Wednesday League

Photos by Competition and Team

Introduction

The Wednesday League was a Melbourne based inter-workplace league. The league contained a number of teams with unionised workplaces. This factor caused major disruption to the league with the entry of a police team in 1926 due to the use of police in strikebreaking activities. The top teams during the life of the competition were the Metropoliton Fire Brigade and the Railways teams.

The competition ended in 1934 for a variety of reasons including the loss of the fire brigade team, a competition mainstay and disputes over player eligability, as clubs struggled to find players.

Teams

The table below provides a summary of teams involved in the Wednesday League. The numbers 1 and 2 indicate the Premier and runner up for that year.

Note - The Argus team became 'Press' in 1930
Note - The 1926 season saw many teams not participate and the League effectively disbanded with an alternate 'Midweek League' run instead.

Post and Telegraph Wednesday League - Source:The Age 14-Sep-1933 p11 - Photographer Unknown

Railways Wednesday League - Source: The Age 31-Aug-1933 p11 - Photographer Unknown

Character of the League

Peter Bourke's 'A social history of workplace Australian football, 1860–1939' is available online and provides a useful section on the Wednesday League. A few quotes provide a brief insight into the league.

...by the end of the 1920s the WFL had developed a reputation for unruliness, on-and-off-field violence, and links to gambling in an era when these phenomena were common at most levels of football. (Burke, 2008, p.212)

Many of the senior players from this era recall that their employers required them to play in the workplace teams, and that they were obliged to play. (Burke, 2008, p.239)

Some of the clubs had a substantial pool of senior players from which to choose from, leading to the introduction of a rule restricting teams to using just four senior players per game. Clubs such as Railways and Fire Brigade could have fielded teams composed almost entirely of senior footballers. The ‘four-player’ rule was introduced as a way of evening up the competition for smaller workplaces. (Burke, 2008, p.244)


A few well known faces in the Wednesday League were Press;Greg Stockdale (Essendon, Coburg) and the Fire Brigade; Garnet Campbell (Essendon), Len Webster (Essendon) and Yellow Cabs;Jack Dyer (Richmond) and Waterside Workers; Peter Reville (South Melbourne), though there were many others.

Boyles Images

Other Images

Argus 6Aug1925p7 Fire Brigade v Yellow Cabs	Argus 7May1925 Fire Brigade v Waterside Workers	Argus 13May1926p9 Air Force Post and Telegraph
Argus 19May1927 p9 Waterside v Railways	Argus 22Sep1927 p13 Railway v Waterside	Argus 29Sep1927 p13 Peter Reville Waterside Peter Reville
Argus 13Sep1928p5 FireBrigade v Railways	Argus 23May1929 p5 Police v Fire Department	Argus 30May1929p5 FireBrigade v Telegraph
Argus 22May1930 p5 YellowCabs n Railways	Argus 8May1930 p7 Craig Post and Telepgraph Morphett Press	Argus 8Sep1932 p5 Ivan Corry Press Ivan Corry
Argus 14Sep1933 p7 TWallace Best and Fairest	Argus 7Sep1933 p5 Railways v Yellowcabs

References

Teams and Premiers

1922
Premiers-WEDNESDAY ASSOCIATION. (1922, September 14). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 11. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1844203

1923
Premiers - Wednesday League Matches. (1924, May 7). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 23. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4368122
Premiers - FOOTBALL. (1923, September 13). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 4. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2001428

1924
Teams - FOOTBALL. (1925, April 22). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 14. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2084059
Premiers - WEDNESDAY LEAGUE. (1924, September 4). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 10. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2025956

1925
Teams - Wednesday League. (1925, August 6). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 5. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2152428
Teams - FOOTBALL. (1926, March 27). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 26. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3742176
Premiers - WEDNESDAY LEAGUE. (1925, August 27). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 5. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2163723

1926
Teams - MID-WEEK LEAGUE. (1926, May 12). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 28. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3781290
Premiers - No heading. (1926, August 26). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 4. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page450187

1927
Teams - FOOTBALL. (1927, March 28). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 17. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3845986
Premiers - FOOTBALL. (1927, September 29). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 5. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3882081

1928
Teams - The Age 5Jul1928 p4
Teams - The Age 31May 1928 p5
Premiers - No heading. (1928, September 13). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 13. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page465510

1929
Teams - The Age 20Jun1929 p6
Premiers - WEDNESDAY LEAGUE FOOTBALL. (1930, May 15). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 5. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4087345

1930
Teams - The Age 22May1930 p6
Premiers - WEDNESDAY LEAGUE. (1930, September 11). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 11. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4190731

1931
Teams - The Age 2 Jul 1931 p3
Premiers - FOOTBALL. (1931, October 1). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 10. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4428406

1932
Teams - The Age 14Jul1932 p3
Premiers - FOOTBALL. (1932, September 8). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 12. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4496725

1933
Teams - The Age 25 May 1933 p5
Premiers - FOOTBALL WEDNESDAY LEAGUE. (1933, October 5). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 13. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11698644

1934
Teams - The Age 28Jun1934 p5
Teams - The Age 5Jul1934 p5
Premiers - THE CENTENARY PREMIERSHIP. (1934, October 10). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 17. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10966177

1935 - Disbandment
Teams - WEDNESDAY LEAGUE. (1935, April 26). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956), p. 13. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12232817