1912 VFL season

The 1912 VFL season was the 16th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured ten clubs, ran from 27 April until 28 September, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1912 VFL Premiership season
Essendon, Premier team
Teams10
PremiersEssendon
(4th premiership)
Minor premiersSouth Melbourne
(2nd minor premiership)
Matches played94
Highest attendance54,436
Leading Goalkicker MedallistHarry Brereton (Melbourne)

The premiership was won by the Essendon Football Club for the fourth time and second time consecutively, after it defeated South Melbourne by 14 points in the 1912 VFL Grand Final.

Premiership season

In 1912, the VFL competition consisted of ten teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match.

Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1912 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Prior to this round, it was noted by the Football Record that Melbourne had been generally strong while competing at their home ground, but had faltered while away.[1]

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
1912 VFL ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 South Melbourne 18 14 4 0 1160 739 157.0 56 Finals
2 Carlton 18 14 4 0 1145 873 131.2 56
3 Essendon (P) 18 12 6 0 1205 1049 114.9 48
4 Geelong 18 11 7 0 1154 911 126.7 44
5 Fitzroy 18 10 8 0 1016 936 108.5 40
6 Melbourne 18 9 9 0 985 996 98.9 36
7 Collingwood 18 9 9 0 912 995 91.7 36
8 St Kilda 18 7 11 0 1094 1090 100.4 28
9 Richmond 18 3 15 0 863 1333 64.7 12
10 University 18 1 17 0 812 1424 57.0 4
Source: VFL ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Finals

All of the 1912 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the Semi Finals and Preliminary Final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the Preliminary Final.

Semi finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final
Main article: 1912 VFL Grand Final

Essendon defeated South Melbourne 5.17 (47) to 4.9 (33), in front of a crowd of 54,436 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

Notable events
  • On 27 April 1912, the first issue of the VFL's Football Record was published.[2]
  • For the first time, all VFL players wore a number on the back of their guernseys. The number designated the player himself, rather than his position and, in most cases, he played his entire career with the same number on his back (however, if he changed clubs, his number would also alter).
  • University's Round 3 victory over Richmond was ultimately to be the last win in the VFL club's history. University would go on to lose its next 51 matches (including two winless seasons in 1913 and 1914), a VFL/AFL record, before they dropped out of the competition.
  • South Australia defeated Victoria 9.8 (62) to 6.7 (43) in Adelaide on 10 August 1912.[2]
  • In a match against Collingwood, Essendon's Dan Hanley was impeded from taking part in a contest for the ball along one of the boundary lines, when a boundary umpire grasped him by the hand. There were no "official" witnesses to this incredible incident, and the boundary umpire went unpunished.
  • The captains of the two 1912 Second Semi-Final teams, Allan Belcher of Essendon and Vic Belcher of South Melbourne, were brothers. This is a VFL/AFL record.
  • VFL decided to appoint two stewards to each match. They had the power to report players.[2] They wear an all-white uniform, with the word "Steward" in red on their breast.[2]

References
  1. "Items of Interest". Football Record: 4. May 1912. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
  2. Ross, John (1996). 100 Years of Australian Football. Ringwood, Australia: Viking Books. p. 382. ISBN 9781854714343.

Sources
  • 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
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