Query What made St Kilda so bad in the early VFL days?

[CrazyJoeFevola]

Yeah I heard someone mentioned it and was surprised as I'd not heard of it. Maybe I misheard/they were mistaken.

There was a lot of hyperbole in the press about the financial viability of the club after the cap saga, probably that. Financial viability has never and will never be an issue at Carlton. As for the onfield....

 

[PerthBoy86]

There was a lot of hyperbole in the press about the financial viability of the club after the cap saga, probably that. Financial viability has never and will never be an issue at Carlton. As for the onfield....

Yeah might've been that. Hard to imagine one of the big clubs folding now.

 

[emuboy]

I think so, yeah. The move to Moorabbin really was a defining point for the Saints, more so than the premiership, it gave them a proper home and geographic catchment, which put them at an advantage over South and Fitzroy in terms of the clubs that have been lost.

South never had a geographic supporter catchment, Fitzroy never had a home.

St Kilda’s zoning is what rooted them onfield, as “the club of the south” they didn’t have access to the area down to the peninsula. For decades, champion after champion came out of that area... and went to Hawthorn.

St Kilda had Ballarat as its country zone during its dark days from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s. Much was made of the Richmond, North Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton country zones assisting these clubs win all premierships from 1967-1989, but given the large population of the Ballarat region and its relative closeness to Melbourne, this should have been very fruitful for the Saints. It is similar for the Bulldogs who had Gippsland as their zone, but apart from a bad couple of years from 1980-1982 the Dogs were more than competitive if not finalists, unlike St. Kilda which were easybeats for most of this time. Still, with such large population areas in their country recruiting zones, it is hard to explain why the Saints and Bulldogs didn't do better.

 

[Todman]

St Kilda had Ballarat as its country zone during its dark days from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s. Much was made of the Richmond, North Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton country zones assisting these clubs win all premierships from 1967-1989, but given the large population of the Ballarat region and its relative closeness to Melbourne, this should have been very fruitful for the Saints. It is similar for the Bulldogs who had Gippsland as their zone, but apart from a bad couple of years from 1980-1982 the Dogs were more than competitive if not finalists, unlike St. Kilda which were easybeats for most of this time. Still, with such large population areas in their country recruiting zones, it is hard to explain why the Saints and Bulldogs didn't do better.

Comes down to timing, a group of recruits turn into pure gold and then a dry spell for years.

 

[Procrastinator35]

St Kilda’s zoning is what rooted them onfield, as “the club of the south” they didn’t have access to the area down to the peninsula. For decades, champion after champion came out of that area... and went to Hawthorn.

What a load of codswallop....The Saints & Hawks shared the peninsula for a while during the 60's & 70's, with the Saints having the Lions share of it....The Hawks had the Frankston to Chelsea corridor & also shared part of Gippsland with Footscray, who had it's Eastern half From Traralgon to the sea....We had the Pakenham/Berwick to Morwell half.....The Dogs also had South Gippy.

Next time, do some research before exposing your anti-Hawk bias based upon faulty assumptions.

 

[blueycarlton]

Interestingly St.Kilda's membership 1925, 1926, 1929, 1930 was larger than Collingwoods.
Despite these being the Wood's glory years, they trailed far behind Carlton, Essendon and other clubs.
Geelong were a stand out, but they rapidily dropped off from 1926.
This table is from Trove; The Age April 24 (p13) 1931

 

[killer]

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/66382290

talks of a a premiers photo from 1877
Does it still exist ?

 

[blueycarlton]

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/66382290

talks of a a premiers photo from 1877
Does it still exist ?

St.Kilda were not VFA premiers in 1877 Carlton were, StKilda finished last.
Perhaps it is of one the St.Kilda area's junior teams?

 

[killer]

St.Kilda were not VFA premiers in 1877 Carlton were, StKilda finished last.
Perhaps it is of one the St.Kilda area's junior teams?

yes perhaps
by The manner they were passing around
they thought it was significant

 

[Michael Riley]

Looking at the ladders from 1888-1896, St Kilda were one of the least successful teams, only Richmond fared worse, but even Richmond had appeared higher on the ladder in 5 of the 8 seasons listed.

Earlier writers in this thread have noted St Kilda were one of the original 6 breakaway teams and the reason for their inclusion was political and not just logistical. I would echo that and argue that the main arguments against Port and North were the level of 'roughness'. This language in Victorian times echoed the issue of class. Remember, this is a time when 'gentlemen' looked down on paid professionals in cricket and in the newly formed Olympic Games.

Clearly St Kilda were the right kind of people, and logistics came second.

To help illustrate this. I ask you to consider why the VFL brought in University in 1908, only a few years later. University had no established ground and it's base of players was devastated by the introduction of professionalism soon after their inclusion. At the same time North Melbourne or Prahran (with money from Toorak) would have been much more obvious choices based purely on football and logistics.

St Kilda were bad because their inclusion was for non-football reasons.

 

[Michael Riley]

Some extracts from the period focus on StKilda's Conduct rather than on their skill

"St. Kilda have maintained their reputation for playing the game upon its merits as a pastime. They never make a business of it. They have the knack of rising to a big occasion, and they invariably afford gratifying and sportsmanlike: entertainment. They have risen four steps higher than last year. They are players who are an ornament to the game. No question can be raised as to their right to the title of amateurs"
The Past Season - The Australiasian 3-Oct-1896 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page11448176

"An eighth club being required [for the new competition], the choice unanimously fell upon St. Kilda. If it be a merit to couple a good game of football with manly and decent conduct, both on the field and off it, St. Kilda had every right to consideration, and its inclusion will give very general satisfaction." - The Argus 3-Oct-1896 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9161096


The Local Port Melbourne paper did not mention roughness of play, but rather that they would not accept their place.

"Why Ports were not admitted to the charmed circle was simply because of their close proximity to South Melbourne[?].
They should have been in the first six clubs of the new Association for the following reasons :— They have daring the past four seasons been either 6th or 7th on the list ; they have one of the beat, if not the best, football grounds in the colony ; they have produced some of the finest footballers Victoria has seen, and their membership roll is as large as that of Essendon, and twice that of St. Kilda or Carlton. No, because they did not truckle and cringe to the bigger clubs or allow their players to leave them without a struggle, they are left out in the cold"
Port Melbourne Standard 10-Oct-1896 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165318320

 

[killer]

did they have any notable players in the 1890s?

 

[Michael Riley]

did they have any notable players in the 1890s?

I have not done much research on that period.

'Interesting players'
'Curly' Jones https://australianfootball.com/articles/view/st+kilda+-+the+mystery+side/1192
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Collins_(footballer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Matthews_(footballer)

Not so sure on the 'notable'...maybe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hogan or W. 'Billy' Lockett
There are not many other StKilda players at https://australianfootball.com/leagues/notable_players/VFA/193


Here is a rough list of the players who played 3+ seasons 1891-1897

 

[killer]

I was thinking they might of recruited players from the military
barracks

 

[Michael Riley]

I was thinking they might of recruited players from the military
barracks

Best I can do on short notice from 'Origins of Australian Football Victoria’s Early History. Volume 4'

Country Matthews, Bill Ball., Donovan, Bendigo Fanning, J. Hamilton Egan, Tatura Ibbotson, Warrn’l Matthews, Bill Nth. Tas/St K/Ball. Other Senior Clubs Blake, Mick Carl/CGS Aylwin, Harry Carl/Sth. St K Donahoo, H. ‘Poole’ Carl/WC Saxon, B. Foots 12/5, Williamson, G. Foots/Will 4/6, Clausen, T. Geel/ GGS Nuttall, C. Hoth/Rich. Ahern, Bill Melb/Fitz/MGS Abrahams, M. NM Robertson, R. NM Sykes, G. NM, Burke, E. PM Newton, Bill Rich. McPetrie, H. Rich.C Collins, Dan Rich/ Queenscliff Deane, T. Rich/Rich. Jun. Kilmartin, J. Rich/St K Fitzpatrick, J. ‘Hipton’ SM/PM/Ess. Wauchope, Will. Schools/Colleges Brown, Cumloden School Brown, Cumloden School Beggs, Billy Cumloden School Molesworth, John Cumloden School/MGS Ramsden, G. Kew High School Goldstein, O. Melbourne Grammar School Woodhouse, W. Melbourne Grammar School Damman, P. Melbourne Grammar School Duigan, Harry ‘Simpson’ Queen’s College Stewart, Ernie 'Bob' Queen’s College/SC Stewart, Ernie 'Bob' Queen’s College/SC Blake, George St Kilda College Hogan, Joe Wesley College Juniors Armstrong, Albion United 13/6 Spilker, G. Brighton Juniors/Sth St K/Sand. Lowe, W. 'Arch' 'Lewis'? Carlisle Imperial, St Kilda Hesse, L. Carlisle Imperial, St Kilda O’Grady, Joe Carlisle Imperial, St Kilda Hunter, G. Carlisle Imperial, St Kilda/St K Esp. James, P. Camberw. Zercho, C. Camberw/Ess. Illingworth, Capel United, Brunswick Sarsfield, P. Capel United, Brunswick, Rankin, R. EJ, Departure 1895: Carl 11/5 Fitchett, A. EJ/WC Linehan, J. GGS, Departure 1894: NeG Whitehead, W. Haw. Wallace, Jun. Vance, Kew Juniors Blanc, L. Marylebone Budden, Marylebone Archer, A. Marylebone Phillips, Syd Marylebone Cox, Charlie Marylebone Hobbs, Marylebone Jennings, Jack Marylebone Sergeant, F. Marylebone Bray, F. Marylebone/NM/Rich. Pearce, P. Marylebone/WC Young, A. Middle Brighton Juniors Gregory, C. Mt. E to SY 8/6 Evans, Napier Imperial (South Melbourne Junior) Shaw, Billy Parkhill Dunne, Ernie PrJ Bonnighton, Queenscliff Artillery Nuttall, M.C. Qu’ff, Departure 1893: Carl during season, Departure 1894: Geel. McCoy, South Beach Hants, St K baseball team Stewart, Fred St. Lawrence McNamara, Tom St. Marys Juniors (North Melbourne) Rodgers, Sth St K Lang, Sth St K Barker, Sth St K Rice, Sth St K Flint, Sth. St K Dunne, Danny Sth. St K Marshall, H. South Yarra Juniors Dickenson, H. South Yarra Juniors Abrahams, M. South Yarra Juniors/St K/NM McLeod, George South Yarra Rovers/Melb. Campbell, Univ. Molesworth, H. Univ. Archer, A. WA/St K Hylard, West Beach Jones, Ernest L. Windsor Vautier, Windsor Clarke, Windsor Waller, L. Windsor Hall, Ted Windsor/Marlton Minogue, J. Yarrav., Departure 1894: PM

 

[killer]

10 from Marylebone



https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/193410298?searchTerm=Marylebone football melbourne&searchLimits=l-decade=189

 

[mianfei]

I've pondered this. Not just the early years but most of their history. 121 years and 1 premiership by a single point! Unbelievable to think a single point makes the difference between no premierships ever! And six GF losses, including 09 and 10, one very close and one drawn. Surely if any club is cursed it's them.

A (probably the) key reason for St. Kilda’s lack of success throughout its history – like that of Hawthorn during its abysmal for 29 seasons in the VFL when the brown and golds’ total record was 111—408—3 in the seniors and 237—898—12 (success rate of 21.19 percent) in all three grades – was and to a large extent still is lack of wealthy supporters akin to the Liberal Party (Robert Menzies) with Carlton, John Wren with Collingwood, or various other businessmen with Richmond and later Essendon.

There were two reasons why St. Kilda could never attract the wealthy supporters it required to be a competitive club. The first being the remoteness of the club from the big historical industrial areas of inner Melbourne – a problem which the move to Moorabbin merely exacerbated. The second is that the suburbs east and south of the Yarra were genteel, highly conservative, and their people more often than not believed firmly in rigidly amateur sport whereby players had to be independently wealthy and pay their own expenses for playing. Under such conditions, it was impossible for local businessmen to be willing to donate the necessary money for St. Kilda (or Hawthorn) to be financially competitive with Carlton, Collingwood or Richmond.

Officially the VFL was an amateur competition up to 1910; however, the wealthier clubs already engaged in “under-the-table” payments to players in the 1900s, and some have said that the clubs who formed the VFL were interested in a longer-term move towards professionalism. It’s paradoxical that the VFL’s rejection of Port Melbourne due to the violence of its wharfie-influenced supporters was entirely illogical because the shipping industry would have given Port much greater hope of gaining the necessary rich supporters than St. Kilda ever had – and I do not believe VFL officials could have been wholly ignorant of this. Moreover, even if the VFL was not fully professional until the 1990s, its players were essentially never the type of independently wealthy professionals or businessmen whom these genteel suburbs believed should form sporting teams.

From what I’ve read they actually weren’t all that well established. They’d only been in the VFA since 1886, prior to that they were on and off depending on when they could field a team.

Small club, small area to draw players from. All clubs from that area have struggled over the years in comparison to the big VFL clubs. St Kilda, Port and South all have/had small areas, just look at a map of Melbourne to see that. They’re bordered by the CBD, water, and bigger eastern suburbs clubs. St Kilda’s relocation to Moorabbin was a crucial move that saw them kick on.

It’s interesting to note that right up their relocation to Sydney, South Melbourne actually possessed the southwestern areas in the (then) City of Williamstown, City of Altona and Shire of Werribee, whilst St. Kilda’s one period of success in the 1960s was due to their development of football talent in the southeastern bayside suburbs and the Mornington Peninsula League (which with the malapportioned country zoning system the Saints lost to former fellow cellar-dweller Hawthorn). So one cannot say either club had a small area, or that Port would have suffered therefrom had it entered the original VFL.

South, however, did suffer severely from:

1. the late suburbanisation of those southwestern areas it had held ever since metropolitan zoning began in 1915
2. the fact that a large proportion of these areas and its core supporter base near Albert Park became in the 1960s largely populated by southern and eastern Europeans with negligible interest in Australian Rules

With St. Kilda, those bayside suburbs were not developed until it moved to Moorabbin, and were actually unzoned when the Saints did begin to draw upon them for player talent. In fact, even those outside the Mornington Peninsula League were, when metropolitan zoning was expanded in 1968, not zoned to the Saints, but to Melbourne. This, of course, hinded an expansion that was natural even before the Saints moved to Moorabbin.

South never had a geographic supporter catchment, Fitzroy never had a home.

That is actually wrong. The problem was that South and Fitzroy (alongside Footscray and North Melbourne) were seeing their catchments lose their former Anglo-Irish supporter bases and being repopulated with Southern and Eastern Europeans – Italians, Maltese, Greeks, Albanians, Macedonians, Serbs and Croats – with no affity to or even curiosity about Australian Rules football. Unlike the rich “big five” inner-city clubs of Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon, South, Fitzroy, Footscray and North had not expanded their supporter bases beyond the local area or to wealthy business patrons.

[As a sidelight, I often imagine what the VFL’s history would have been if South had gained the patronage from GM/H (based in its zone in Fisherman’s Bend) that Geelong did from Ford.]

By the late 1960s, these four “soccer belt” clubs were the problem children of the VFL, and efforts to expand their supporter bases had zero success with South and Fitzroy and limited success with Footscray and North (although of course North did gain major on-field success due to strong recruiting zones and excellent administration).

 

[PerthBoy86]

It's funny you say that since yeah, St. Kilda, Brighton etc are all wealthy suburbs. Essendon is actually further from the CBD than St. Kilda, and Hawthorn and Footscray the same (that 5-7km distance away).

 

[mianfei]

It's funny you say that since yeah, St. Kilda, Brighton etc are all wealthy suburbs. Essendon is actually further from the CBD than St. Kilda, and Hawthorn and Footscray the same (that 5-7km distance away).

Whilst it is true that St. Kilda and especially areas further out were wealthier than the suburbs which gave rise to successful clubs, the fact that:

1. the “amateur ideal” was overwhelmingly dominant in these wealthy suburbs until the 1970s, and
2. that their wealth was more broadly distributed than incomes in the industrial suburbs

meant that – as I have consistently emphasised for many years – St. Kilda gained essentially zero patronage from wealthy businessmen and thus no hope of becoming a powerful club.

This inability to gain requisite patronage also applied to the local VFA clubs, Prahran and Brighton. Both clubs were the poorest or amongst the poorest in that league for most of their history, and spent long periods with records as bad as St. Kilda suffered in its early years or during the 1940s and first half of the 1950s.

 

[killer]

Off Topic

Whos Mr Shew? (Cooper's History of St kilda)

 

[35Daicos]

Off Topic

Whos Mr Shew? (Cooper's History of St kilda)

View attachment 704025

Edward Shew was elected Treasurer at the meeting when St Kilda Football Club was formed: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245365844

He was an accountant/manager of the Bank of Australasia.

He died in 1920: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203070060


This is a more detailed obituary: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/213369347

I'm not sure for how long he was connected to the St Kilda club (or held the position of Treasurer): https://australianfootball.com/clubs/honour_board/st.+kilda/12
He was still the club treasurer in 1875, but seemingly gone by 1876: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/202136244

Edit: He may have also been a player. According to the book The Clubs, there was a Shew named when "The first-ever Saints team was announced in the Age of 31 May 1873." He was born in 1849 so would have been around 24 at the time.

FOOTBALL. - The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954) - 31 May 1873

trove.nla.gov.au

 

[killer]

Electorial roll 1873 St Kilda

1873

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