1970 VFL season

The 1970 VFL season was the 74th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

1970 VFL Premiership season
Teams12
PremiersCarlton
(10th premiership)
Minor premiersCollingwood
(15th minor premiership)
Consolation seriesFootscray
(4th Consolation series win)
Matches played136
Attendance3,321,925 (24,426 per match)
Highest attendance121,696
Coleman MedallistPeter Hudson (Hawthorn)
Brownlow MedallistPeter Bedford (South Melbourne)

The season featured twelve clubs, and ran from 4 April until 26 September. It was the first season to play comprise the modern standard 22-game home-and-away season, which was followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs. The season saw the opening of the league's privately owned stadium, VFL Park, in Mulgrave.

The premiership was won by the Carlton Football Club for the tenth time, after it defeated Collingwood by ten points in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. A crowd of 121,696 attended the match, the all-time record for the highest Australian rules football crowd.

Premiership season

In 1970, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th 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 22 rounds; matches 12 to 22 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 11.

Once the 22 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1970 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

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Round 22

Ladder

1970 VFL ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 Collingwood 22 18 4 0 2333 1709 136.5 72 Finals
2 Carlton (P) 22 16 6 0 2146 1911 112.3 64
3 St Kilda 22 14 8 0 1926 1532 125.7 56
4 South Melbourne 22 14 8 0 1914 1828 104.7 56
5 Geelong 22 12 10 0 1949 1903 102.4 48
6 Richmond 22 12 10 0 2029 1998 101.6 48
7 Footscray 22 11 11 0 1728 1894 91.2 44
8 Hawthorn 22 10 12 0 2264 1986 114.0 40
9 Fitzroy 22 9 13 0 1774 2155 82.3 36
10 Melbourne 22 6 16 0 1705 2043 83.5 24
11 Essendon 22 6 16 0 1734 2128 81.5 24
12 North Melbourne 22 4 18 0 1574 1989 79.1 16
Source: VFL ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Consolation Night Series Competition

The consolation night series were held under the floodlights at Lake Oval, South Melbourne, for the teams (5th to 12th on ladder) out of the finals at the end of the home and away rounds.

Final: Footscray 13.17 (95) defeated Melbourne 13.15 (93).

Premiership Finals

First Semi-Final

Team 1 Qtr 2 Qtr 3 Qtr Final
St Kilda 6.1 9.3 14.8 22.11 (143)
South Melbourne 2.5 9.8 10.10 13.12 (90)
Attendance: 104,239

Second Semi-Final

Team 1 Qtr 2 Qtr 3 Qtr Final
Collingwood 5.2 9.7 12.11 17.16 (118)
Carlton 5.0 9.2 14.3 17.6 (108)
Attendance: 112,838

Preliminary Final

Team 1 Qtr 2 Qtr 3 Qtr Final
Carlton 2.6 6.12 13.16 17.21 (123)
St Kilda 1.4 4.12 6.16 7.19 (61)
Attendance: 108,215

Grand final

Team 1 Qtr 2 Qtr 3 Qtr Final
Carlton 0.3 4.5 12.5 17.9 (111)
Collingwood 4.8 10.13 13.16 14.17 (101)
Attendance: 121,696

Crowd figures

Attendances 1970TotalAverage
Home & Away2,860,42321,670
Finals446,988111,747
Season3,307,41124,319

Awards

Leading Goalkickers

  • Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the goalkicking at the end of that round.
  • DNP = did not play in that round.

Notable events

  • Unhappy with their treatment over the three seasons they spent at Princes Park, Fitzroy moved their home ground to the Junction Oval in St Kilda.
  • On Monday 9 March, the Victoria representative team played a match under Gaelic football rules against the 1969 All-Ireland Senior football champions, Kerry, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Kerry 4-11 defeated Victoria 2–10.[2]
  • Essendon's Don McKenzie, Geoff Gosper, Darryl Gerlach, Geoff Pryor, and Barry Davis, and Collingwood's Len Thompson and Des Tuddenham did not play in Round 1 due to separate disputes over player payments with their respective clubs (see Dispute over player payments).
  • Essendon missed the finals in consecutive years, the first time this had occurred since 1939.
  • In Round 1, Richmond and Fitzroy played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday, 5 April 1970, the first ever VFL match played on a Sunday. Before the start of the third quarter, the Richmond and Fitzroy players lined up in front of the Members' Stand and were introduced to The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales and Princess Anne, who then watched the last half of the match.
  • In Round 10, Collingwood trailed St Kilda by over ten goals late in the second quarter but came back to win by seven points. Their 52-point deficit remains, as of 2019, the greatest at half-time deficit by a winning side.
  • The 1970 VFL season was the first in which three full-forwards (Alex Jesaulenko, Peter McKenna, and Peter Hudson) kicked at least 100 goals in a home-and-away season.
  • South Melbourne ended the second-longest finals drought in league history (twenty-four seasons) by finishing fourth, making the finals for the first time since 1945.
  • In Round 5, Ted Whitten played his 321st senior VFL game, breaking the record set by Dick Reynolds. Whitten retired after this match.
  • On Monday 31 August HSV-7 broadcast the first live Brownlow Medal count.
  • In the 1970 Second Semi-Final, Carlton's Syd Jackson was reported for striking Collingwood defender Lee Adamson. Carlton president George Harris, eager to have Jackson in his Grand Final team, devised the strategy of having the club's advocate to assert to the tribunal (on Jackson's behalf) that Jackson had been provoked by an extended series of racial taunts from Adamson, including repeatedly calling him "Sambo" and, furthermore, stating that Jackson would respond in the same way to any future vilification. The tribunal took the stance that the VFL had to be seen to protect its only top-level Aboriginal footballer at the time, and they immediately exonerated him, without hearing Adamson's side of the story, stating that Jackson had no case to answer.[3] Jackson revealed much later that it had all been a set-up by George Harris.
  • The 1970 Grand Final between Collingwood and Carlton was considered to be the most memorable Grand Final in VFL/AFL history. Collingwood had a great lead over Carlton during most of the game, however Carlton managed to come back and win the Grand Final by 10 points.

See also

Footnotes

  1. "Demons in on error". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 28 September 1970. p. 57.
  2. Tom Prior (10 March 1970). "=Those Irish aces strike". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 69.
  3. Carter, R., "Adamson Denies Jackson's Claim", The Age, (Thursday, 30 September, 1970), p. 30.

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. & Browne, 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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