Harry Dockerty: 1908-1916
A resurgence in football accompanied revived immigration in the years just prior to the First World War. A flurry of organising activity began in July 1908 and on 1 September the Argus reported: ‘The first British Association football match played in Victoria for many years took place on the Richmond Cricket-ground yesterday’. One of the prime movers in this activity was Harry Dockerty, the doyen of Victorian soccer.
In 1909 Dockerty presented the Cup which bears his name (which was being mooted as the basis for an all-Australian competition in the 1990s and is still competed for to this day). The Victorian League was reorganised and won by Carlton United in 1909 and 1910. Yarraville (1911-13) and Melbourne Thistle (1914-15) were the other champions before the competition was abandoned in 1916. The same clubs, with the addition of St Kilda, won the Dockerty Cup. By 1913 there was an eight-team league, with six reserve teams. The interstate series continued. In 1914 and 1915 competition continued, despite the outbreak of the First World War, but then was abandoned for the duration. It is estimated that 90 percent of Victorian footballers enlisted in the armed forces.
Football also got a fleeting start in the bush prior to the war. Games were taken to Wonthaggi and other rural towns, but one exemplary case is Mildura. Teams made up from locals and British migrants established two teams, Mildura FC and Irymple FC, which played for two years until the war interrupted their activities. Nine members of the Irymple team paid with their lives for their patriotism. The tragedy of Irymple is a story repeated across Australia. Melbourne Thistle and the Caledonian club in Perth lost eight of its first eleven in the Great War.