1926 VFL season

1926 VFL premiership season
Melbourne Football Club team, premiers
Teams	12
Premiers	Melbourne 2nd premiership
Minor premiers	Collingwood 8th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Ivor Warne-Smith (Melbourne)
Gordon Coventry (Collingwood)
Matches played	112
Highest	50,662

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.

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".

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.

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

• The 1926 VFL Premiership team was Melbourne.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Gordon Coventry of Collingwood with 83 goals; a VFL record.
• The winner of the 1926 Brownlow Medal was Ivor Warne-Smith of Melbourne with 9 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1926.
• The seconds premiership was won by Carlton. Carlton 14.11 (95) defeated Geelong 5.13 (43) in the challenge Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 9 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

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.

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

External links

• 1926 Season – AFL Tables