1896 Season Review
Division One
The honour of being West Australia’s first league champions went to Fremantle Wanderers. And it was merely honour that the four teams in competition were playing for as a trophy did not materialise until the following season.
The first season came together very quickly. Across the opening weeks of May 1896, a series of letters appeared in ‘the West Australian’ newspaper calling for the formation of association football clubs in Perth. A meeting was duly called and on the evening of Wednesday 13th May the Western Australian British Football Association was born.
At a second meeting seven days later it was confirmed three teams from Perth and one from Fremantle would contest the season. Such was the speed of progress that two teams – Perth BAFC and Crusaders – had not chosen kit colours by the time the opening round of fixtures were played at mid-afternoon on Saturday 30th May.
Towton’s Paddock in East Perth (opposite modern day Perth Oval) was the venue for the first official league game. On what was probably an uneven, grassy surface with rudimentary goals, Perth got the better of the Service 2-0 with 16-year old Reginald Burt scoring both goals.
A few blocks away at Weld Square, Fremantle set their sail by thrashing Crusaders 7-0. It heralded the start of a five-game winning run by the port side in which they piled on 27 goals while conceding just 6. It took until round six for Fremantle to be halted when humbled 5-1 by the Service at Russell Square.
By that stage the Service – who lost three of their first four games – were in the midst of their own five-game winning run that propelled them up to second on the league standings. And although their hopes of catching leaders Fremantle were dented by a 2-0 loss to Perth in the third to last round of the season, they weren’t about to give up the chase.
| Division One | Pl | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fremantle Wanderers | 12 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 47 | 21 | 17 |
| Civil Service | 12 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 31 | 21 | 16 |
| Perth BAFC | 12 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 36 | 23 | 14 |
| Crusaders | 12 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 57 | 1 |
Donaldson scored both in a 2-0 defeat of Crusaders then, in the seasons’ penultimate round, he snared the opener as the Service came from behind to down Fremantle 3-1. That result put Fremantle and the Service on level points, with the former holding a superior goal difference and a game in hand.
A bumper crowd of close to 500 turned out at the at the Old Recreation Ground (aka Wellington Square) on Saturday 29th August when Fremantle scored late to snatch a 1-1 draw with Perth in a catch-up game. The point gained moved Fremantle into outright first place, with the Service second, Perth third and Crusaders in last spot.
It had been a tough season for Crusaders, who for much of the winter had struggled to field a full team. So great was their plight that just six players arrived for the late June meeting with the Service, the remaining five players having missed the train from Perth to the Half-Way House ground in Cottesloe.
