1965 VFL season

1965 VFL premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Essendon 12th premiership
Minor premiers	St Kilda 1st minor premiership
Consolation series	North Melbourne 1st Consolation series win
Brownlow Medallist	Ian Stewart (St Kilda) Noel Teasdale (North Melbourne)
Coleman Medallist	John Peck (Hawthorn)
Matches played	112
Highest	104,846

The 1965 VFL season was the 69th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 17 April until 25 September, 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 Essendon Football Club for the twelfth time, after it defeated St Kilda by 35 points in the 1965 VFL Grand Final.

Premiership season

In 1965, 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 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 1965 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

North Melbourne Football Club moved its playing and training base from the Arden Street Oval to Coburg City Oval. The move was intended to be permanent, with some initial negotiations seeking long-term leases for up to 40 years, but it was ultimately cancelled after only eight months, and North Melbourne returned to the Arden Street Oval in 1966.

Ladder

1965 VFL ladder

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	D	PF	PA	PP	Pts
1	St Kilda	18	14	4	0	1573	1154	136.3	56	Finals
2	Collingwood	18	13	5	0	1473	1131	130.2	52
3	Geelong	18	13	5	0	1319	1088	121.2	52
4	Essendon (P)	18	12	6	0	1465	1102	132.9	48
5	Richmond	18	10	8	0	1561	1249	125.0	40
6	Carlton	18	10	8	0	1317	1190	110.7	40
7	Melbourne	18	10	8	0	1265	1315	96.2	40
8	South Melbourne	18	9	9	0	1386	1550	89.4	36
9	North Melbourne	18	5	13	0	1143	1415	80.8	20
10	Footscray	18	4	14	0	1010	1310	77.1	16
11	Fitzroy	18	4	14	0	1114	1580	70.5	16
12	Hawthorn	18	4	14	0	1200	1742	68.9	16

Source: VFL ladder
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Night Series Competition

The 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 season.

Final: North Melbourne 14.13 (97) defeated Carlton 9.3 (57).

Premiership Finals

First Semi-Final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Geelong	2.0	4.3	6.8	7.9 (51)
Essendon	3.5	8.14	10.16	14.19 (103)
Attendance: 89,833

Second Semi-Final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
St Kilda	2.7	6.14	11.22	13.24 (102)
Collingwood	5.5	8.7	11.10	14.17 (101)
Attendance: 98,385

Preliminary Final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Collingwood	1.0	3.0	4.4	6.6 (42)
Essendon	3.6	5.9	10.10	14.13 (97)
Attendance: 95,386

Grand final

Main article: 1965 VFL Grand Final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
St Kilda	1.6	4.8	5.11	9.16 (70)
Essendon	2.7	5.10	10.18	14.21 (105)
Attendance: 104,846

Awards

• The 1965 VFL Premiership team was Essendon.
• Hawthorn won the "wooden spoon" for 1965. As of 2021, this remains the club's latest wooden spoon.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was John Peck of Hawthorn who kicked 56 goals; he was the third player to win the goalkicking when his team won the "wooden spoon", and the first since Roy Park of University in 1913.
• The winner of the 1965 Brownlow Medal was Ian Stewart of St Kilda with 20 votes; he won on a count-back from Noel Teasdale of North Melbourne.
  • As a consequence of its 1981 decision to change its rules relating to tied Brownlow Medal contests, the AFL awarded a retrospective medal to Teasdale in 1989.
• The reserves premiership was won by Collingwood. Collingwood 16.9 (105) defeated Geelong 10.20 (80) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 25 September.

Notable events

• Melbourne's 1964 premiership captain Ron Barassi was cleared to Carlton as captain/coach, one of the most significant player transfers in the Coulter Law era.
• Three teams moved their home grounds in 1965. This would begin a suburban ground rationalization process which eventually ended forty years later in 2005, which saw all Melbourne based teams eventually play their home games at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Docklands Stadium.
  • St Kilda moved its training and playing base from Junction Oval to Moorabbin Oval, after signing a 75-year lease with the Moorabbin Council in June 1964.
  • Richmond moved its home ground for matches to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, sharing it with Melbourne, while continuing to train at the Punt Road Oval, because roadwork to widen Punt Road was going to significantly reduce Punt Road Oval's capacity.
  • North Melbourne moved its training and playing base from Arden Street Oval to Coburg City Oval, after signing a seven-year lease with the Coburg Council in April 1965. The move was not successful for either party, and the club returned to Arden Street Oval in 1966.
• In the Round 2 match against Essendon, Hawthorn forward Garry Young sustained a painful injury from a hard knock. Hawthorn captain Graham Arthur stood over him and said "Get up you weak bastard", and Young returned to the play and did his best to continue. Eventually he left the ground and went to hospital where it was discovered that he had a perforated bowel and peritonitis, both of which are life-threatening conditions. He never played again.
• In Round 6, Essendon forward Geoff Gosper was the first VFL player to play with a mouthguard.
• Victoria played two interstate matches against South Australia during the season. On Saturday 19 June, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Victoria won 19.17 (131) to 9.18 (72); on 10 July, in Adelaide, South Australia won 12.11 (83) to 3.1 (19).
• After opening the season with eight consecutive wins, Melbourne fell to 9-3 after Round 12, then sacked coach Norm Smith. He was reinstated before Round 14, but Smith had also been unhappy about his lack of support from the Melbourne Football Club in the libel case that had been brought against him by VFL umpire Don Blew in the late 1964. The sacking is said to have given rise to a sports curse, which saw Melbourne miss the finals for the first time since 1953 (after a twelve-year period under Smith which had netted six premierships), fail to reach another finals series until 1987, and fail to win another premiership until 2021.
• St Kilda played in a Grand Final for the first time since 1913.
• Essendon's half-forward flanker John Somerville was felled behind play in first 10 minutes of the 1965 Preliminary Final. His opponent for the day, Collingwood's Duncan Wright, was never selected to play for Collingwood again. The field umpire, Ron Brophy, was never selected to umpire a VFL match again. (See Duncan Wright and John Somerville.)

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

• 1965 Season – AFL Tables
• Richard Allsop, "Round 15 Footy Flashbacks: Player of the week – Garry Young", (Official Website of the Hawthorn Football Club, 11 July 2007)