Brisbane Premier League

Brisbane Premier League (BPL)

Country	Australia
Founded	1983
Number of teams	12
Levels on pyramid	2
Relegation to	Capital 1 League
Domestic cup(s)	Canale Cup
Current premiers	Lions FC
Website	www.FootballBrisbane.com.au

The Brisbane Premier League (BPL) (known as the Trophy Superstore Brisbane Premier League in 2013) is the first tier of senior soccer in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, administered by Football Brisbane (FB). Twelve teams play out a twenty-two match regular season with the top four teams qualifying for the finals series and the bottom two teams being relegated to Capital League 1. It sits nationally bellow the A-League.

For the 2013 season, a major restructuring of the Brisbane football pyramid took place with promotion and relegation to and from Capital League 1 not being in place for that season. Promotion and relegation between the Brisbane Premier League and Capital League 1 will commence from the end of the 2014 season.

Current clubs

The teams for Season 2013 are shown in the table below.

Notable Players

In 2012, several former Hyundai A-League and NSL players will play and coach throughout the league. Former Brisbane Roar, Wellington Phoenix and Swindon Town striker Royce Brownlie is a player/coach at North Star. Former Northern Spirit and Central Coast Mariners forward Russell Woodruffe completed a switch from Redlands United to Eastern Suburbs in 2012.

Eastern Suburbs are currently coached by Alan Hunter, who won the Joe Marston Medal in 1997 for player of the match in the Brisbane Strikers National Soccer League Grand Final winning team.

Rochedale Rovers have several individual talents in their side, including former Brisbane Roar striker Tim Smits. The same can be said of Wolves FC who have had several foreign players come into the club in recent years. In 2012, they signed Chris Knowles from Bashley in England. Knowles is most famous for being fouled after 3 seconds by Chippenham Town striker David Pratt, resulting in potentially the fastest red card in footballing history.

Meanwhile Peninsula Power also signed from the UK, capturing Lewis Bonar from Scottish side Stirling Albion. Elsewhere Redlands United signed George Barbarouses (brother of Kosta) from New Zealand. A handful of players from Fox8 reality show Football Superstar also currently ply their trade in the division, including Jared Austin, Chris Roulston and Zachary Tung (Brisbane City) and Matthew Heath (North Star).

Lions FC have signed Matthew Osman from A-League side Gold Coast United.

Media

The league and its lower divisions are covered by several local newspapers throughout the city, suburbs and surrounding areas including Ipswich and Toowoomba. Highlights of matches, often at least 2 matches per round, in the league are put together by FB Media (the Media arm of Football Brisbane). Live scores and updates from all Brisbane Premier League matches can be found on The Washing Line Facebook page. The Washing Line website also publishes reports, previews and newspaper articles from around the city. From 2012, the newly founded 'FB Media' has been producing weekly podcasts which can be downloaded from The Washing Line website featuring prominent guests including James Meyer, Miron Bleiberg, Matt Mundy and a wide variety of coaches and players from the Brisbane Premier League. Some games are covered by online show Pauly TV.

Media Milestones

On Sunday 23 May 2010, a match between Brisbane Wolves and Pine Rivers United became the first BPL match to be streamed live on the internet. Wolves won 5–2.

On Saturday 11 June 2011, a match between Redlands United and Olympic FC featured on The Danny Baker Show in the UK, on BBC Radio 5 Live. Olympic won 3–2.

At the end of the 2011 season following the success of Wolves FC, 18 goal centreback Patrick Hopkins was scouted via FBTV match highlights for Ljungskile SK in Sweden. In need of a forward, the league's top scorer Steffen Vroom soon followed.

2012 season

On Saturday 1 September, Redlands United defeated Eastern Suburbs 3-1 at Cleveland Showgrounds, in the process finishing top of the table by one point from Wolves FC and winning the Premiership for the first time in their 94 year history. The Devils also captured the Golden Boot with Graham Fyfe scoring more goals than anyone else in the league.

The remaining top six teams, Peninsula Power, Rochedale Rovers, Lions FC and Eastern Suburbs, were also confirmed and these teams will take part in the post-season series culminating in the Grand Final on 23 September 2012.

The season started on Friday 17 February. In the first kick off at Cleveland, Redlands United came from 3-1 down to defeat Peninsula Power 4-3. Elsewhere, Rochedale Rovers drew 2-2 with Eastern Suburbs, and the newly renamed Lions FC were hammered 6-1 in their first game back in the Veto League by former NSL rivals Brisbane City in front of almost 1000 fans at Spencer Park. City followed up this result with another amazing 6-0 win at University of Queensland, but came unstuck the following weekend with a 3-0 defeat against 2011 Premiers Wolves FC. Another crowd of around 1000 spectators turned out to see Eastern Suburbs defeat Capalaba 3-1, in a game that doubled up as the 'Salvation Saturday Shield' celebrating the home club's recovery from the 2011 Brisbane floods. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk was on hand to officially open Easts' new clubhouse.

2011 season

The 14 clubs and their locations within Brisbane

The season began 2 weeks later than usual after the 2011 Brisbane floods. Many Premier League teams found their home grounds underwater, including Taringa Rovers, University of Queensland, Olympic FC and Eastern Suburbs. A new website was released for the 2011 season, named The Washing Line. The season finally got underway on Friday 4 March, with Peninsula Power drawing 1–1 at home to newcomers North Pine.

Wolves FC (renamed from Brisbane Wolves in 2011) have been the stand out team of the 2011 season, winning 7–3 over Olympic, 5–0 over Brisbane City, 6–1 over Redlands United and an unbelievable 11–1 over Taringa Rovers within their first 8 games of the season. 2010 champions Rochedale Rovers struggled to keep pace with Wolves but remained in the hunt, along with Olympic and much to some peoples surprise, Eastern Suburbs. North Pine also surprised with some solid performances, however Pine Hills were less impressive, without a win and bottom of the league in May. Peninsula Power also started the season slowly, managing their first win against the University of Queensland on 14 May. They backed that win up with a 7–1 battering over Pine Hills to kick start their season.

Wolves trashed Mount Gravatt 9–1 on 21 May, to increase their season goal tally to 50 – after only 10 games. They followed this up with a 3–0 away victory at unbeaten Rochedale Rovers, to go 9 points clear at the top heading into June. On 25 June, Capalaba became the first team to take any points off Wolves all season with a 3–2 victory. The following week, Souths United lost 8–1 to Wolves, leaving them currently locked in a relegation battle with Mount Gravatt. The gap closed to only one point after Mt Gravatt claimed a 2–1 victory against 12th placed Souths on 23 July.

On Tuesday 16 August, Wolves FC secured the Veto Brisbane Premier League title with a 5–2 away win at relegated Pine Hills. Meanwhile stunning wins for North Pine over Rochedale Rovers and Olympic FC lifted the promoted side into 5th position with only 3 weeks remaining, and a 4–1 final day victory over Brisbane City was enough to see them into the finals series. A 3–0 win for Souths United against Eastern Suburbs lifted them 4 points clear of Mount Gravatt with only two matches to play. Mount Gravatt were then relegated following a 2–5 defeat to Wolves. Remarkably, Wolves finishes the regular season having scored 102 goals.

Finals Series

In a repeat of the 2010 Qualifying Final, Wolves faced Rochedale Rovers however this time the match was played at Carmichael Park. Two late 1st half goals from Americans Patrick Hopkins and Steffen Vroom took Wolves into a 2–0 lead that proved to be enough as they held out for a 2–1 victory. Elsewhere, Peninsula Power knocked out Eastern Suburbs with a 2–1 home win, while Olympic FC defeated North Pine 3–1. Olympic would go on to defeat Peninsula in Extra Time before facing Rochedale for a place in the 2011 Grand Final. But as Rochedale had done to Capalaba the previous year, they defeated their opposition 3–0 to set up a rematch with Wolves FC. The Grand Final was at Perry Park on Sunday 25 September, but with Wolves leading 1-0 at Half Time, a floodlight failure forced an abandonment, and Rochedale would run out winners in the rematch at Luxury Paints Stadium.

2010 season

Rochedale Rovers were Premiers in the 2010 regular season, after a fantastic start to the season that saw them go 21 games undefeated. Beenleigh and Pine Rivers United were relegated.

Finals Series

Rochedale Rovers came into the finals as favourites despite a poor run of form through the final few rounds. Unfortunately for Rovers their slump continued, going down 1–3 to Brisbane Wolves in the Qualifying Final. In the other games, Olympic FC defeated Eastern Suburbs while Capalaba came back from 2 goals down to force a penalty shoot out with 2009 Premiers Peninsula Power, and went on to win the game.

This set up another home finals match for Capalaba, who despite a taxing schedule managed to defeat Olympic after another 120 minutes of football. They then travelled to Rochedale to try to join Wolves in the grand final, but lost 3–0 after a string of first half goals. Rochedale, who had lost the Canale Cup final to Capalaba a week before their preliminary final clash, faced Wolves in a rematch of the QF at Perry Park. The grand final was scoreless at half time, but Wolves took the lead in the 2nd and held their nerve despite going down to 9 men to claim back to back finals series victories. Rochedale also had a man sent off in a thrilling final.

See also

• History of association football in Brisbane, Queensland
• Current Brisbane Premier League Table