Welcome to The Pecking Order Championship (TPOC) – a football competition that Australian clubs have been competing in for decades without realizing it!
 
The Pecking Order Championship is an informal way of determining Australia’s best football club, based on the concept of the Unofficial Football World Championships.
 
Here’s how it works: TPOC pitches real Australian football clubs into a continuous series of boxing-style title matches. The winner of a TPOC Title match becomes the new title-holder, and Australian TPO Champion.  In other words, the Champion remains the Champion until they are beaten.
  
TPOC lineage goes back to the first National Soccer League in 1977, when Hakoah were crowned inaugural NSL Champions, but more importantly, became the first TPO Champion.
 
The TPOC title then bounced around the NSL until 23^rd March 1991, when the TPOC holder -  Sydney United - lost their final regular game of the season to St George 3-0.  The reason that game is so important, is because it was St George’s last game in the NSL as they were subsequently relegated, taking the TPOC title with them to the New South Wales State League.  And there it remained, aside from a couple of short stints in the NSW 2^nd Division, until 2017.  It was an FFA Cup Quarter Final on 20^th September 2017 when Blacktown City lost to Western Sydney Wanderers in a penalty shootout, that the TPOC Title finally found its way back to the top tier of football in Australia.  And there it remains…for now.
 
In that time since 1977, over 1,100 TPOC Title matches have been played (408 in the NSL, 680 in NSW competitions, and the remaining in the A-League and FFA Cup), and the title has been passed around 47 different clubs.  It has, at some point, been held by most clubs to have played in the NSL up to 1991, many NSW State League clubs, and an increasing number of A-League clubs. The notable absence from the pre-1992 NSL era is Footscray JUST, who played in 23 TPOC Title matches from 1978 to 1989 without a single win. 
 
TPOC is all about having a bit of fun, but there are a few simple rules used to determine who gets to be The Pecking Order Champions:

1. A TPOC Title match is any official competitive game involving the current TPOC title-holder.  According to those in charge (us!) this does not include pre-season or friendly games.
   
2. The outcome of a game is decided by its ultimate outcome, including extra time and penalties.
   

 
The Pecking Order Championship is also operated as an all-time ranking system (not to be confused with TPO Rankings).  Clubs are awarded one ranking point for every title match victory (either as holder or challenger). No points are awarded for draws. 

As of the start of 2018, Blacktown City from NSW sits well on top of TPOC rankings table with 114 points, with the closest A-League club (Sydney FC) in 22^nd spot on the ladder with 12 points.
 
There will only ever be a single TPO Champion at any point in time, but we recognized that the vast majority of Australian football clubs play at the grassroots level and will never have a chance to play a TPOC Title match (NSW being the exception to date!).  For that reason, we have also created a State-specific TPOC for each State Football Federation.  The rules for these State-based TPOCs are the same, except that a title match can only ever be contested between two clubs from that state (A-League clubs do not count in this case).  The inaugural Champion for each of these competitions was determined by the 2004 State Knockout competition (or Grand Final in the absence of a State Cup):

Queensland – Brisbane City
New South Wales – Sydney Crescent Star
Northern NSW – Broadmeadow Magic
Victoria – Green Gully
South Australia – Metrostars
Western Australia – Swan IC
Tasmania – Launceston City
ACT – Canberra FC
Northern Territory – Darwin Olympic (Inaugural Champion in 2006)