| 1956 VFL premiership season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 12 |
| Premiers | Melbourne 8th premiership |
| Minor premiers | Melbourne 4th minor premiership |
| Consolation series | South Melbourne 1st Consolation series win |
| Brownlow Medallist | Peter Box (Footscray) |
| Coleman Medallist | Bill Young (St Kilda) |
| Matches played | 112 |
| Highest | 115,902 |
The 1956 VFL season was the 60th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 14 April until 15 September, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.
The premiership was won by the Melbourne Football Club for the eighth time and second time consecutively, after it defeated Collingwood by 73 points in the 1956 VFL Grand Final.
From 22 November to 8 December, the 1956 Summer Olympics were to be held in Melbourne, with a re-configured Melbourne Cricket Ground as its Main Stadium.
The need to accommodate this fact brought certain changes to the 1956 VFL season:
It was not desirable for Melbourne to play four consecutive away matches to start the season. This was partly because Melbourne would then have four consecutive home matches between Rounds 12 and 15. Additionally, because of the proximity of the Melbourne Cricket Ground to Punt Road Oval, matches were never scheduled at the venues on the same day; so it would have forced Richmond to open the season with four home matches, then play four away matches from Rounds 12 to 15. To overcome this, Melbourne played only its first three matches away, then played its Round 4 home match against Fitzroy at Punt Road Oval.
In 1956, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.
Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 7.
Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1956 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.
| (P) | Premiers |
| Qualified for finals |
| # | Team | P | W | L | D | PF | PA | % | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Melbourne (P) | 18 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 1429 | 979 | 146.0 | 64 |
| 2 | Collingwood | 18 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 1420 | 1128 | 125.9 | 52 |
| 3 | Geelong | 18 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 1427 | 1171 | 121.9 | 52 |
| 4 | Footscray | 18 | 11 | 7 | 0 | 1323 | 1159 | 114.2 | 44 |
| 5 | Carlton | 18 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 1304 | 1147 | 113.7 | 42 |
| 6 | Essendon | 18 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 1308 | 1365 | 95.8 | 40 |
| 7 | Hawthorn | 18 | 7 | 10 | 1 | 1193 | 1342 | 88.9 | 30 |
| 8 | Fitzroy | 18 | 7 | 11 | 0 | 1190 | 1332 | 89.3 | 28 |
| 9 | South Melbourne | 18 | 6 | 11 | 1 | 1210 | 1374 | 88.1 | 26 |
| 10 | Richmond | 18 | 6 | 12 | 0 | 1277 | 1471 | 86.8 | 24 |
| 11 | St Kilda | 18 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 1170 | 1330 | 88.0 | 18 |
| 12 | North Melbourne | 18 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 1038 | 1491 | 69.6 | 12 |
Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 70.8
Source: AFL Tables
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geelong | 4.2 | 6.2 | 6.4 | 6.5 (41) |
| Footscray | 1.3 | 4.6 | 5.8 | 5.13 (43) |
| Attendance: 79,402 | ||||
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 1.4 | 3.6 | 8.9 | 11.14 (80) |
| Collingwood | 1.4 | 3.7 | 8.10 | 8.16 (64) |
| Attendance: 91,480 | ||||
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collingwood | 6.1 | 6.1 | 11.5 | 15.6 (96) |
| Footscray | 3.0 | 5.8 | 6.9 | 7.15 (57) |
| Attendance: 94,104 | ||||
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 2.4 | 6.11 | 10.16 | 17.19 (121) |
| Collingwood | 3.3 | 4.3 | 5.6 | 6.12 (48) |
| Attendance: 115,902 | ||||
The first VFL night series was held under floodlights at Lake Oval, South Melbourne amongst those teams who had missed the regular final series. The eight teams that had finished in places 5 to 12 on the end-of-season ladder played in a set of seven elimination matches at the end of the home-and-away season.
The Final was played on the evening of Monday 17 September 1956 (two days after the VFL Grand Final) in front of 33,120 spectators. South Melbourne 13.16 (94) defeated Carlton 13.10 (78).