1934 VFL season

The 1934 VFL season was the 38th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 5 May until 13 October, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1934 VFL Premiership season
Premiership team Richmond
Teams12
PremiersRichmond
(4th premiership)
Minor premiersRichmond
(3rd minor premiership)
Matches played112
Highest attendance65,335
Leading Goalkicker MedallistBob Pratt (South Melbourne)
Brownlow MedallistDick Reynolds (Essendon)

The premiership was won by the Richmond Football Club for the fourth time, after it defeated South Melbourne by 39 points in the 1934 VFL Grand Final. South Melbourne full-forward Bob Pratt kicked 150 goals for the season, setting the all-time record which has since been matched only by Peter Hudson (Hawthorn) in 1971.

Premiership season

In 1934, 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 1934 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

1934 VFL ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 Richmond (P) 18 15 3 0 1618 1334 121.3 60 Finals
2 Geelong 18 14 3 1 1834 1355 135.4 58
3 South Melbourne 18 14 4 0 2187 1560 140.2 56
4 Collingwood 18 13 4 1 1915 1571 121.9 54
5 Carlton 18 12 6 0 1986 1707 116.3 48
6 Melbourne 18 9 9 0 1623 1670 97.2 36
7 St Kilda 18 9 9 0 1592 1661 95.8 36
8 Fitzroy 18 7 11 0 1589 1660 95.7 28
9 Footscray 18 6 12 0 1444 1699 85.0 24
10 Essendon 18 5 13 0 1635 1958 83.5 20
11 Hawthorn 18 3 15 0 1300 1917 67.8 12
12 North Melbourne 18 0 18 0 1245 1876 66.4 0
Source: VFL Ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Finals

Semi finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final

Richmond defeated South Melbourne 19.14 (128) to 12.17 (89), in front of a crowd of 65,335 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

Notable events

  • Bob Pratt kicked 150 goals in the 1934 season, reaching his hundredth in only 13 matches. The feat smashed Gordon Coventry's record of 124 goals in the 1929 season, and has yet to be broken.
  • Gordon Coventry's second goal of the Round 5 game between Collingwood and Geelong was his 1000th career goal, making him the first player to reach that milestone.
  • On 11 August, the regular South Melbourne centre half-back Laurie Nash played at full-forward for Victoria for three-quarters (the selected full-forward Bill Mohr had broken his finger in the first quarter) and kicked 18 goals in a single match against the SANFL at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Nash had kicked two goals from centre half-forward in the first quarter prior to Mohr's injury, then kicked two more in the second quarter, before dominating the match after half-time with another 14 goals.
  • In Round 8, Fitzroy ruckman Colin Benham scored his famous "in-off the small boy" goal.
  • In the third quarter of the 14 July (round 10 match) between Carlton and Collingwood,[3] played at Victoria Park in a heavy cross-wind, Syd Coventry, playing in his 222nd match in his last season for Collingwood,[4] was knocked out after an altercation with Carlton's Gordon Mackie.
    • As Coventry was being stretchered off the field, a vicious brawl broke out involving 20 players – requiring the assistance of team officials and the police to break it up – in which up to ten players were seriously injured.[5]
    • Three Carlton players were reported: Gordon Mackie was charged with striking Syd Coventry, Harry Maskell was charged with striking Norm Le Brun, and the Carlton captain, Maurie Johnson, was charged with kicking Jack Ross.[6]
    • Many of those who had attended the match were astonished that no Collingwood players had been reported for their violent behaviour during the match.[7][8]
    • The VFL tribunal found both Maskell and Mackie guilty, and suspended each for six matches. The hearing against Mackie was postponed for a week so that Coventry could attend.[9][10]
    • The charge against Johnson was not sustained (although the tribunal was satisfied Johnson had kicked Ross, it was not satisfied that he had kicked Ross deliberately).[11]
    • Although the field umpire, Bob Scott, was fortunate to escape sanction for his widely attested incompetence, one of the goal umpires, Percy Jory, and both of the boundary umpires, John Campbell and George Calleson, were suspended for the remainder of the season for their dereliction of duty in relation to the brawl.[12]
  • It is a matter of record that Dick Reynolds won the 1934 Brownlow Medal from Haydn Bunton, Sr by a single vote. Legend has it that Bunton, who had dominated in the last match of the season, tried to "suck up to" field umpire Jack McMurray as he walked off the playing field, and that Murray, sensing a blatant and improper attempt to influence his Brownlow voting, cast his votes for three other players.

See also

Footnotes

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
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.