1949 VFA season

Last updated

1949 VFA premiership season
Williamstown fc 1949 colored.jpg
Williamstown FC, premiers
Teams12
Premiers Williamstown
(5th premiership)
Minor premiers Williamstown
(4th minor premiership)
  1948
1950  

The 1949 Victorian Football Association season was the 68th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, which defeated Oakleigh by three points in the Grand Final on 1 October. It was the fifth premiership won by the club.

Contents

During the season, the Association agreed to join the Australian National Football Council, effective from the 1950 season, ending a decade of division in Victorian football. Consequently, it was the final season in which the throw-pass was legal in the Association.

Australian National Football Council affiliation

Background

During the 1940s, unity of football control within Victoria had been a topic of regular discussion. The two football bodies in Victoria had been divided since 1938, when the Association broke away from Australian National Football Council. In the following decade, the Association had introduced a number of rule changes, most notably legalising throwing of the football in general play, while the ANFC-affiliated Victorian Football League was bound by the national rules; and, there was no player transfer agreement between the two bodies, allowing players to switch codes without a clearance. [1] [2]

By standing alone, the Association's throw-pass innovation and aggressive recruiting of League stars substantially boosted its attendances during the 1940s. However, the schism was problematic for Australian rules football as a whole: the poaching of players from one body by the other was undermining public opinion, giving other sports the opportunity to attract disenchanted fans; and, the lack of a consistent code of rules made it more difficult to spread the game to other parts of the country. [3] The VFL, VFA and ANFC all believed that the sport would benefit from unified control in Victoria, and there were regular discussions between the VFA and VFL during the early 1940s seeking amalgamation; none were successful. [4] In the late 1940s, the VFA began looking at obtaining a seat on the ANFC as a means of unifying football control while maintaining its independence.

1949 player transfer reciprocity agreement

No arrangement for affiliation to the ANFC was reached for the 1949 season, but in March the VFA and VFL reached a separate bilateral agreement to recognise the validity of each other's clearances, effective from the start of the 1949 season. The new agreement meant that League players were not legally permitted to play in the Association without a clearance from their League clubs, or vice versa; prior to the agreement, players who switched competitions without a clearance received a suspension which was binding only in his former competition. [5]

By the end of the season, both the League and the Association had agreed to lift any active suspensions which players had received for switching codes without a clearance. [6]

Affiliation with the ANFC

The Association formally agreed to affiliate with the ANFC in August 1949. Under the terms of the affiliation: [6] [7]

The motion to affiliate was passed on 8 August 1949 by a majority of 18–7. Delegates representing Oakleigh, Williamstown and Yarraville voted against the motion. [6] The Association remained affiliated with the ANFC until it was expelled in March 1970 for playing League players without an endorsed clearance. [9]

Premiership

The home-and-home season was played over twenty-one matches, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the Page–McIntyre system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder

1949 VFA ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Williamstown (P)21165020371664122.464
2 Oakleigh 21156023201703136.260
3 Brighton 21156021161920110.260
4 Coburg 21137120031894105.854
5 Brunswick 21128119721708115.550
6 Camberwell 2112901871189298.948
7 Port Melbourne 211110018661780104.844
8 Prahran 21813021112076101.732
9 Preston 2181301904212889.532
10 Northcote 2161411683194886.426
11 Sandringham 2161411747222578.526
12 Yarraville 2121901840253272.88
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership pointsSource [10]

Finals

Semifinals
Saturday, 10 September Brighton 14.15 (99)def. Coburg 11.8 (74) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 14,000) [11]
Saturday, 17 September Williamstown 14.13 (97)def. Oakleigh 13.14 (92) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 23,000) [12]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 24 September Oakleigh 14.16 (100)def. Brighton 12.13 (85) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 22,000) [13]
1949 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 1 October Williamstown def. Oakleigh St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 40,000) [14] [15]
1.2 (8)
2.2 (14)
7.3 (45)
 10.5 (65)
Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final
2.3 (15)
5.9 (39)
6.12 (48)
 8.14 (62)
Umpires: Wright
Todd 5, Walker 3, Abberton, Bernard, MolyneuxGoals Smeaton 2, Watson 2, Edward, Finn, Scott, Wenn
Simpson (ankle), Walker (cramp)Injuries Baxter (thigh), Rawlings (thigh)

Awards

Notable events

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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.

References

  1. Rover (16 April 1938). "Crowds will be attracted by new rules". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 22.
  2. Percy Taylor (16 February 1938). "Football experiments". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 24.
  3. "VFA asked to forgo "throw pass"". The Argus. Melbourne. 7 December 1948. p. 16.
  4. "One football control body – VFA again to approach VFL". The Argus. Melbourne. 16 June 1945. p. 7.
  5. "VFL–VFA clearances reciprocal". The Argus. Melbourne. 30 March 1949. p. 23.
  6. 1 2 3 "Association joins ANFC". The Argus. Melbourne. 9 August 1949. p. 20.
  7. "Privileges but not voting power". The Argus. Melbourne. 28 June 1949. p. 16.
  8. "ANFC-VFA negotiations will continue". The Argus. Melbourne. 17 February 1949. p. 20.
  9. David Eastman (2013). "VFA – 1970 -1989: the post-ANFC era". Hard Ball Get. Archived from the original on 3 March 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
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  11. Jack Oates (12 September 1949). "Brighton crushes Coburg but needs to improve". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 24.
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  13. Jack Oates (26 September 1949). "Oakleigh needs to improve for Grand Final". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 24.
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