1929 VFA season

1929 VFA premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Northcote (1st premiership)
Minor premiers	Northcote (1st minor premiership)
←  1928 1930  →

The 1929 Victorian Football Association season was the 51st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Northcote Football Club, after it defeated Port Melbourne by 42 points in the Grand Final on 12 October. It was the club's first VFA premiership.

Association membership

In November 1928, the Oakleigh Football Club applied to join the Association. Oakleigh had been a successful club in the Sub-District Association, had a good quality ground, the growing suburb of Oakleigh provided the team strong support, and the club had been previously considered for Association membership. Oakleigh's application was accepted unanimously. ^[1]

In February 1929, the Sandringham council applied to the Association to establish a local senior team in the competition. The Association approved the application, subject to the council receiving permission from the Minister for Lands to erect a fence around its home ground, Beach Park, ^[2] which it received on 22 February; ^[3] the council had been refused permission to erect the same fence by the previous Minister for Lands in late 1927, which was one of the reasons why an application to join the Association was rejected the previous year. ^[4] The Sandringham Football Club was established as a new club representing the district, and entered the Association.

The two new clubs brought the size of the Association to twelve clubs – the largest it had been since 1896. ^[5] This was the last change to the Association membership until 1951.

Premiership

To accommodate a balanced fixture with the two extra clubs, the home-and-home season was extended from eighteen matches to twenty-two matches, the longest it had been since fixed-length seasons were first introduced in 1894. Then, the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder

1929 VFA ladder
	TEAM	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	Pct	PTS
1	Northcote (P)	22	17	5	0	2099	1400	66.7	68
2	Port Melbourne	22	17	5	0	1804	1391	74.6	68
3	Preston	22	16	6	0	1992	1461	73.3	64
4	Brunswick	22	15	6	1	1931	1615	83.6	62
5	Oakleigh	22	15	7	0	1717	1381	84.4	60
6	Coburg	22	14	7	1	1726	1476	85.5	58
7	Yarraville	22	11	11	0	1804	1636	90.7	44
8	Williamstown	22	9	13	0	1473	1605	109.0	36
9	Brighton	22	8	13	1	1716	1805	105.2	34
10	Prahran	22	5	16	1	1543	1768	114.6	22
11	Camberwell	22	2	20	0	1438	2347	163.2	8
12	Sandringham	22	1	21	0	1336	2803	209.8	4
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points								Source [6]

Finals

	Semifinals
Saturday, 14 September	Port Melbourne 10.15 (75)	def.	Brunswick 9.14 (68)	Coburg Cricket Ground (crowd: 17,000)	[7]
Saturday, 21 September	Northcote 9.10 (64)	def.	Preston 7.8 (50)	Brunswick Cricket Ground (crowd: 13,500)	[8]

	Final
Saturday, 28 September	Northcote 9.17 (71)	drew with	Port Melbourne 10.11 (71)	Coburg Cricket Ground (crowd: 13,500)	[9]
Saturday, 5 October	Northcote 6.15 (51)	def. by	Port Melbourne 8.7 (55)	Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 21,217)	[10]

	1929 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 12 October	Northcote	def.	Port Melbourne	Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 17,304)	[11]
	3.3 (21) 10.10 (70) 12.13 (85)  15.21 (111)	Q1 Q2 Q3  Final	2.5 (17) 5.5 (35) 8.9 (57)  10.9 (69)	Umpires: McKinnon
Pruser 4, Seymour 3, Cole 2, Gray 2, Heenan, Koop, Milne, Rowe		Goals	Kuhlken 4, Plumridge 2, Carpenter, Hyde, Perrett, Skilton
Wilson (hip)		Injuries	Perrett (ankles), Crompton (hip), Crossan (arm)
Towers, for fighting with Lovett		Reports	Lovett, for fighting with Towers

Awards

• Leo McInerney (Brunswick) was the leading goalkicker, with 88 goals in the home-and-home season and 92 goals overall. ^{[6] [11]}
• Ted Bourke (Sandringham) won the Recorder Cup as the Association's best and fairest, polling nine votes. W. Brown (Yarraville) finished second with eight votes, and C. Irwin (Brighton) finished third with seven votes. ^[7]
• Coburg won the seconds premiership. Coburg 14.16 (100) defeated Williamstown 14.7 (91) at the Oakleigh Cricket Ground on 28 September. ^[9]

Notable events

• J. J. Liston, president and delegate of the Williamstown Football Club, was elected president of the Association at the annual general meeting in February 1929, replacing long-serving president John Aikman, who had died in 1928. ^[12] Liston served in the position until his death in 1944. ^[13]

External links

• List of VFA premiers

References

1. "Football – Victorian Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 27 November 1928. p. 16.
2. "Football – Association Clubs". The Argus. Melbourne. 5 February 1929. p. 11.
3. "Sandringham park land". The Argus. Melbourne. 23 February 1929. p. 20.
4. "Football – Sandringham and Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 26 January 1929. p. 21.
5. "Football – Additions to Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 2 November 1928. p. 15.
6. Onlooker (9 September 1929). "Association – Oakleigh out of four". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 15.
7. Onlooker (16 September 1929). "Association – first semi-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 16.
8. Onlooker (23 September 1929). "Association – Second Semi-Final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 15.
9. Onlooker (30 September 1929). "Association – Draw in final match". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 15.
10. Onlooker (7 October 1929). "Football – Disappointing final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 10.
11. Onlooker (14 October 1929). "Football – Association Grand Final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 16.
12. "New Association President". The Argus. Melbourne. 12 February 1929. p. 14.
13. "Death of Mr J. J. Liston". The Argus. Melbourne. 13 April 1944. p. 3.