Football in Victoria after the Second World War
At the conclusion of the Second World War there were 30 clubs competing in the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association (VASFA) and also a number of clubs competing in country leagues throughout the state, especially in the Latrobe Valley, where the mining communities were strong.
The first post-war football carnival was held in Melbourne from 7–9 June 1952 and Victoria was crowned champion. Only four teams took part, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the host. The Governor of Victoria, Sir Dallas Brooks, attended and was presented to the competing teams. Aggregate crowds over the first two days were in the order of 20,000 and between 6,000 and 10,000 watched the final round of games. Matches were played at Toorak Park Oval and Olympic Park, in its pre-1956 condition, which was quite primitive. Fans were asked to make a voluntary contribution of 4 shillings (20c) at the Sunday game at Olympic Park and nearly £1,000 ($2,000) was raised. New South Wales was the raging favourite, but Victoria downed all three opponents culminating in a 3–1 win over New South Wales. Victoria was successful again in 1960, with three wins on home soil against New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland.
Between the end of the war and 1960 the face of soccer in Australia was completely transformed. In Victoria the composition of the top league switched from being district clubs overwhelmingly supported by migrants and their descendants from the United Kingdom to being dominated by European arrivals, first from the northern part of the Continent and then from south and east Europe. In 1948 the first division consisted of Box Hill, Brighton, Moreland, Park Rangers, Prahran, Sunshine United, Western Suburbs and Yallourn—all primarily drawing on support from United Kingdom migrants and their descendants and, with the exception of Yallourn, all based in Melbourne.
By 1961 only Box Hill and Moreland drew their fans from England and Scotland and they were joined by Polonia (Polish), George Cross (Maltese), Wilhelmina (Dutch), Hakoah (Jewish), South Melbourne Hellas (Greek), Slavia (Czechoslovak), JUST (Jugoslav), Melbourne (Hungarian), Richmond (German) and Juventus (Italian). The players of these clubs, however, were much more mixed than the communities which supported them. Nearly all clubs had a number of Scottish and English players in their ranks, who were prized for their physicality and determination. Among the stars of the immediate post-war era were Angus Drennen and Tom Jack, both of whom played for Australia as well as Victoria.
The transformation of the game was now in full view. After promotions from the Third (1949) and Second Division (1951), Juventus became the first club with European support to win the First Division, claiming the first of five successive championships in 1952, only losing a remarkable seven of its eighty-nine league matches throughout this period. Their dominance was broken by JUST in 1957 but they returned as champions in 1958, winning the newly expanded State League (10 teams over 22 rounds, a format which would run for well over two decades) ahead of Wilhelmina, who had completed a remarkable rise by winning three successive promotions from the Fourth Division between 1954 and 1956. Wilhelmina would claim the ultimate prize in 1959, finishing three points ahead of George Cross, with Juventus and Hakoah a further point back in third and fourth respectively.
The VASFA was the custodian of the game. It took a broad view of the need to develop the game among young Australians and appointed the first state coach, Len Young, in 1954. A player with West Ham, Reading and Brighton in England, Young subsequently coached Moreland, South Melbourne and Box Hill. He instituted the Victorian Colts team to bring on elite youngsters, including Ted Smith, who was to go on to represent Australia at the Olympic Games in 1956. Given that Melbourne was to host the games that year, the VASFA was concerned to ensure that the best players remained amateurs and hence available for Olympic selection according to the rules of that competition at that time. But this and its redistribution of funds from the match of the day played at the old Olympic Park brought it into conflict with the leading clubs whose burgeoning support and determination to win the league and Dockerty Cup underpinned covert semi-professionalism. In addition to Ted Smith, Frankie Loughran of Moreland represented Australia at the Olympic Games in Melbourne. Loughran scored the second goal in the opening victory against Japan.
The VASFA instituted the State League in 1958 as a premier division to head off a breakaway by some of the leading clubs. By the end of the year the State League clubs were demanding self-government. They were particularly exercised about penalties awarded by the disciplinary committee and wanted the State League Committee to handle all transfers. The clubs also wanted to have a major say in the allocation of games at Olympic Park, and the controversial issue of national teams was also raised. A suggestion was to be put to the State League Management Committee that only one club of each nationality be permitted in the State League, the issue having arisen because there were to be three Italian teams in the State League in 1959, Juventus, Geelong (then playing under the banner of IAMA, the Italian Australian Migrants Association) and Footscray Capri. Owen Howard in the Sporting Globe noted sardonically that this might well cause problems if only one Australian team were allowed in the league. Finally, the clubs wanted district representatives dropped from the Victorian Soccer Council to be replaced by more independent members and greater representation from the State League clubs. Most State League soccer clubs finished in the red in 1958 because of player payments. One club was paying £5 per week to 16 first teamers and £3 a week to reserves. There was an open market for players, who could dictate terms. The Sporting Globe suggested: ‘Surely this must be another reason why the Victorian Soccer Association must recognise professionalism and not sit smugly under the mantle of so-called amateurism’. The language was redolent of the debate over professionalism in England and Scotland in the 1880s.
Meanwhile, in New South Wales a split in the football organisation occurred when some of the leading figures met to form the Federation of New South Wales Soccer Clubs. These clubs, and some of the top Victorian teams like Wilhelmina, were attracting players from Austria, Holland and Malta, whom they considered as migrants rather than professional footballers for whom transfer fees were required. Consequently, the Australian Soccer Association had its membership of FIFA suspended in April 1960, which only allowed the poaching of players to grow unchecked. In September 1961 the Chairman and Treasurer of the New South Wales Federation of Soccer Clubs, Dr Henry Seamonds and F. Hoffman, visited Melbourne to discuss plans for a national knock-out cup to be played in Sydney. The scheme was ambitious, with clubs to be flown in for matches which were to be played over a five-week period. Seamonds and Hoffman announced that they planned to go ahead with the formation of an Australian Soccer Federation based on the top clubs in each state and issued an ultimatum to Victoria: ‘Join us, or we will go ahead without you and you will lose your top players to our organisation. If you do not come in now, we will not admit you in future’.
Football was booming in Victoria and many in the Victorian Amateur Soccer Football Association felt that organisational change was not necessary. The Association had decided to appoint an assistant secretary, whose duties would include looking after 74 junior teams. The Association also organised a successful junior soccer carnival in Shepparton on the weekend of 7–8 November 1961. The 1961 senior season appeared to have concluded successfully, with Polonia winning a second successive State League championship and Dockerty Cup, and Wilhelmina beating George Cross 3–1 at Olympic Park to win its first State League Cup.