The wooden spoon is the imaginary and ironic "award" which is said to be won by the team finishing in last place in the Australian Football League. No physical wooden spoon award exists, other than those brought by opposition fans to taunt struggling teams, nor is such an award officially sanctioned by the VFL/AFL. However, most betting agencies will take wagers on the wooden spoon.
A wooden spoon is an award that is given to an individual or team who/which has come last in a competition. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous events. The term is of British origin and has spread to other Commonwealth countries outside North America.
The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body, and is responsible for controlling the laws of the game. The league was founded as the Victorian Football League (VFL) as a breakaway from the previous Victorian Football Association (VFA), with its inaugural season commencing in 1897. Originally comprising only teams based in the Australian state of Victoria, the competition's name was changed to the Australian Football League for the 1990 season, after expanding to other states throughout the 1980s.
The team which finishes on the bottom of the ladder wins the wooden spoon. This is determined by:
No countback exists if teams finish equal on points but with a different number of wins.
From 1901–1907, the VFL season was set up such that each team played fourteen regular season games: two games against each opponent. Based upon regular season ladder positions, teams were divided into pools A (1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th) and B (2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th), and each team played the opponents from its pool once each in the "sectional round."
Following the sectional round, the results of these matches were added to the ladder to give a final ladder based on seventeen matches per team. As such, the wooden spooner is considered to be the team which finishes last after all seventeen matches.
The three sectional games changed the outcome of the wooden spoon twice in the seven seasons of this format: in 1905, St Kilda beat Geelong in their last game, relegating Melbourne to last, and in 1907, Fitzroy won all three of their games, relegating Essendon to last.
In the war-time season of 1916, only four teams (Carlton, Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond) competed. Fitzroy finished last after the home-and-away season with a record of 2–9–1 (10 pts), and Richmond finished third with a record of 5–7–0 (20 pts).
All four teams competed in the finals under the amended Argus system in place at the time. Richmond lost their Semi-Final and finished in overall last place as the lowest placed Semi-Final loser, while Fitzroy won their Semi-Final, the Final and the Grand Final to claim the premiership.
There is hence some uncertainty regarding which team should lay claim to the wooden spoon in that season; by analogy with the minor and major premierships, it could be said that Fitzroy won the "minor wooden spoon" and Richmond won the "major wooden spoon".
A minor premiership is the name of the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the playoffs in several Australian sports leagues.
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia, to determine the Australian Football League (AFL) premiers for that year. The game has become significant to Australian culture, spawning a number of traditions and surrounding activities which have grown in popularity since the interstate expansion of the Victorian Football League in the 1980s and the subsequent creation of the national AFL competition in the 1990s. The 2006 Sweeney Sports Report concluded that the AFL Grand Final has become Australia's most important sporting event, with the largest attendance, metropolitan television audience and overall interest of any annual Australian sporting event.
The official AFL season guide recognises Richmond as the wooden spooners for the 1916 VFL season.
The Greater Western Sydney Giants, nicknamed the GWS Giants or just Giants, is a professional Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). Representing the Greater Western Sydney area and Canberra, the club is based at the Tom Wills Oval in Sydney Olympic Park. The team's primary home ground is Spotless Stadium in Sydney Olympic Park. Four games a year are played at Manuka Oval in Canberra as part of a deal with the government of the Australian Capital Territory.
AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league began in February 2017 with 8 teams, expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, and will expand to 14 teams in the 2020 season. The league is run by the Australian Football League (AFL) and is contested by a subset of clubs from that competition. The reigning premiers are the Adelaide Crows.
The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, the club competes in the Australian Football League, and was one of the competition's eight founding member clubs in 1897.
The 1907 Victorian Football League season was the 11th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1908 Victorian Football League season was the 12th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
Club | Total Wooden Spoons | Years of Wooden Spoon |
---|---|---|
St Kilda | 1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1904, 1909, 1910, 1920, 1924, 1943, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 2000, 2014 | |
North Melbourne | 1926, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1940, 1956, 1961, 1968, 1970, 1972 | |
Melbourne | 1905, 1906, 1919, 1923, 1951, 1969, 1974, 1978, 1981, 1997, 2008, 2009 | |
Hawthorn | 1925, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1941, 1942, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1953, 1965 | |
South Melbourne/ Sydney | 1903, 1922, 1938, 1939, 1962, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1992, 1993, 1994 | |
Fitzroy | 1916*, 1936, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1980, 1995, 1996 | |
Richmond | 1916*, 1917, 1960, 1987, 1989, 2004, 2007 | |
Carlton | 2002, 2005, 2006, 2015, 2018 | |
Essendon | 1907, 1918, 1921, 1933, 2016 | |
Geelong | 1908, 1915, 1944, 1957, 1958 | |
University | 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914 | |
Footscray/ Western Bulldogs | 1959, 1967, 1982, 2003 | |
Brisbane Bears | 1990, 1991 | |
Brisbane Lions | 1998, 2017 | |
Collingwood | 1976, 1999 | |
Greater Western Sydney | 2012, 2013 | |
Fremantle | 2001 | |
West Coast Eagles | 2010 | |
Gold Coast | 2011 | |
Port Adelaide | N/A | |
Adelaide | N/A |
current clubs are shown in bold
* See 1916 explanation above
Club | Time period | Years |
---|---|---|
Carlton | 1897–2002 | 105 |
Essendon | 1933–2016 | 83 |
Collingwood | 1897–1976 | 79 |
Geelong | 1958–present | 60 |
Hawthorn | 1965–present | 53 |
North Melbourne | 1972–present | 46 |
Richmond | 1917–1960 | 43 |
Fitzroy | 1897–19361 | 39 |
Footscray | 1925–1959 | 34 |
1 See discussion on 1916 wooden spoon.
Club | Last won | Years since |
---|---|---|
Geelong | 1958 | 60 |
Hawthorn | 1965 | 53 |
North Melbourne | 1972 | 46 |
Adelaide | never [lower-alpha 1] | 27 |
Sydney | 1994 | 24 |
Port Adelaide | never [lower-alpha 2] | 21 |
Collingwood | 1999 | 19 |
Fremantle | 2001 | 17 |
Western Bulldogs | 2003 | 15 |
Richmond | 2007 | 11 |
Melbourne | 2009 | 9 |
West Coast | 2010 | 8 |
Gold Coast | 2011 | 7 |
Greater Western Sydney | 2013 | 5 |
St Kilda | 2014 | 4 |
Essendon | 2016 | 2 |
Brisbane Lions | 2017 | 1 |
Carlton | 2018 | 0 |
Droughts are as of end of the 2018 season.
Season | Wooden spoon | Wins | Losses | Draws | Percentage | Points |
2017 | Greater Western Sydney | 1 | 5 | 1 | 51.8 | 6 |
2018 | Carlton | 2 | 5 | 0 | 54.1 | 8 |
The 1899 Victorian Football League season was the third season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
Rivalries in the Australian Football League exist between many teams, most of which typically draw large crowds and interest regardless of both teams' positions on the ladder. The AFL encourages the building of such rivalries, as a method of increasing publicity for the league, to the point of designating one round each year as Rivalry Round where many of these match-ups are held on the one weekend. Whilst some rivalries, such as between teams from adjacent areas, are still strong, the designation of an entire round of fixtures as Rivalry Round is often criticised due to some arbitrary match-ups, or ignoring stronger, more recent rivalries.
The 1996 Australian Football League season was the 100th season of the elite Australian rules football competition and the 7th under the name 'Australian Football League', having switched from 'Victorian Football League' after 1989.
The 1911 Victorian Football League season was the 15th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1916 Victorian Football League season was the 20th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1918 Victorian Football League season was the 22nd season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1995 Australian Football League season was the 99th season of the elite Australian rules football competition and the 6th under the name 'Australian Football League', having switched from 'Victorian Football League' after 1989.
The 1984 Victorian Football League season was the 88th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1983 Victorian Football League season was the 87th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1921 Victorian Football League season was the 25th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1922 Victorian Football League season was the 26th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1924 Victorian Football League season was the 28th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1954 Victorian Football League season was the 58th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1959 Victorian Football League season was the 63rd season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1962 Victorian Football League season was the 66th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1966 Victorian Football League season was the 70th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1971 Victorian Football League season was the 75th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The 1972 Victorian Football League season was the 76th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.
The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed The Saints, is an Australian rules football club, based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest league in the country.