1919 premiership season | |
---|---|
Teams | 10 |
Premiers | Footscray (6th premiership) |
Minor premiers | North Melbourne (6th minor premiership) |
The 1919 Victorian Football Association season was the 41st season of the Australian rules football competition. The season was the first to be played after hostilities ended in World War I, and saw a return to a full-length season featuring all ten clubs for the first time since 1914.
The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated North Melbourne by 22 points in the Grand Final on 27 September. It was the club's sixth VFA premiership. Footscray's premiership came after minor premier North Melbourne was undefeated through the home-and-home matches – and, in fact, undefeated since 1914 – before losing both finals matches it played.
The four clubs which opted not to play during 1918 due to World War I – Brighton, Essendon, Hawthorn and Williamstown – returned to senior competition for the 1919 season. As a result, the Association returned to ten competing clubs, as it had been prior to the war. [1]
After having played with each team fielding sixteen-a-side since 1912, the Association opted to return to fielding eighteen players on each team. [2]
After a war-time agreement between the League and Association regarding player transfers between the two competitions expired in 1918, the Association introduced a rule which would see a player disqualified from the Association for two years if he transferred to a League club without a permit from the Association; but, as there was no longer a formal arrangement between the two competitions, such players remained free to play in the League during this period of disqualification. [2]
The home-and-home season was played over eighteen rounds, with each club playing the others twice; then, the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.
| ||||||||||||
TEAM | P | W | L | D | PF | PA | Pct | PTS | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | North Melbourne | 18 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1401 | 609 | 43.5 | 72 | |||
2 | Footscray (P) | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1385 | 700 | 50.5 | 58 | |||
3 | Brunswick | 18 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 1216 | 975 | 79.8 | 48 | |||
4 | Northcote | 18 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 1031 | 900 | 87.3 | 48 | |||
5 | Williamstown | 18 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 916 | 937 | 102.3 | 36 | |||
6 | Hawthorn | 18 | 8 | 10 | 0 | 974 | 1161 | 119.2 | 32 | |||
7 | Prahran | 18 | 6 | 12 | 0 | 941 | 1234 | 131.1 | 24 | |||
8 | Port Melbourne | 18 | 5 | 13 | 0 | 923 | 1309 | 141.8 | 20 | |||
9 | Brighton | 18 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 921 | 1421 | 154.2 | 12 | |||
10 | Essendon | 18 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 793 | 1251 | 157.8 | 12 | |||
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points | Source [1] [3] |
Semifinals | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Saturday, 6 September | Footscray 12.8 (80) | def. | Northcote 4.9 (33) | East Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 9,000) | [4] |
Saturday, 13 September | North Melbourne 8.4 (52) | def. by | Brunswick 7.19 (61) | East Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 9,000) | [5] |
Preliminary Final | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Saturday, 20 September | Footscray 8.11 (59) | def. | Brunswick 7.4 (46) | East Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 17,000) | [6] |
1919 VFA Grand Final | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Saturday, 27 September | North Melbourne | def. by | Footscray | East Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 20,000) | [7] [8] |
1.1 (7) 4.6 (30) 4.7 (31) 6.7 (43) | Q1 Q2 Q3 Final | 4.5 (29) 4.8 (32) 6.16 (52) 8.17 (65) | Umpires: Hurley | ||
Barker, Forbes, Hawkins, Irwin, Rawle, Stevens | Goals | Craddock 4, Howell, Martin, Morgan, Samson | |||
From 1914 until 1919, North Melbourne dominated the Association to compile a record winning streak. Between its two-point loss against Footscray on 17 July 1914 [9] and its nine-point loss against Brunswick in the semifinal on 13 September 1919, North Melbourne won a total of 58 consecutive matches – including 49 premiership matches and nine other matches, such as patriotic fund-raisers during the war. [10] During this time, North Melbourne won three premierships (1914, 1915 and 1918), and completed two (shortened) unbeaten seasons: 15–0 in 1915 and 12–0 in 1918 – it was the last time a team won every match in a season until Geelong West in 1972 (Division 2), and the last time a team achieved it in the top division until Port Melbourne in 2011.
After losing the semifinal against Brunswick, North Melbourne also lost its next match – the Grand final against Footscray – to finish second for the season.
The 1925 VFL season was the 29th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.
The 1897 Victorian Football Association season was the 21st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, the first premiership in its history.
The 1899 Victorian Football Association season was the 23rd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club; it was the second premiership in the club's history, and the second in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1898 to 1900.
The 1900 Victorian Football Association season was the 24th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club; it was the third premiership in the club's history, and the third in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1898 to 1900.
The 1908 Victorian Football Association season was the 32nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Brunswick in the final by 24 points. It was the fourth premiership won by the club.
The 1910 Victorian Football Association season was the 34th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the North Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Brunswick by 29 points in the Grand Final on 8 October. It was the third premiership won by the club, and the first since it was reformed after briefly ceasing to exist in 1908.
The 1912 Victorian Football Association season was the 36th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won for the second consecutive time by the Essendon (Association) Football Club, after it defeated Footscray in the Grand Final by 21 points on 28 September. It was the club's second and last VFA premiership.
The 1913 Victorian Football Association season was the 37th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated North Melbourne by one point in the final on 6 September. It was the club's fifth VFA premiership.
The 1914 Victorian Football Association season was the 38th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the North Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Footscray by 35 points in the final on 22 August. It was the club's fourth VFA premiership, and marked the beginning of a period of unprecedented dominance for North Melbourne, which included three consecutive premierships, and a 58-match winning streak which lasted from 1914–1919.
The 1915 Victorian Football Association season was the 39th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1918 Victorian Football Association season was the 40th season of the Australian rules football competition. Played during the final year of hostilities in World War I, the 1918 season was the first to be played since 1915; but it was a short season, played with only six clubs, and with only ten rounds of matches before the finals.
The 1920 Victorian Football Association season was the 42nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Brunswick by 3 points in the final on 9 October. It was the club's seventh VFA premiership, drawing it level with Geelong for the most premierships in VFA history, and it was the club's second consecutive premiership.
The 1921 Victorian Football Association season was the 43rd season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1922 Victorian Football Association season was the 44th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Footscray by two points on 23 September, in a controversial Grand Final which several of its players were offered money to throw. It was the club's third VFA premiership.
The 1923 Victorian Football Association season was the 45th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Port Melbourne by 14 points in the Grand Final on 1 October. It was the club's eighth VFA premiership, which meant that the club surpassed Geelong (L.) for the most premierships won in VFA history.
The 1924 Victorian Football Association season was the 46th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Williamstown by 45 points in the final on 20 September. It was the club's ninth and last VFA premiership before it, along with North Melbourne and Hawthorn, joined the Victorian Football League the following year; this marked the end of a long period of dominance for Footscray, which had seen it win five minor premierships in a row and four major premierships in six years.
The 1924 match for Dame Nellie Melba's Appeal for Limbless Soldiers, informally known as the 1924 Championship of Victoria, was an Australian rules football exhibition match played on 4 October 1924 between the Essendon Football Club and the Footscray Football Club – who were that season's premiers of the Victorian Football League (VFL) and Victorian Football Association (VFA), respectively. Footscray recorded an upset victory against Essendon by 28 points, giving the VFA one of its most significant victories, on-field or off-field, against its stronger-rival competition. The match raised £2,800 for the fund.
The 1925 Victorian Football Association season was the 47th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Brunswick Football Club, after it defeated Port Melbourne by 16 points in the final on 31 August. It was the club's second VFA premiership.
The Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA) was an open age Australian rules football competition and administrative body. It was the first successful junior football competition in Melbourne, and was in existence from 1883 until 1932. For most of its history it was a competition of independent junior level clubs, before it eventually transitioned to become the second eighteens competition for the senior Victorian Football Association.