The Cup of Changing Names

Among the changing landscape of the Victorian Soccer Federation assuming control of the game from the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association was the inauguration of the Federation Cup in 1962. It was introduced to provide a Cup competition for clubs left out of the Dockerty Cup, which was scaled back to the twelve State League teams and the top two teams from Division One North and Division One South in an increasingly crowded schedule.

The first edition was won by Coburg United, who took the trophy in a replay following an initial draw with Sunshine City. Coburg retained the Cup the next year, this time defeating Makedonia.

The results between 1964 and 1968 are still to be uncovered. Whilst the top of the pyramid was well covered in the media, the lower reaches did not always get their results published. I have searched at the end of seasons and come up with nothing, but have yet to check if any Cups were contested in the pre-season. It is important to note the Dockerty Cup was expanded back to it's traditional format in 1964, so it is possible the Federation Cup was discontinued.

It is known that it was back in action by 1969, when Altona City triumphed over Springvale City after extra time. By 1972 Altona City had claimed the Cup for the third time. They would be joined as multiple winners in the 1970's by Albion Rovers.

In 1979 the Cup seems to have been replaced by the Winfield Cup, a name which would only last a year before being altered to the Metropolitan League Cup. Another name change would follow when the Metropolitan League became the Victorian League in 1985. The most confusing change would come in 1991 when the State League was re-branded as the Victorian Premier League. The Victorian League was in turn renamed the State League, meaning the new State League Cup carried the same name as the competition usually contested as an end of season finals series between the top four teams in the old State League.

Preston Makedonia were thumping 9-0 winners over Sunshine City in the 1973 Final, going on to win again in 1975 and then again in 1995 as Preston Lions. Box Hill dominated in the early 1980's with Lalor United multiple winners in the 1990's before the Cup was discontinued in 1996. It was revived for four editions from 2000 before the drought of 2004 finally killed it off.

Famous Cup heroics include a sixteen year old goalkeeper Jeff Olver taking Albion Rovers to success in 1976 on his way to becoming a Socceroo. Melbourne (Hungaria) had a last great hurrah as a club winning in 1985. Many winners from the 1980's were clubs on their way to stints in the VSL/VPL.

The full list of known Cup Final results is:

2003 Sunshine George Cross 0 Cranbourne Comets 0
Sunshine George Cross won 5-4 on penalties

2002 Westvale 4 (Goutzioulis2, Squillacioti, Gacovski) Springvale White Eagles 2 (Diaco, Styczen)

2001 Westgate 1 (Delic) Cranbourne Comets 0

2000 Stonnington City 2 (Tyrikos, Georgoulis) Sunshine Georgies 1 (Hynds) aet

1996 Preston Lions 4 (Chiodo, Burlak, Tasevski, Emsovski) North Coburg United 1 (Saglam)

1995 Lalor United 5 (Ujgunovski2, Drogriski, Filipovski, Taseski) Essendon Brunswick Royals 1 (Kolar)

1994 South Springvale 1 (Asimakidis) South Dandenong 0

1993 Lalor United (Tasevski2) Box Hill 0

1992 Werribee City 2 (Cidoni, Grillo) Doncaster Rovers 0

1991 Frankston Pines 1 (Johnstone) North Geelong 1 (A.Cervinski)
Frankston Pines won 5-3 on penalties    

1990 Springvale City 2 (Carroll, Kenny) Port Melbourne 1 (T.Rizopoulos)

1989 Western Suburbs 2 (Beattie 2) Eltham/Diamond Valley United 1 (Coyle)

1988 Westgate 1 (Andriotis) Mooroolbark 0

1987 Albion Rovers 1 Bell Park 0

1986 Clifton Hill 1 (Gillan) Hawthorn 1 (Katsogiannis)
Clifton Hill won 4-3 on penalties

1985 Melbourne 2 (Heery, P.Bannon) Keilor Austria 2 (Beller, Santos) aet
Melbourne won 4-2 on penalties

1984 North Dandenong 2 (O'Halloran, McCombe) Sunbury United 2 (Magnano, O.G.) aet
North Dandenong won 4-2 on penalties

1983 Knox City 2 (Lesbirel, Gerrish) Nunawading City 1 (Mullet)

1982 Box Hill 5 (S.Patterson2, Taylor2, Priestly) Dandenong City 1 (Donnelly)

1981 Box Hill 3 (Taylor2, S.Patterson) Polonia 1 (Marshall) aet

1980 Doveton 5 (McDonald2, Quin2, Irvine) Moreland 2 (Lenders, Constantinou)

1979 Collingwood City 3 (G.Batticiotto, G.Bozikas, J.Nicolaides) Keilor Austria 1 (R.Bellar)

1978 Croydon 4 (Lowrey2, M.Brown, Murphy) Moreland 0

1977 Waverley City 2 (Stocca, P.Whitehurst) Melbourne 1 (P.Mihalj)

1976 Albion Rovers 4 (S.Tribuzio2, B.Rae, G.Bentley) Springvale City 1 (J.Gollan)

1975 Preston Makedonia 2 Dandenong City 1

1974 Albion Rovers 2 (Clarke, Pryde) Frankston City 1 (Adams)

1973 Preston Makedonia 9 (Reid4, Temelkovski, Hayward, Jancev2, O.G.)
Sunshine City 0

1972 Altona City 3 Prahran Slava 0

1971 Altona City

1970 Yallourn 1 Frankston 0

1969 Altona City 3 Springvale City 1 aet

1968

1967

1966

1965

1964

1963 Coburg United 4 (Healey2, Loughran, Malcolm) Makedonia 2 (Kuhn, Zemunik)

1962 Coburg United 1 (Young) Sunshine City 1 (Oliver)
        Coburg United 3 (Earley3) Sunshine City 2 (McNeil2)

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.