The recent news announcing the creation of the Championship – a national second tier in Australia – is long overdue.
The two participants from Western Australia will be Perth SC and Bayswater.
Both sides have shared the top state honours recently, winning three WA titles each in the NPL era.
Perth SC are by far the most decorated club in WA football history, previously known as Perth Azzurri and Perth Italia due to a complicated history of mergers and demergers. In total, they’ve won 24 championships and 13 state cups.
Bayswater do not quite share as rich a history, but their recent success indicates that they are currently set up as well as anyone, as they were WA champions in three of the first four NPL seasons (2014, ’15 and ’17).
However, neither of these sides will become 2020 champions due to the coronavirus causing a change of format in the WA NPL.
Instead of the usual home-and-away round robin, in which the 12 sides play each other once, in 2020 the WA clubs played each team once across 11 games throughout July and August with the table then being split into an upper and lower contest. Each team then played five more games in a condensed league, with the winner of the upper league becoming state champions.
Perth SC lost five of their 11 games and only won three, while Bayswater won four matches, but also lost four. This places both sides in the bottom six, and the six teams that won five or more games – Floreat Athena, ECU Joondalup, Cockburn City, Gwelup Croatia, Armadale and Sorrento – qualified for the upper league.
This is turning out to be an exciting competition as after three games, five sides are still in with a chance of glory. Only Armadale have lost all three games and are out of contention.
Sorrento, Gwelup Croatia and ECU Joondalup all sit on four points after winning one, drawing one and losing one each.
Stan Lazaridis’ former club, Floreat Athena, are in with a better chance as their opening loss against Sorrento was followed up by last-minute victories against Armadale and ECU. Their next game against Gwelup Croatia will keep them in contention if they can secure a win, as they host Cockburn City at the famous E&D Litis Stadium.
Cockburn City – who are in the prime position after winning their opening two and drawing their last match against Sorrento – have to navigate a tricky fixture against ECU Joondalup, who are managed by former Perth Glory coach Kenny Lowe.
If they are to win this, then they will simply need to avoid defeat against Floreat on the final day to become champions.
However, if both Floreat and Cockburn lose in Round 4, and Sorrento win, then it would open up a scenario where any one of the five could win it and make for a very exciting finale.
Skoose
Roar Rookie
Great to see an article on WA NPL, thanks.
Ferno
Guest
Monopoly is never good. Particularly when the monopoly holder is not efficient. It is a error to analyze the potential of a state´s market only looking at the monopolist numbers. Many western australians don´t engage football simply because the only option they get in the state is not from their taste. Love of supporter to the club depends on many more things them only their location. I, personally , love Perth and Football, but I find difficult to support Glory and don´t think they re good representative of the state. I would like another club, with different culture to represent me.
Micko
Roar Rookie
The other big one is Cockburn City (formerly Spearwood Dalmatinac).
Nick Symonds
Guest
PERTH GLORY NEWS: Sage says PFA 'irrelevant' in bitter pay war - Sage criticised the PFA for the way they phrased the proposed pay cuts to the players. "The very first question they sent out to the players was: How much of a pay cut will you accept?" Sage explained. "The options were five per cent, 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 20 per cent, 25 per cent, 30 per cent. If you got that letter, what would you tick? Everyone ticks five per cent. That's why they said it's unanimous. It's a stupid question." "But if the question was reasonably put: During this current crisis, given the AFL, Super Rugby have taken 50 per cent, will you take a 30 per cent cut? "I bet you all the players would have ticked yes. But they didn't get asked that question." - https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/sage-says-pfa-irrelevant-in-bitter-pay-war
Bendtner52
Roar Pro
There are many Croatian linked clubs in Australia, the two main ones in WA are Gwelup and the Western Knights. The Knights are historically more successful, even recently playing in the FFA cup, but got relegated a few seasons ago. Gwelup have emerged recently as the states premier Croatian-linked side
Voice of Reason
Roar Rookie
Thanks for the article about NPL WA - we don’t get many! Gwelup Croatia was on TV in the FFA Cup a couple of years ago and was promoted last year. I’ve seen them beat Sorrento 3-0 and 5-0 so far this year so despite limited history, they are pretty damn good. It is a competitive league. Perth SC were champions last year but just didn’t fire this year for some reason. Bayswater haven’t been that good in recent seasons. Floreat Athena came top of the league season, but Cockburn lead the top six play-offs atm. I can’t see how we could financially support a second team in a national league even post-pandemic/shutdown. Tony Sage can barely support one. Allegedly there is money for a Fremantle team. There are several teams in City of Joondalup, which has a strong British & Asian immigrant population. But I don’t know how many of them are active Glory fans and whether it would be sufficient to support a second WA team.
Coastyboi
Guest
I wonder if either Perth SC or Bayswater would consider buying the A-League licence from Glory? :football:
Micko
Roar Rookie
What's Gwelup Croatia's history? I've never heard of that club. Are they linked with Western Knights (who were formerly North Perth Croatia)?