Victorian Premier League still unknown to fans

I understood Albion Rovers were a Scottish club, playing out of Selwyn Park an Aussie Rules oval.

The facts. History of Bulleen. Bresciano and Tiatto (and Mathew Leckie) all played for Bulleen. Bulleen Veneto became Bulleen Lions when ethnic names had to be removed. Bulleen Lions then merged with Box Hill Inter and Brunswick Juventus to become Bulleen Inter Kings. They then became Bulleen Zebras. Then they were sold out by the board and Bulleen Zebras moved to Whittlesea Zebras. So Bulleen would have had to start from scratch. Instead Essendon Royals moved to Bulleen to become Bulleen Royals. All along the juniors stayed at Bulleen as Bulleen. Tiatto came to Bulleen Lions from Werribee when he was 17 but interestingly his dad didn't let him play in a team until he was 12. Leckie came to Bulleen Royals from Brimbank when he was 16. Bresciano was always a Bulleen boy through juniors. All other Australian representatives came to Bulleen as senior players. I'm assuming Moreland Zebras is the same bunch of clowns that screwed over Bulleen.

When it comes to Melbourne's Juventus, it's complicated. http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/7325/vplclubsjl6.jpg There's an updated version of that if you're interested.

Yes, there was a half decent Anglo/British soccer scene in the western suburbs both prior to and during the post-war Continental European immigration. Albion got taken over by the Turks sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s. A couple of years ago I did see a bloke walking around Laverton Market with an old Albion Rovers jacket - that would have been some vintage. In the early days of the Victorian soccer league system, Williamstown/Yarraville was one of the stronger teams (as far as I can gather, its descendant was taken over by apoltiical Serbs/Yugoslavs circa 1981) . In the 1930s Footscray Thistle was a very strong team, during an era where several obviously British clubs existed (Caledonians, Northumberland and Durham, Melbourne Thistle, Melbourne Welsh etc). In the 1940s a team from the Bradford Cotton Mills in Yarraville had a side, changing their name to Footscray City, and reaching the state league, before they merged with other entities. The problem the British/Anglo clubs faced was that assimilation was easier and/or more agreeable to them than playing with the wogs; they couldn't get the crowds or financing to propel them higher and maintain places in the top divisions.

Lucan Do the Moreland Zebras have anything to do with the old Juventus club, or are they completely seperate?

Hi Paul thanks for the update - makes a lot of sense that St Albans would have been a Croatian club. I didn't actually know that Albion Rovers had been taken over by the Turkish community, the last time I had anything to do with the club was around 1983, and I'm pretty sure at that point they were still a British club. Up to 1950, there were stacks of British soccer clubs right through the Western Suburbs, I guess because up to that point Brits made up the vast majority of working classs immigrant families: Footscray, Yarraville, Sunshine, even down to Williamstown, some of these clubs had great success in the former British Football Association (that preceded the VSL). Some may not know that the present day Western Bulldogs (in the AFL), was formed as the Footscray Football Club in 1883 and at that time had quite strong English roots (and thus the Bulldogs nickname), and Central Districts from Elizabeth, SA (also the bulldogs), has a similar history, but they have remain very much English influenced to the present day.

Most of the grounds being used this year are suitable for media access. The FFV does one live game a week streamed over the net, and then usually compiles that footage into a highlights package for youtibe. I say usually, because for the South-Zebras match, they've uploaded the entire match for some reason. A few South fans, not least of all the people working on SMFC TV, are confused as to why the FFV continually covers matches involving with South, when the club is already covering it, and promoting it on youtube and channel 31.

Green Gully, Albion Rovers and St Albans had a decent rivarly back in the day. Albion of course got taken over by the Turks, who eventually moved the team to Melton, back to Albion, and are now in Cairnlea. St Albans was broke by the mid 1970s, and was bought out by local Croats, who had been playing in the Industrial League at the time, who also added the 'Dinamo' tag to the St Albans name. There were also two presumably two Anglo/British clubs based in Sunshine - Sunshine United won the state league in 1950, but seems to disappear after 1958. Sunshine City hung around the higher tiers of Victorian soccer for 30 odd years, before amalgamating with George Cross in the early 1980s. George Cross had been a wandering team before that, but afterwards became synonymous with Chaplin Reserve, which had been City's ground. Sunshine Tech also had a good reputation at one point for its efforts in school soccer.

South spanked Moreland Zebras 4-0. More impressive was the crowd at the new Lakeside Stadium. Reported as 2,600. From where I stood I thought at least 2k. Great stuff.

Daniel, did you see today's article in The Age by Michael Lynch, "Flavours of the game beyond the A-League, a taste of the past lingers"? It could just be a coincidence that Lynch's article appears the day after you published this on The Roar ... or, could it be that you (and The Roar) are now setting the football agenda in Australia?!! Whilst I wasn't involved in the NSL, I can relate to many of Lynch's observations from playing lower leagues around Victoria. The majority of clubs we played had some defining ethnic origin. Alas, the 2 clubs I played for had the common theme of "Old Boys secondary school" & University, however, some of our Mediterranean lads did spice up the snags on the BBQ! I urge every HAL fan to read it - we must never forget our football history: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/a-league/flavours-of-the-game-beyond-the-aleague-a-taste-of-the-past-lingers-20120323-1vp9y.html

The boys went 1-0 down after 4' at John Cain Memorial Park (James Kalifatidis scored) and conceded another in the 23' (Milos Lujic) 2-0 always a dangerous score in football and Richmond got one goal back in the 73' through Josh Kweifio-Okai but that was the final result: Northcote City 2 : 1 Richmond Eagles Never mind - 1st home game next Friday night at the Kevin Bartlett Reserve!

Yes - but there was actually a team called St Albans playing in the lower divisions of the VSL at one point. Of course Green Gully was a very successful club around the late 70s early 80, and may even have had a season or two in the NSL.

I reckon Green Gully would almost be considered a St Albans team?

Ah, the migrant hostel, I know where that is, it's now student accommodation I think, that would represent very humble origins indeed because the open land around the hostel is quite limited. Coincidentally, around the time of the Solidarnosc demonstrations circa 1980, it was still a migrant hostel and was home to a second wave of Polish migrants escaping the crackdown on the nascent union movement, led by Lech Walesa, who would become President of Poland some 10 years later. Imagine their surprise when they found Polish soccer club 300 metres down the road!! Both Albion and St Albans always had soccer clubs. Albion were once called the Albion Rovers, located near the Albion station and silos that exist to this day (on the way out to Ballarat). They were a predominantly British club, which had become a rarity in that part of Melbourne by the 1980s. I can't remember who St Albans were backed by, there were a wide range of migrants out there at the time, but it's likely Kevin Muscat played with them before he joined Sunshine George Cross, which was/is a Maltese backed club.

Came as a surprise to me too, but this from the Club's website .. "At the height of the European migrant influx to Australia in 1953, Gerhard Torner, Guenter Schlede and Stefan Krix founded a soccer club for the German community in Melbourne. Named Maribyrnong SC after the suburb in which their migrant hostel was located, the club finished second in the Victorian Division Four in 1954. The following year the club became affiliated with the Melbourne German Club (Duetscher Verein Melbourne), Club Tivoli, and relocated. It adopted the name by which it is known to this day, Alemannia Richmond Soccer Club." Source: http://www.richmondsc.com.au/content.aspx?file=7584|12586h PS: Had a few mates, who played for Polonia (now called Western Eagles) - I think they're now located in Albion or St Albans?

Fussball Are you sure Richmond SC was formerly associated with Maribyrnong??? I've never heard of a German soccer club located there, and I have very strong links to that suburb. Polonia was located in Maribyrnong, and played in the VSL, the ground is still there at the bottom of Van Ness Avenue, but the club is long gone - but I can't think of anywere else in Maribyrnong where a soccer club would have been located. Half the suburb consists of a steep hill (down from Highpoint West), and the rest of the suburb, the only flat bit, is prone to flooding. A large chunk of the suburb was dedicated to Dept of Defence factories.

Good to see them pushing games streamed online. The more the state leagues put themselves out there the more they grow and the better it is for ALL levels of the game. FootballWest have been doing great work putting up highlight packages, monthly magazines, webcasts and now forging links with local news to get the scores reported on evening tele this year.

Have been to a few of the State League games here, they're nice fun and friendly in my opinion. The on-field quality is not bad and you can usually get your food and drink cheap and good quality. Of course there are ethnic affiliations to most of the clubs but that just helps give the grounds a bit of unique atmosphere. Was at an Armadale (mostly English immigrant) home game hosting Floreat Athena (just guess the ethnic affiliation) and seeing all the old Greek grandpas watching and carrying on and the rambunctious Poms up the other end carrying on. Great place to be on a chilli winter day with a hot coffee or a Kilkenny. Was at another game between two clubs that identify with parts of the Balkans that have had dramas but you would never know there was ever any such history from the crowd. Safe and welcoming as houses. Different grounds have different rewards too; the local WA football media/blogs talk about the State League of Food, wraps here, curry there, all sorts of things.