1939 VFL season

The 1939 VFL season was the 43rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 22 April until 30 September, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1939 VFL Premiership season
Melbourne Football Club, premier team
Teams12
PremiersMelbourne
(3rd premiership)
Minor premiersMelbourne
(1st minor premiership)
Matches played112
Highest attendance78,110
Leading Goalkicker MedallistRon Todd (Collingwood)
Brownlow MedallistMarcus Whelan (Collingwood)

The premiership was won by the Melbourne Football Club for the third time, after it defeated Collingwood by 53 points in the 1939 VFL Grand Final.

Premiership season

In 1939, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th 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 1939 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Ladder
1939 VFL ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 Melbourne (P) 18 15 3 0 1928 1502 128.4 60 Finals
2 Collingwood 18 15 3 0 1872 1535 122.0 60
3 Richmond 18 13 5 0 1734 1469 118.0 52
4 St Kilda 18 13 5 0 1806 1550 116.5 52
5 Carlton 18 12 6 0 1796 1459 123.1 48
6 Essendon 18 8 10 0 1696 1749 97.0 32
7 Geelong 18 7 11 0 1582 1713 92.4 28
8 Fitzroy 18 6 11 1 1482 1661 89.2 26
9 North Melbourne 18 6 12 0 1561 1709 91.3 24
10 Hawthorn 18 5 12 1 1427 1657 86.1 22
11 Footscray 18 4 14 0 1494 1809 82.6 16
12 South Melbourne 18 3 15 0 1367 1932 70.8 12
Source: VFL Ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Finals

Semi finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final
Main article: 1939 VFL Grand Final

Melbourne defeated Collingwood 21.22 (148) to 14.11 (95), in front of a crowd of 78,110 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

Notable events
  • Two key rule changes were made nationally in 1939.
    • The holding the ball rule was altered to eliminate the provision for a player to drop the ball when tackled, meaning that a player was forced to either kick or handpass the ball when tackled to avoid conceding a free kick.
    • The boundary throw-in was reintroduced whenever the ball went out of bounds, except when put out deliberately, instead of a free kick being awarded against the last player to touch the ball, as had been the case since 1925.[2]
  • A record 91 scores of more than one hundred points were kicked during the year; this was a record until 1969.
  • Hawthorn's win over Carlton in Round 5 was its first as a member of the VFL. Carlton had won the first 25 meetings.
  • All round 18 matches were postponed for a week because all grounds were under water from constant rain.
  • North Melbourne's win over Geelong in Round 18 was the club's first since their initial meeting in Round 1 of the 1925 VFL season, North Melbourne's first match as a member of the VFL, breaking a streak of 23 consecutive wins by Geelong.

Footnotes
  1. "Melbourne wins". The Argus. Melbourne. 29 September 1939. p. 15.
  2. "Throw-pass attacked". Camperdown Chronicle. Camperdown, VIC. 5 November 1938. p. 4.

References
  • Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
  • Rogers, S. & Brown, A., Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998. ISBN 0-670-90809-6
  • Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN 0-670-86814-0
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