Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

1939 VFL season

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Highest attendance
  
78,110

Start date
  
1939

Teams
  
12

Leading Goalkicker Medallist
  
Ron Todd (Collingwood)

Premier
  
Melbourne Football Club

Matches played
  
112

Premiers
  
Melbourne (3rd premiership)

Minor premiers
  
Melbourne (1st minor premiership)

Brownlow Medallist
  
Marcus Whelan (Collingwood)

Similar
  
1929 VFL season, 1947 VFL season, 1931 VFL season, 1934 VFL season, 1946 VFL season

The 1939 Victorian Football League season was the 43rd season of the elite Australian rules football competition.

Contents

Premiership season

In 1939, 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 1939 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page-McIntyre System.

Grand final

Melbourne defeated Collingwood 21.22 (148) to 14.11 (95), in front of a crowd of 78,110 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

  • The 1939 VFL Premiership team was Melbourne.
  • The VFL's leading goalkicker was Ron Todd of Collingwood with 98 goals (121 after finals).
  • The Argus newspaper's "Player of the Year", was shared between Jack Dyer of Richmond and Dick Reynolds of Essendon.
  • The winner of the 1939 Brownlow Medal was Marcus Whelan of Collingwood with 23 votes.
  • South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1939.
  • The seconds premiership was won by Melbourne. Melbourne 22.12 (144) defeated Richmond 17.13 (115) in the Grand Final, played as a stand-alone game on Thursday 28 September (Show Day holiday) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, before a crowd of 4,100.

    • Notable events

  • Two key rule changes were made nationally in 1939. The holding the ball rule was altered to eliminate the provision for a player to drop the ball when tackled, meaning that a player was forced to either kick or handpass the ball when tackled to avoid conceding a free kick; and, the boundary throw-in was reintroduced whenever the ball went out of bounds, except when put out deliberately, instead of a free kick being awarded against the last player to touch the ball, as had been the case since 1925.
  • A record 91 scores of more than one hundred points were kicked during the year; this was a record until 1969.
  • Hawthorn's win over Carlton in Round 5 was its first as a member of the VFL. Carlton had won the first 25 meetings.
  • All round 18 matches were postponed for a week because all grounds were under water from constant rain.
  • North Melbourne's win over Geelong in Round 18 was the club's first since their initial meeting in Round 1 of the 1925 VFL season, North Melbourne's first match as a member of the VFL, breaking a streak of 23 consecutive wins by Geelong.

    • References

    1939 VFL season Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA