By Roy Hay
Article first appeared in Goal! Weekly on Monday 19th April 2010.
Slavia was one of the great names of football in the 1960s becoming the national club champion in 1963 and fielding some of the best players of that generation. The Slavia club was formed in 1950 by Czech migrants to Australia and played its first competitive league game in the Fourth Division of the Victorian Amateur Soccer Federation League on 7 April 1951 against Heidelberg, another newcomer. Slavia came out on top by four goals to one.
In that first season the club won 8 games and lost 6, finishing third behind Polonia and Ulsterville. Maccabi ended its interest in the Dockerty Cup in the second round.
Slavia shared a ground at Yarra Park with White Eagles.
Two years later Slavia won the fourth division, and in 1954 it finished on top of division three on goal difference from Flinders Naval Depot and Hellenic in one of the closest finishes on record. All three teams had 31 points from 18 games, 13 clear of Sandringham in fourth spot. In 1955 Slavia completed a hat-trick of championships and thus promotion to the first division. This time it was six points clear of Prahran, the runner-up. The club president was M Roznetinsky and the secretary H Fuksa. J Roessler was the coach.
Now the club had moved to a new ground at Murphy Reserve in Port Melbourne. Slavia began its first season in Division One with a one-all draw against JUST on 31 March 1956. Among the players who turned out for Slavia that year were Ray Barotajs, A Terek, Kodak, Roznetinski, Bob Zablocki, Kotatko, Billy Bell, Joe Lachman, Ted Bialek, Kostromin, Issy Ressler, Steiner, Brenner, John Dickson, George Rakic, Mario Busidoni, Vince Varcirca, Karl Engelbogen, Joe Gottesman, Colin Brady, Kriz and Volny. Barotajs was capped by Victoria against New South Wales that year at only 19 years old and was an outstanding keeper. Slavia came third in the league only a couple of points adrift of Juventus and Hakoah.
It was third again in 1957, but dropped to seventh in 1958, the first year of the Victorian State League. Slavia bumped along in mid-table in the league in the first half of the 1960s. In 1966 however it had a brilliant year pushing South Melbourne Hellas to within a couple of points at the head of the ladder. The team that year included John Young, Ray Barotajs, Nigel Shepherd, David High, Tommy Randles, Billy Cook, John Goodwin, David Short, Peter Laraman, Sandy Jones, Bill Savage, Charlie McCorquodale, Harper, Hall, Grant McGregor, Peter Lowen. So the playing staff was no longer Czech. But that league success was short-lived and in 1970 Slavia was relegated to the Metropolitan League.
The peripatetic club had now moved to Essendon and appeared under the unwieldy title of Essendon Sunshine Heights Slavia. If the league performances were up and down, it was as a cup side that Slavia made its mark in the 1960s. It won the Dockerty Cup in 1964, 1965 and 1967 and was runner-up in 1966. In 1963 it took out the Australia Cup coming from fourth in the First Division and in 1967 it won the Ampol Cup and the reserves trophy, the Armstrong Cup.
Hammy McMeechan helped Slavia win its first Dockerty Cup in 1964 but then was bought by Croatia. His team-mates that season included Ray Barotajs, Fred Vine, Nigel Shepherd, A Zanatta, John Auchie, Billy Cook, John Sanchez, Pat McDonagh, David Meechan, Tommy Harper and Charlie McCorquodale. John Hammerling coached the team. It was in 1964 that Slavia took on and beat the might of the VFL in a charity soccer match. Jack Dyer had described soccer as a game for big girls, but the Slavia boys won 8-0.
In 1972, Slavia won Metropolitan Division One and so resumed its place in the State League which it held through the rest of the decade. In 1974 the squad included Lou Ivanoff, Jim Campbell, Jim Tansey, Frank Campbell, Steve McCombe, John Howie, Tony Harris, Jim Train, Ian Humble, Bobby Kent, George Train. John Sanchez, who played in the 1960s and won the Argus medal, was now coaching Slavia.
Jim Tansey took the Argus medal in 1976, the second Slavia player to do so. But relegation in 1980 was followed by a further drops in 1982 and last place fi nishes in the next two years at which point the club effectively folded, though Laverton Park, which now plays in Division One of the Provisional League, claims a linkage to the defunct Slavia.
Honours
Australian Cup Winners – 1963
Victorian Runners-Up – 1966, 1977
Victorian Division 1 Champions – 1955, 1972
Victorian Division 2 Champions – 1954
Victorian Division 3 Champions – 1953
Dockerty Cup Winners – 1964, 1965, 1967
Dockerty Cup Runners-Up – 1966
Ampol Cup Winners – 1967
Slavia’s brief history
1951 Fourth Division Position 3rd
1952 Fourth Division - 5th
1953 Fourth Division - 1st
1954 Third Division - 1st
1955 Second Division - 1st
1956 First Division - 3rd
1957 First Division - 3rd
1958 State League - 7th
1959 State League - 5th
1960 State League - 6th
1961 State League - 6th
1962 State League - 7th
1963 State League - 4th
1964 State League - 5th
1965 State League - 4th
1966 State League - 2nd
1967 State League - 7th
1968 State League - 8th
1969 State League - 10th
1970 State League - 12th
1971 Metro Div 1 - 3rd
1972 Metro Div 1 - 1st
1973 State League - 9th
1974 State League - 5th
1975 State League - 8th
1976 State League - 8th
1977 State League - 2nd
1978 State League - 5th
1979 State League - 11th
1980 State League - 12th
1981 Metro Div 1 - 11th
1982 Metro Div 1 - 14th
1983 Metro Div 2 - 14th
1984 Metro Div 2 - 14th
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