte grabbing two goals. Stars sit only ahead of Richmond on the table, and it remains possible that by the time of their clash on June 22nd neither team may yet have won a game for the season.

I won't go into the final game of the round, South Melbourne defeating Oakleigh Cannons 2-1, as I'm sure South of the Border will give more detail in due course, complete with the Under 21's Match Report by Steve from Broady. The bigger news on Sunday evening will have come from Knights Stadium, where an Extraordinary General Meeting saw Knights members vote not to submit an Expression of Interest in joining the proposed NPLV in 2014.