| 1940 VFA premiership season | |
|---|---|
 Port Melbourne FC, premiers | |
| Teams | 12 |
| Premiers | Port Melbourne 4th premiership |
| Minor premiers | Williamstown 2nd minor premiership |
The 1940 Victorian Football Association season was the 62nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, which defeated Prahran by 47 points in the Grand Final on 5 October. It was Port Melbourne's first VFA premiership since 1922, and its fourth overall.
World War II had commenced in Europe in September 1939, and the Association opted to proceed with a full premiership season. [1] The home-and-home season was played over twenty matches, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the Page–McIntyre system to determine the premiers for the season.
| ||||||||||||
| TEAM | P | W | L | D | PF | PA | Pct | PTS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Williamstown | 20 | 16 | 4 | 0 | 2400 | 1768 | 135.4 | 64 | |||
| 2 | Port Melbourne (P) | 20 | 14 | 6 | 0 | 2368 | 1952 | 121.3 | 56 | |||
| 3 | Prahran | 20 | 14 | 6 | 0 | 2246 | 1919 | 117.0 | 56 | |||
| 4 | Preston | 20 | 14 | 6 | 0 | 2106 | 1959 | 107.5 | 56 | |||
| 5 | Brunswick | 20 | 13 | 7 | 0 | 2101 | 1772 | 118.6 | 52 | |||
| 6 | Coburg | 20 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 1965 | 1720 | 114.2 | 50 | |||
| 7 | Northcote | 20 | 9 | 10 | 1 | 1967 | 2032 | 96.8 | 38 | |||
| 8 | Camberwell | 20 | 7 | 13 | 0 | 2250 | 2319 | 97.0 | 28 | |||
| 9 | Brighton | 20 | 7 | 13 | 0 | 1980 | 2118 | 93.5 | 28 | |||
| 10 | Yarraville | 20 | 7 | 13 | 0 | 2019 | 2548 | 79.2 | 28 | |||
| 11 | Oakleigh | 20 | 5 | 15 | 0 | 1888 | 2391 | 79.0 | 20 | |||
| 12 | Sandringham | 20 | 1 | 19 | 0 | 1753 | 2545 | 68.9 | 4 | |||
| Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points | Source [2] | |||||||||||
| Semifinals | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, 14 September | Prahran 16.26 (122) | def. | Preston 17.11 (110) | Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) | [3] |
| Saturday, 21 September | Williamstown 13.14 (92) | def. by | Port Melbourne 24.14 (158) | Toorak Park (crowd: 12,000) | [4] |
| Preliminary Final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, 30 September | Williamstown 11.16 (88) | def. by | Prahran 15.21 (111) | Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) | [5] |
| 1940 VFA Grand Final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, 5 October | Port Melbourne | def. | Prahran | Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 30,882) | [6] |
| 4.8 (32) 11.12 (78) 17.18 (120) 23.22 (160) | Q1 Q2 Q3 Final | 2.5 (17) 9.7 (61) 12.8 (80) 17.11 (113) | Umpires: Hayes | ||
| Freyer 12, Hurley 5, Robertson 4, Castles, Lahiff | Goals | Lyons 9, Hawkins 3, O'Donnell 2, White 2, Gravell | |||
The Northcote Football Club (/ˈnoːθ.kət/), nicknamed the Dragons, was an Australian rules football club which played in the VFA from 1908 until 1987. The club's colours for most of its time in the VFA were green and yellow, and it was based in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote.
The 1928 Victorian Football Association season was the 50th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Coburg Football Club, after it defeated Port Melbourne by seven points in the final on 8 September. It was the club's third VFA premiership, achieved in only its fourth season of senior competition, and was the third in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1926 until 1928.
The 1930 Victorian Football Association season was the 52nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Oakleigh Football Club, after it defeated Northcote by nine points in the final on 27 September – a match which was notorious for several violent clashes instigated by Northcote players. It was the club's first VFA premiership, achieved in only its second season of senior competition.
The 1931 Victorian Football Association season was the 53rd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Oakleigh Football Club, after it defeated Northcote by three points in the Grand Final on 26 September. It was the club's second VFA premiership, achieved in only its third season of senior competition, and it was Oakleigh's second premiership in a row.
The 1934 Victorian Football Association season was the 56th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Northcote Football Club, after it defeated Coburg by 61 points in the Grand Final on 6 October. It was the club's fourth VFA premiership, and the third in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1932 until 1934; Coburg was defeated in all three Grand Finals in the sequence.
The 1935 Victorian Football Association season was the 57th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Yarraville Football Club, after it defeated Camberwell by nine points in the Grand Final on 7 September. It was the club's first VFA premiership, won in its eighth season of competition.
The 1936 Victorian Football Association season was the 58th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Northcote Football Club, after it came from fourth on the ladder to defeat Prahran by 15 points in the Grand Final on 12 September. It was the club's fifth VFA premiership, all won between 1929 and 1936, and it was the last top division VFA premiership ever won by the club before it left the Association in 1987.
The 1937 Victorian Football Association season was the 59th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Prahran Football Club, after it came from fourth on the ladder to defeat Brunswick by two points in the Grand Final on 4 September. It was the club's first VFA premiership since it joined the Association in 1899.
The 1938 Victorian Football Association season was the 60th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Brunswick Football Club, after it defeated Brighton by 33 points in the Grand Final on 20 August. It was the club's third VFA premiership, and the last top division premiership it ever won.
The 1939 Victorian Football Association season was the 61st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, which came from fourth on the ladder to defeat Prahran by nine points in the Grand Final on 7 October. It was the club's third VFA premiership, and it was a strong revival after having won the wooden spoon in 1938.
The 1941 Victorian Football Association season was the 63rd season of the Australian rules football competition, and it was the last season before the Association went into recess during World War II. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, which defeated Coburg by 19 points in the Grand Final on 4 October. It was Port Melbourne's fifth VFA premiership, and its second in a row.
The 1945 Victorian Football Association season was the 64th season of the Australian rules football competition, and it was the first season played since the Association went into recess during World War II. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, which defeated Port Melbourne by 37 points in the Grand Final on 6 October. It was the club's fourth VFA premiership.
The 1946 Victorian Football Association season was the 65th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Sandringham Football Club, which defeated Camberwell by seven points in the Grand Final on 5 October. It was the first premiership in the club's history.
The 1947 Victorian Football Association season was the 66th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, which defeated Sandringham by 31 points in the Grand Final on 4 October. It was the sixth premiership in the club's history.
The 1948 Victorian Football Association season was the 67th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Brighton Football Club, which defeated Williamstown by nine points in the Grand Final on 9 October. It was the first and only Division 1 premiership won by the club in its time in the Association as either Brighton or Caulfield.
The 1950 Victorian Football Association season was the 69th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Oakleigh Football Club, which defeated Port Melbourne by 19 points in the Grand Final on 30 September. It was the third premiership won by the club.
The 1953 Victorian Football Association season was the 72nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Yarraville by 60 points in the Grand Final on 3 October. It was Port Melbourne's seventh VFA premiership, and it was the only premiership that the club won during a sequence of eight consecutive Grand Finals played from 1950 until 1957, and five consecutive minor premierships won from 1951 until 1955.
The 1959 Victorian Football Association season was the 78th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club after it defeated Coburg in the Grand Final on 10 October by 35 points. It was Williamstown's tenth premiership, taking it past Footscray to become the club with the most premierships won in VFA history, a title it held until it was passed by Port Melbourne in 1976; it was also the fifth of five premierships won in six seasons between 1954 and 1959, and the club's fourth consecutive minor premiership.
The 1960 Victorian Football Association season was the 79th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Oakleigh Football Club, after it defeated Sandringham in the Grand Final on 1 October by 60 points. It was Oakleigh's fifth premiership.
The Australian rules football schism (1938–1949) was a period of division in the rules and governance of Australian rules football, primarily in the sport's traditional heartland of Melbourne, and to lesser extents in North West Tasmania and parts of regional Victoria. The schism existed primarily between Melbourne's pre-eminent league, the Victorian Football League (VFL), and its secondary league, the Victorian Football Association (VFA). In the context of VFA history, this period is often referred to as the throw-pass era.