| 1951 VFL Grand Final | ||||||||||||||||
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| Date | 29 September 1951 | |||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Melbourne Cricket Ground | |||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 84,109 | |||||||||||||||
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The 1951 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Geelong Football Club and Essendon Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 29 September 1951. It was the 54th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1951 VFL season.
The match, attended by 84,109 spectators, was won by Geelong by 11 points (the club's fourth premiership). The win by Geelong — its first since winning the 1937 VFL Grand Final — capped off a brilliant season; the team won the Minor Premiership, its back-pocket, Bernie Smith, won the Brownlow Medal, and its full-forward, George Goninon, was the league's leading goalkicker.
This was the sixth successive Grand Final appearance for Essendon, the reigning premiers, who were attempting to win three successive flags, after having defeated Carlton in the 1949 VFL Grand Final and North Melbourne in the 1950 VFL Grand Final.
Essendon went into the match without star full-forward John Coleman who had been suspended in controversial circumstances for four matches. On the day of the match, champion ruckman John Gill had a heavy cold and declared himself unfit to play. At the last minute, the Essendon coach, Dick Reynolds, who had retired the year before, was re-registered as a player; Fred Payne replaced Gill in the run-on team, and Reynolds became 19th Man. [1]
     Geelong |   Essendon |
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geelong | 3.8 (26) | 4.10 (34) | 9.13 (67) | 11.15 (81) |
| Essendon | 1.0 (6) | 6.2 (38) | 6.4 (40) | 10.10 (70) |
| Attendance: 85,795 | ||||
Geelong:
| Essendon:
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The Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, is a professional Australian rules football club. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the game's premier competition. The club was formed by the McCracken family in their Ascot Vale home "Alisa", and while the exact date is unknown, it is generally accepted to have been in 1872. The club’s first recorded game took place on 7 June 1873 against a Carlton Second 20. From 1878 until 1896, the club played in the Victorian Football Association then joined seven other clubs in October 1896 to form the breakaway Victorian Football League. Headquartered at the Essendon Recreation Ground, known as Windy Hill, from 1922 to 2013, the club moved to The Hangar in near Tullamarine in late 2013 on land owned the Melbourne Airport. The club currently plays its home games at either Docklands Stadium or the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Dyson Heppell is the current club captain.
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The 1925 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Geelong Football Club and Collingwood Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 10 October 1925. It was the 27th annual grand final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1925 VFL season. The match, attended by 64,288 spectators, was won by Geelong by a margin of 10 points, marking that club's first VFL premiership victory.
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