1926 VFA premiership season
Teams10
PremiersCoburg
1st premiership
Minor premiersCoburg
1st minor premiership

The 1926 Victorian Football Association season was the 48th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Coburg Football Club, after it defeated Brighton by 16 points in the final on 18 September. It was the club's first VFA premiership, achieved in only its second season of senior competition.

For the second time in six seasons, the Association was disrupted by the mid-season withdrawal of one of its clubs: Brunswick withdrawing after sixteen rounds in protest at suspensions given to two of its players.

Association membership

After having been reduced from ten clubs to eight in 1925, the Association sought to admit two clubs into its senior ranks to return to ten. In January 1925, the Association decided to admit Camberwell from the Sub-district Association and Preston from the Victorian Junior Football Association.[1] Camberwell had been one of the leading sub-district clubs for years, and had previously applied to join the Association on several occasions.[2][3]

The town of Preston had previously been represented in the Association from 1903 until 1911 by a senior Preston Football Club, but this club had ceased to exist de jure, having amalgamated with Northcote prior to 1912. During the same time period, there was a separate junior-level Preston Football Club (once known as Preston Districts) competing in the Victorian Junior Football Association, and it was this Preston club which was now being admitted to the Association. However, when Northcote and the former Preston amalgamated, much of Preston's personnel and assets – including its trophies and pennants – were transferred to the junior club, providing a continuity between the two senior Preston clubs. As such, the Preston club admitted to the Association in 1926 was considered a de facto continuation of the previous club.[4]

Geelong was struggling off-field, and moved from its original home of Kardinia Park to the West Geelong ground to seek greater support.[1] It had almost folded at the administrative level during the 1925 season, with the proposal at the time being that a new administration take over and continue to field the same team under a different identity, but this did not occur.[5]

The Victorian Junior Football Association, which had been affiliated with the V.F.A. since 1924,[6] took a step towards becoming a dedicated seconds competition for the V.F.A. in 1926 through a re-alignment of its divisions. Under the realignment: the "V.F.A. section" of the V.J.F.A. consisted solely of junior clubs which were effectively seconds teams for the V.F.A. senior clubs (except Geelong); and the "V.J.F.A. section" consisted solely of stand-alone junior clubs with no V.F.A. connection.[7] The transition was ultimately completed in 1928 when the "V.J.F.A. section" was abolished.[8]

Premiership

The home-and-home season was played over eighteen rounds, with each club playing the others twice; then, the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder

1926 VFA ladder
TEAMPWLDFPFPAPctPTS
1 Coburg (P) 18 15 3 0 – 1777 1036 58.3 60
2 Northcote 18 14 4 0 – 1221 1054 86.3 56
3 Port Melbourne 18 13 5 0 – 1445 1037 71.8 52
4 Brighton 18 12 6 0 – 1432 1309 91.4 48
5 Brunswick 16 9 7 0 – 1007 981 97.4 36
6 Preston 17 8 9 0 1 1305 1326 101.6 36
7 Prahran 18 6 12 0 – 1330 1477 111.1 24
8 Geelong 18 4 14 0 – 1007 1330 132.1 16
9 Camberwell 17 3 14 0 1 1046 1411 134.9 16
10 Williamstown 18 4 14 0 – 916 1535 166.5 16
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, F = Matches won on forfeit following Brunswick's withdrawal, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points Source[9]

Finals

Semifinals
Saturday, 4 September Northcote 6.6 (42) def. by Brighton 8.6 (54) Motordrome (crowd: 10,000) [10]
Saturday, 11 September Coburg 9.14 (68) def. Port Melbourne 5.11 (41) Motordrome (crowd: 12,500) [11]
1926 VFA Final
Saturday, 18 September Coburg def. Brighton Motordrome (crowd: 15,000) [12]
5.3 (33)
6.3 (39)
10.7 (67)
 12.9 (81)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 2.2 (14)
6.4 (40)
7.6 (48)
 9.11 (65)
Gardiner 4, Harris 2, Huntington 2, Kerley 2, Plant 2 Goals Walsh 5, Boyd, Carroll, Hunt, Rattray
Injuries Hunt (fractured skull, concussion)
  • Had Brighton won, minor premiers Coburg would have been entitled to a rematch the following Saturday to decide the premiership.

Awards

  • Walsh (Brighton) was the Association's leading goalkicker, with 81 goals in the home-and-home season,[9] and 91 goals overall.[12]
  • William Summers (Preston) won the Recorder Cup as the Association's best and fairest.[13]

Notable events

Withdrawal of Brunswick from the Association

Following a match against Northcote on 3 July, Brunswick captain Wally Raleigh and teammate T. Hassett reported to the club secretary that a boundary umpire had used abusive language towards them during the match. It took almost two months to resolve the charges, and on 18 August, the Association found the boundary umpire not guilty; and, it found Raleigh and Hassett guilty of having made a false charge against the boundary umpire, and deregistered both players until 31 May 1927.[14] At a special meeting on 20 August, the committee and members of the Brunswick Football Club decided to withdraw the club immediately from the Association in protest at the suspensions.[15] Its final two matches for the year, against Camberwell on 21 August and against Preston on 28 August, were awarded to its opponents by forfeit, and Brunswick was expelled from the Association as punishment.[16]

Several clubs submitted applications to replace Brunswick in the Association.[17] The Brunswick Council, keen to see football played on the venue which it had spent significant money to upgrade, applied for the re-admission of Brunswick to the Association on the club's behalf. The Association advised that it was in favour of re-admitting Brunswick, provided an entirely new committee be appointed;[18] and, in January 1927, after the former committee resigned, Brunswick was formally re-admitted. Brunswick had requested that Raleigh and Hassett be permitted to appeal their suspensions, but the Association rejected this request;[19] Raleigh retired, and Hassett left to coach in Dimboola.[20]

References

  1. 1 2 "Football – New Association clubs". The Argus. Melbourne. 7 January 1926. p. 11.
  2. ↑ "Football – increasing Association clubs". The Argus. Melbourne. 4 December 1924. p. 4.
  3. ↑ J.W. (28 January 1922). "Football – Victorian Association clubs". The Australasian. Melbourne. p. 158.
  4. ↑ Membrey, Brian Where We Come From – the History of the Preston Football Club , Vols 1 and 2, 2002
  5. ↑ "Football – Association meeting". The Argus. Melbourne. 26 February 1926. p. 5.
  6. ↑ "Victorian Association – Affiliation with junior body". The Argus. Melbourne. 25 March 1924. p. 6.
  7. ↑ "Victorian Juniors". The Argus. Melbourne. 26 March 1926. p. 5.
  8. ↑ "V.J.F.A. annual meeting". The Argus. Melbourne. 8 March 1928. p. 5.
  9. 1 2 Old Boy (6 September 1926). "Football – premiership struggle". The Argus. Melbourne.
  10. ↑ Onlooker (6 September 1926). "The Association – Brighton forge ahead". The Argus. Melbourne.
  11. ↑ Onlooker (13 September 1926). "The Association – Coburg's superiority". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  12. 1 2 Onlooker (20 September 1926). "The Association – Coburg premiers". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  13. ↑ Onlooker (6 September 1926). ""Recorder" Cup". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  14. ↑ "Brunswick players suspended". The Argus. Melbourne. 19 August 1926. p. 12.
  15. ↑ "Football sensation – club leaves Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 21 August 1926. p. 32.
  16. ↑ Onlooker (3 September 1926). "Association discipline – Brunswick excluded". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 5.
  17. ↑ "Football Association – readmitting Brunswick". The Argus. Melbourne. 14 December 1926. p. 11.
  18. ↑ "Brunswick Football Club – readmission sought". The Argus. Melbourne. 18 November 1926. p. 5.
  19. ↑ "Brunswick's position". The Argus. Melbourne. 18 January 1927. p. 7.
  20. ↑ "Football – Brunswick players meet". The Argus. Melbourne. 22 February 1927. p. 12.
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