Fred Villiers on World Of Sport

Long time Melbourne soccer journalist Fred Villiers had a weekly segment on HSV7's popular World of Sport programme, with a clip from a 1985 appearance included above. Villiers had been covering local soccer for papers including The Herald, Soccer News, The Sporting Globe, Truth and the Sunday Observer since the 1950's. He was inducted into the FFA Hall of Fame in 2006.

As you can see from the above clip, the usual formula would begin with a round-up of the overnight (the show was broadcast on Sunday afternoon) British scores. From the early 1980's this would include some footage (as technology began to allow for it). Then it would be a round-up of local results (NSL) or brief preview of fixtures later that day. Occasionally there would be an interview.

Unlike over at SBS, correct pronunciation of names was not a priority, as you can tell from his reference to "Jewventus". Likewise the Aussie vernacular gave us Preston Mackerdonia and Green Gully Ay Jacks.

The set of World of Sport was far less professional than we see in the modern day. Backstage the drinking would begin early. The number of guests (most of the VFL coaches would attend to appear in the Coach's Corner segment, as well as several players) and sponsors giveaways made for a party atmosphere. Practical joke would be attempted, as (prior to the teleprompter era) cue cards would be set alight to see if the presenter could read them before they disappeared. Presenters would also be mooned from behind the camera in an attempt to put them off.

As an outsider from the "foreign" code Villiers was targeted for special treatment from the largely Aussie Rules boy's club. Most of it came from the very old school former Richmond champion Jack Dyer and his offsider Lou Richards.

Never the most accomplished presenter, in later years the number of gaffes would increase, and by the 1990's the pioneer of football media in Melbourne was no longer on the scene. He made an appearance at the FFV's Gold Medal Night in 2011. He accepted the inclusion of his friend Michael Weinstein into the FFV's Hall of Fame, with Weinstein not well enough to attend the function.

Thanks to George Cotsanis of My World Is Round we have a couple of photo's of Fred's newspaper work below:

                                                   (Click on images to enlarge)

The Puzzle of 1915

When I started researching the history of organised football in Melbourne, it quickly became apparent that I was attempting to complete a jigsaw puzzle in which some of the pieces were missing. Sure, some were hidden, and could be found by having another look under the couch. It was the ones long since swallowed up by the vacuum cleaner that are gone for good which mean it may be a case of completing the puzzle as best you can and hoping it still looks reasonable.

The 1915 season was one with crucial pieces missing, at least in terms of the Second Division standings. The First Division was covered well enough by the media of the day, especially the multi-sport newspaper The Winner. Division One, split into Section A and Section B, had final, completed league tables published. With most scorers listed, it appears Kilty of Northumberland and Durham United who top scored in Section A with 11 goals. In Section B it was Forbes of Burns who led the way with 6 goals, which may be short-changing him as there is one game in which they scored they goals which are unaccredited.

Division Two, which contained some reserves ("A") teams of Division One clubs, was less well covered. It's only by checking Friday evening editions of The Herald and the reports from "Spectator" that we can get some clarity. They contained fixtures and refereeing appointments for the next day's games, as well as the previous week's results. Being nearly a week after the games were played, it is safe to assume if a result was not listed the game was not played. It's an assumption you can't make with results published on a Saturday evening or even a Monday in an era before telecommunications as we know them today were not commonplace. "Spectator" was clearly a nom de plume of a V.A.B.F.A. official, also including information about and from council meetings.

A few weeks after Windsor defeated Brunswick United 2- on May 29, "Spectator" noted the game would have to be replayed after a protest was upheld over Windsor fielding an ineligible man. It's these notes that become more vital as the number of players enlisting for military service in World War I continued to rise. On July 30th he informed Cambrian United and Northumberland and Durham United A were abandoning their remaining fixtures because they had run out of players. On August 13th he announced Sandringham and Brunswick United were also forced to do the same.

It has allowed me to compile a disorderly looking table. Season summaries announced that Spotswood A were Second Division Champions, and the table agrees which is good. All that remains now is how to deal with the abandoned fixtures, once what they were is figured out (the abandoned games were not listed in the Friday night fixtures). It is not stated how they were handled, but with Sandringham being in Division One we can see theirs were dealt with as forfeits, which at the time saw their opponents being awarded the two points and goal difference being unaltered. Maybe I will just leave them as they lie, which is as shown below (click on image to enlarge):

Resolving Resolution Of The Statistical History

I'm not one for making New Year's Resolutions, but after three trips to the State Library Victoria over the holidays to chip away at compiling the statistical history of competitive Victorian football I am making it a mission to have it as completed as possible by the end of the year.

Since regular, organised, league football began in 1909 I have 44 years in which all the relevant data I consider important is complete. What do I consider important? Final league tables for all the senior divisions. The names of the champions in the Reserves, District and Amateur Leagues below them. Line-ups and goalscorer details for State Grand Finals and Dockerty Cup Finals. The results of all other senior and reserves Cup finals. The results of any play-off matches for promotion/relegation between leagues. The names of all League Best and Fairest Award winners. Top goalscorers for the senior leagues. On that last one, with most goalscorers not listed in many early years and no tallies published, I allow seasons prior to the 1960's that have all other information but leading scorers to be classed as complete.

This leaves 57 years where information is still incomplete.

Some of these could be wiped out as impossible to find and moved into the complete column. For instance all 1955 is lacking is the name of one of the goalscorers in The Sun Cup Final. I still hold out hope of finding a match report that list it, but can assure you it wasn't in The Sun.

1910, 1913, 1919, 1921, 1924, 1942, 1943, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1958, 1959, 1963, 1964, 1968, 1970, 1973 and 1990 are all years where Dockerty Cup Final and Final Replays need more details regarding team line-ups.

Early Grand Finals/Play-Offs used on odd occasions in 1920 and 1923 also lack line-up details.

The modern age, which should really be online somewhere, but sadly isn't, sees years like 2000, 2002 and 2003 missing the names of the reserves league champions across all divisions. 2002 is also the one year without the winners of the State and Provisional League Best and Fairest Awards.

Funds have been allocated in this financial year for Trove to digitise The Sporting Globe up until 1954. If that is up and running in the latter half of the year it will help in finding results to make some incomplete league tables in the period at least more respectable.

In most cases I have now gone through the major papers (The Age, The Sun, The Herald, The Argus) in looking for information. I've tried Il Globo for Dockerty Cup Final details in years involving Juventus. I looked through some Jewish newspapers to see if there was any information about Hakaoh in the Second World War years when the major papers cut down coverage to a paragraph but they had more important things on their minds. I will now need to try more local suburban papers.

So if anyone out there knows of anyone with a collection of old soccer papers or records that I could have a look at, please get in touch.

In Search Of... 1912

Having found the final tables for the Victorian League in 1910 and 1911 long ago, this week's trip to the library saw me target 1912. From the online archives of The Argus and The Sun, results were sporadic. So once again I went to The Herald microfilms to see what Jackeroo was revealing in the Friday edition.

New clubs in 1912 were Footscray, Melbourne Thistle, Sunshine, Birmingham Victoria and the juniors of Moorabbin. The former South Melbourne club had changed it's name to Albert Park, whilst Williamstown and become Williamstown-Yarraville to broaden their appeal.

Middle Park was still the home of football, with seven clubs using the ground there, namely Carlton United, Fitzroy, Burns, Melbourne Thistle, Albert Park, Birmingham Victoria and St Kilda. There must have been a few ground there, as up to four games were played kicking off at the same time on some days.

In June, leading referee G.Hawes was appointed the new press correspondent. The Herald football reports now had a new byline, written by "Centre-Half". The previous press correspondent had been Mr.W.Jackson (Jackeroo).

Early in the season there were results for the competition as well as a junior (no age group specified) competition. It's fair to assume the junior competition was near what we would call the Youth team age bracket, probably 18-20 year olds. A new club was formed at Preston (Ground at Bell Street, South Preston, colours light and dark blue vertical stripes, white knickers) for the first Second Division, which commenced on June 1st. The other teams in that league were all reserves teams from First Division clubs: St Kilda A, Burns A, Prahran City A, Footscray A and Birmingham Victoria A. To make things confusing, late in the season the junior results started to be listed with the Second Division results, though at no point did the teams crossover and start playing each other.

Once again there are missing results, so from the last table published, on September 27, the published results after that date give us:

WILLIAMSTOWN-YARRAVILLE 19 15 2 2 73 22 32
BURNS 17 12 1 4 45 20 25
CARLTON UNITED 19 12 1 6 41 18 25
ST KILDA 17 11 2 4 42 20 24
ALBERT PARK 19 9 6 4 46 29 24
BIRMINGHAM VICTORIA 17 8 1 8 25 23 17
PRAHRAN CITY 20 8 1 11 29 42 17  
MELBOURNE THISTLE 17 5 3 9 19 27 12
FOOTSCRAY 18 3 2 13 14 36 8
FITZROY 15 2 0 13 17 44 6
SUNSHINE 15 1 1 13 17 66 3

The results for Burns v Birmingham Victoria and Footscray v St Kilda on September 28 are unreadable on the microfilm, whilst Fitzroy v Burns should have taken place on October 5.

From the Second Division results I could find I came up with:

PRESTON 7 7 0 0 37 7 14
ST KILDA A 9 5 2 2 28 14 12
PRAHRAN CITY A 7 4 0 3 16 16 8
BURNS A 5 0 2 3 3 13 2
BIRMINGHAM VICTORIA A 7 1 0 6 5 24 2
FOOTSCRAY A 5 1 0 4 6 21 2

Looking through the weekly (Saturday) paper The Leader for a readable version of the September 28 results (unsuccessful) , I came across photos of the teams that played in the "Local International". This saw Scotland defeat England 3-0 with goals from Forbes, Spencer and Dick.

I thought I'd found photos of the Victorian state team in the same paper in a 1913 edition, but it turns out that was Aussie Rules. Didn't have time for a head count or to check if there had even been a soccer game between Victoria and South Australia, but there hadn't.

Back to 1910 for a second, so happy were they with the inaugural season that once it ended, a "third competition" was begun. The League would have been the first and the Challenge Cup the second. Only a few weeks in, Prahran and Williamstown withdrew, as it was now mid-September and the summer sport season was imminent. It's doubtful that this Third Competition was ever completed.

I have all the other First Division tables prior to World War I bringing proceedings to a half in 1915. By that time The Herald reports were coming from "The Spectator". The 1913 Dockerty Cup Final was played at "the Birmingham Ground" of Middle Park. Until the next visit to SLV, that will do for now.