National Premier Leagues Victoria
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| Country | Australia |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1908 |
| First season | 1909 |
| Number of teams | 14 |
| Level on pyramid | 2 |
| Relegation to | NPL 2 |
| Domestic cup(s) |
FFA Cup Dockerty Cup |
| Current champions |
South Melbourne FC (2016) |
| Current premiers | Bentleigh Greens SC |
| Most championships | South Melbourne (10 titles) |
| TV partners |
VPL TV (internet) C31 Aurora |
| Website | NPL Victoria |
 2017 Football Federation Victoria season
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The National Premier Leagues Victoria is an Australian professional association football league comprising teams from Victoria. As a subdivision of the National Premier Leagues, the league sits at Level 1 on the Victorian league system (Level 2 of the overall Australian league system). The competition is administered by Football Federation Victoria, the governing body of the sport in the state. In 2014 the league was rebranded from the Victorian Premier League to reflect the league joining the National Premier Leagues.
The league commenced in 1909 with Carlton United being the first champions. It has run continuously except for a three season postponement from 1916 to 1918 owing to World War I. After 1945 the league, like fellow state competitions around the country, received a massive boost in numbers and quality with the post-war influx of European migrants, whose dominance was established so effectively that no club which had won the title before 1952, Juventus' first title, has won one since.
Juventus would go on to dominate the league in the 1950s, winning six titles, including five in a row from 1952 to 1956. In 1958, after the Victorian Amateur Soccer Federation was formed, the league became known as the Victorian State League. From 1962 until 1976 the league was largely dominated by South Melbourne Hellas and Footscray JUST, which won 11 titles between them.
With creation of the National Soccer League (NSL) in 1977, the league gradually lost most of its stronger clubs, a trend that reached its peak between 1984 and 1986, when the NSL used a split conference system. After 1987, however, the league slowly started regaining clubs, firstly those discarded when the conference system experiment was abandoned and later when clubs became permanently relegated by the NSL to their respective state leagues. The dominant side during the years from 1977 to 2004 was Green Gully, who won six titles during this period, despite also missing the years 1984-1986 from being in the NSL.
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