Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1913

1913 saw Yarraville win the Victorian Championship for the third year in a row, though for the first time under that name (1911 they were Williamstown, in 1912 it was Williamstown-Yarraville). The clubs were divided into an eight team First Division and a Second Division of six teams. This year there were no reserves/A teams in the Second Division as in 1912, as they had their own competition, won by Burns A. The Dockerty Cup was held once again, and there was a secondary Cup, the Junior Cup, for the Second Division and Reserves/A teams to fight for. It was won by Second Division champions Preston after a second replay.

Yarraville completed a league and Cup double, pipping the unbeaten Burns by a point to take out the Championship and beating St Kilda 3-2 in the Dockerty Cup Final. Their prominent players included Joe Grieves, Percy Dowker, E.Jones D.Dick and Hatch. They won the league without playing Albert Park in it, who forfeited on both occasions. They did meet and beat them in the Dockerty Cup semi-finals, twice after the first attempt was abandoned due to rain.

Click on images to enlarge

The season had the now traditional Local International, won 3-1 by England, as well as New South Wales visiting Victoria for two games.

Not all the goalscorers names were published, but it is most likely J.Guthrie of Thistle would claim the honour of top goalscorer.

There were numerous walkover and forfeits. In the season file I've included two of those involving Albert Park for the same day after the season was over. The original fixture published in the newspapers went out of the window following a washed out weekend on May 31 when most games were abandoned after a storm hit early in the second half. Complicating the fixture revisions were the numerous Dockerty Cup replays as well as the weekends of the Victorian state team games and the Local International being reserved solely for those fixtures.

Anyway, here it is:

1913 Victorian Season File

Victorian Soccer Season Files - 1911

The 1911 season saw a first as Williamstown broke Carlton United's stranglehold on the competition silverware by winning the League Championship while St Kilda took the Dockerty Cup.

Williamstown had been the first club to play their games beyond the vicinity of Middle Park. Prahran City had also moved away from the lake, now playing at Fawkner Park. The Junior League, now with five clubs, was taken out for the second year in succession by the Wallabies. They would disappear the following season as that League was replaced by a Second Division, which was still essentially a reserves competition.

Williamstown, after drawing their second game and losing their third to St Kilda, went on a winning streak which saw them take the title by two points over Carlton United, despite losing to that side in the last round. An exhibition match was held at the Williamstown Cricket Ground in which the league champions defeated a Rest of the League XI 3-2.

The major games for the season, the Local International and the Dockerty Cup Final, were both staged at the Richmond City Reserve, now known as Citizen's Park, located behind the Richmond Town Hall.

The highest top flight score saw Williamstown defeat Fitzroy 8-2 on August 19, while the largest winning margin was Prahran City beating South Melbourne 7-0 on May 20.

Change was in the air. The following season Williamstown would become Williamstown-Yarraville before becoming just Yarraville. Having won the double in the first two years of competitive football, Carlton United would finish third in 1912 before disbanding.

So here it is, all the 1911 results:

Victorian Season File 1911

Seasons Lacking Closure

In the course of researching the history of local competitive football, several black holes have emerged. Sporadic media coverage means we may never discover the answer to some puzzling questions, especially that whilst the papers often reported about match results and informed about upcoming tribunal meetings, the upshot of those meetings was rarely covered ins subsequent editions.

The Second Division of 1921 is a little murky. Published results do not give us a complete table, but newspaper reports tell us that Brunswick, Welsh United and Melbourne Thistle A all finished on 22 points. they would have finished in that order had goal difference been employed, but in those days it was not. So instead play offs were to be used to determine the champion.

On September 24, Welsh United defeated Brunswick 2-0 in what was listed as a "semi-final". A fortnight later, in what was labelled a "final" Welsh United drew 1-1 with Melbourne Thistle A. And that seems to have been that, with no more soccer appearing in the papers from that point on. Was the Championship ever resolved?

It may well not have been, and the answer may not be hidden in an old newspaper somewhere. The season was not always able to be completed before the grounds and players were lost to cricket. One such instance was the Dockerty Cup of 1920, in which the Final was never staged. The semi-finals were played on July 31, with Albert Park beating St Kilda 1-0, whilst Northumberland and Durham United defeated Footscray Thistle 3-2.

The drama in this one involves Northumberland and Durham United having fielded an ineligible player in that game, with the Council ordering the game to be replayed as a result. This was scheduled for Middle Park on August 21, but United failed to appear for the game. The following week they defeated Melbourne Thistle 1-0 in the semi-final of the League Championship play-offs, reaching the Final against St Kilda the following Saturday. The League Championship Grand Final was drawn, necessitating a replay. That may have been enough to have extended the season too far, or the problem may have been with resolving the matter of United refusing to replay the semi-final.

Old VSF Yearbooks contain the only documented history of the game we have, and for the 1920 Dockerty Cup they have listed the following: Finalists - Albert Park, Northumberland and Durham United (Game Abandoned).

Another unresolved issue was the District League Reserves Championship of 1928. The Southern Section was won by Naval Depot, who were to meet the Northern Section champions in a Grand Final. Only the Northern Section Championship required a play-off between Footscray Thistle and Williamstown. The two teams could not be split, with Thistle finally scraping a 1-0 win in the fifth replay of the tie. Having reached November, the plug was pulled on a clash with the Naval Depot for the overall title.

There's and even bigger head-scratcher with the 1928 season, but I'll save that for the next blog.

In Search of... 1909

Back when I first went to research Victorian football history at the Newspaper Reading Room of the State Library of Victoria (SLV), I was aiming to one day get at least the final table of the top division each year since league football began in 1909.

I was a little lazy in my approach to this task. I went through the microfilm reels looking for the easy answers which I soon realised were not there. Head to July/August/September to find the tables did not work when the final table wasn't always published. Sometimes, just the points tally was published. It was becoming apparent that in some years, it would require recording all the results, and compiling the table myself. Then, more sadly, it was clear that for many seasons finding a record of all the results would not be happening.

So for the 1909 season, won by Carlton United, things didn't pan out. Adding up the results I'd written down made for a ridiculous ladder. So it was put on the back-burner for a few years, hoping that John Punshon at OzFootball would put something up.

Recently I began re-checking the results on the online archives of The Age and The Argus. A discovery then clarified one problem, which was having teams having played more than the 10 game season a 6 team competition should produce. The season started on Saturday May 8, and any results before that were from friendlies. So that took away the teams over 10 games, but still there were a few short, so I set off for the SLV today looking to fill the gaps.

Now we need to understand the times were different then. For the result of a Saturday sporting contest, you would need Monday's newspaper, as there were no papers published on Sundays in that time (right up until the late 1960's or early 1970's I think). The Herald was an evening paper, and did have Saturday's results in it for footy and racing, but not always for the "British Association" or "Soccer". By Monday those results were old news and often not carried.

I made a breakthrough when I discovered the day for soccer news in The Herald was actually the Friday edition. The previous week's results were often found there, gradually growing in column inches with the author's nom-de-plume, "Jackaroo" even getting a byline late in the year. On July 23rd there was even a final table, of sorts. It's not a real final table because Goals For and Goals Against are not included. It also takes the format of Wins Losses Draws rather than the modern Wins Draws Losses. I guess this was due to perhaps following along with Aussie Rules lines. After finding a few more results, I'm only two matches short (and one blurry number) from compiling a proper final table.

CARLTON UNITED 10 9 1 0 32-4 19
The goal difference is still not final, missing the scores for their wins over Fitzroy
ST KILDA 10 7 0 3 40-17 14
This is complete
MELBOURNE UNITED 10 4 0 6 16-32 8
Goal difference not final, missing the score for their win over Prahran on June 12
WILLIAMSTOWN 10 3 1 6 22-32 7
This is complete
FITZROY 10 3 1 6 14-25 7
Goal difference not final, missing the scores for their defeats by Carlton
PRAHRAN 10 2 1 7 9-22 5
Goal difference not final, missing the score for their loss to Melbourne United on June 12

So just three issues remain. A hard to read score for Carlton against Fitzroy on July 17, which is either 5 or 9 to nil. And the June 12 game between those sides as well as Melbourne United v Prahran. The Herald did give a score of  Melbourne 7 Prahran 2 but the report stated it was played as a practise game for some reason the reporter did not agree with. Perhaps the result stood, but I have failed to find any mention of that. The Age and The Argus and The Leader all only have the St Kilda 10 Williamstown 0 scoreline from that day and nothing else.

All games in 1909 were played at grounds in Middle Park, except for Williamstown home games. I'm not sure if there were actual change-rooms at Middle Park, or if a room at the Middle Park Hotel was all that was used. Harry Dockerty, who donated the Cup which would eventually be named after him (called the Challenge Cup initially) was a back for runner's-up St Kilda. He also captained the Scotland side which lost 2-3 to England in the local "International" game, an annual fixture that would continue up until the 1938 contest set for July 23rd was abandoned due to lack of interest.