The Dockerty Cup is an annual

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

knock-out competition open to all Victorian clubs across the Victorian football league system. The tournament is named after the former president of

Football Federation Victoria Football Victoria is the state governing body for soccer in Victoria, Australia. It is affiliated with Football Australia, the sport's national governing body. History Football Victoria began operation in 1884 under the name Anglo Australia ...

Harry Dockerty. Since 2014 the Cup is also a qualifying competition for the FFA Cup, now known as the Australia Cup, where the four finalists enter the competition proper at the round of 32. The Dockerty cup winner also qualifies to the next season's FV Community Shield, in a one-off match against the current

NPL Victoria The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer lea ...

champion.

History

The competition was established in 1909 and held every season with the exception of 3 years during World War I (1916, 1917, 1918). Following the 1996 season, the Dockerty Cup was in recess before returning in 2004 as the ''"Crazy John's Cup"'', it would be run for three seasons before re-entering recess following the 2006 season. A Victorian cup competition was reintroduced in 2011 with a new trophy and known as the ''"Mirabella Cup"'' due to naming rights sponsorship. That arrangement lasted only one season, with the competition being named the ''"FFV State Knockout Cup"'' in 2012 and 2013. However, in both years, the winner was awarded with the Dockerty Cup trophy. From the 2014 season onwards, it is once again known as the Dockerty Cup.

Format

Eligibility

Participation in the Dockerty Cup is mandatory for the senior men's team from every Victorian club within the National Premier Leagues and the State Leagues, and optional for teams from the Regional Leagues. Because the competition serves as the Preliminary Rounds for the Australia Cup competition, only one team per Club is eligible. This means that the youth sides of Melbourne Victory Youth and Melbourne City Youth and

Western United FC Youth Western United Football Club Youth is the youth system of Western United Football Club based in Truganina, Melbourne, Australia. The youth teams will play in the National Premier Leagues Victoria 2, the second level of soccer in Victoria, A ...

are excluded from the competition, as their parent

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sides separately participate in the competition. Additionally if a Victorian club wins the NPL Championship – as occurred with

Heidelberg United Heidelberg United Alexander Football Club (founded as Alexander the Great-Melbourne Soccer Club) established in 1958 is a football (soccer) club based in the northern Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg West, Victoria, Australia. The team currently ...

in the 2018 Dockerty Cup – they are excluded from the preliminary rounds as they have also qualified for the FFA Cup at the round of 32. Instead they join the Dockerty Cup competition in a special playoff round match held the week prior to the semi-finals.

Competition format

The competition acts a classic single-elimination knock-out tournament, with one team progressing from each tie to the next round. Fixtures for each round are determined by a random draw, with teams entering the tournament on a staggered basis, depending on their respective positions in the league hierarchy. The team drawn first hosts the match, with the final being held at a

neutral venue In team sports, the term home advantage – also called home ground, home field, home-field advantage, home court, home-court advantage, defender's advantage or home-ice advantage – describes the benefit that the home team is said to ga ...

. No replays are currently utilised in the Dockerty Cup, with a drawn match going to 30 minutes of

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

and eventually a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

if necessary.

Qualification for subsequent competitions

Australia Cup

Since 2014, the Dockerty Cup has also served as preliminary competition for the FFA Cup, now known as the Australia Cup, from the first qualifying round to the Seventh Round. In 2022 five teams qualify as Victoria's representatives, at the round of 32. In 2020, the FFA Cup competition was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Australia The COVID-19 pandemic in Australia is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in Australia was identified on 25 Januar ...

FV Community Shield

Since 2014 the Dockerty Cup winners also qualify for the following season's single-match FV Community Shield, the season opener played against the current

champions.

Prize fund

The prize fund for the 2018 Dockerty Cup is detailed below.

Media coverage

In 2019 it was announced that Football Victoria had signed a three-year broadcast arrangement with

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and

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that will see the Dockerty Cup's semi-finals and final broadcast live. Additionally each draw of the Dockerty Cup round's are broadcast live o
Football Victoria's Facebook page
while a number of clubs will provide live score updates during each match either via the clubs official website,

, or

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Records and honours

Dockerty Cup finals (current format since 2014)

: ¹ Heidelberg United qualified as the 2017 NPL Champions and entered the Cup via an additional playoff match.