1926 VFL season

The 1926 VFL season was the 30th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 1 May until 9 October, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1926 VFL Premiership season
Melbourne Football Club team, premiers
Teams12
PremiersMelbourne
(2nd premiership)
Minor premiersCollingwood
(8th minor premiership)
Matches played112
Highest attendance50,662
Leading Goalkicker MedallistGordon Coventry (Collingwood)
Brownlow MedallistIvor Warne-Smith (Melbourne)

The premiership was won by the Melbourne Football Club for the second time, after it defeated Collingwood by 57 points in the 1926 VFL Grand Final.

Premiership season

In 1926, the VFL competition consisted of twelve 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.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 17 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 6, and match 18 the "home-and-away reverse" of match 9.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1926 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

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
1926 VFL ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 Collingwood 18 15 3 0 1604 1074 149.3 60 Finals
2 Geelong 18 15 3 0 1605 1105 145.2 60
3 Melbourne (P) 18 14 4 0 1720 1175 146.4 56
4 Essendon 18 12 6 0 1303 1048 124.3 48
5 South Melbourne 18 12 6 0 1408 1184 118.9 48
6 Carlton 18 11 7 0 1314 1234 106.5 44
7 Richmond 18 9 9 0 1376 1495 92.0 36
8 Fitzroy 18 6 12 0 1363 1583 86.1 24
9 St Kilda 18 6 12 0 1081 1427 75.8 24
10 Footscray 18 4 14 0 1164 1665 69.9 16
11 Hawthorn 18 3 14 1 1094 1648 66.4 14
12 North Melbourne 18 0 17 1 1102 1496 73.7 2
Source: VFL Ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Finals

All of the 1926 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: 1926 VFL Grand Final

Melbourne defeated Collingwood 17.17 (119) to 9.8 (62), in front of a crowd of 59,362 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

Notable events
  • In order to ensure that each team had nine home games in every season, the 17 game home-and-away season of 1925 was extended to 18 matches in 1926.
  • Following the retirement due to ill-health of Sir Baldwin Spencer, former Melbourne footballer, club doctor, and VFL delegate Dr. William C. McClelland became President of the VFL. He served from 1926 to 1956.
  • Halfway through the 1924 season, Carlton's champion Horrie Clover retired as a player due to a serious illness. He was subsequently appointed Secretary of the Carlton Club and, as well, he was made a member of the VFL's Umpire and permit Committee. By the start of 1926, Clover's health had improved to the extent that he resumed his career with Carlton, playing another 78 senior games from 1926 to 1931. Due to the perceived conflict of interest, he was made to resign from the VFL Committee.
  • As the players were walking off the field for their half-time break in the Preliminary Final, the Melbourne centreman Bob Corbett was viciously king-hit from behind, suffering a broken jaw; Essendon's Charlie May was subsequently suspended for all of 1927 for the incident. With no replacements allowed, Melbourne were forced to continue with 17 men and were gamely defending against the Essendon onslaught in the last quarter when, with only minutes to go in the match, a barely conscious Corbett staggered out onto the field with his head swathed in bandages, and took up his position in the centre, freeing up Ivor Warne-Smith to lead the Melbourne attack. In a mark of respect for Corbett's great courage, Essendon tough-man and rugged full-back Harry Hunter, who was racing up the ground towards the Essendon goals, saw a battered Corbett standing in his way. Under normal circumstances, Hunter, who was known to take no prisoners, would have run straight through Corbett; however, in what was described as an act of great chivalry by a sportsman and a gentleman, Hunter sidestepped Corbett, and delivered the ball down the ground through another avenue. Melbourne won 6.6 (42) to Essendon's 5.9 (39). The king-hit led to strong calls for substitute replacement players.[2][3]

Footnotes
  1. "Junior League". The Argus. Melbourne. 11 October 1926. p. 8.
  2. Old Boy, "Football: Preliminary Final", The Argus, (Monday, 4 October 1926), p. 16.
  3. Football Incident: Corbett's Injury: C. May (Essendon) Suspended, The Argus, (Friday, 15 October 1926), p. 5.Rough Football: May (Essendon) Punished: Out for a Season, The Age, (Friday, 15 October 1926), p. 10.

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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