1983 VFL season

Updated on Jan 24, 2024

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Highest attendance 110,332 Teams 12 Matches played 138		Start date 1983 Attendance 3,638,017
Premiers Hawthorn (5th premiership) Minor premiers North Melbourne (3rd minor premiership) Night series Carlton (1st Night series win) Coleman Medallist Bernie Quinlan Fitzroy (106 goals) Brownlow Medallist Ross Glendinning North Melbourne (24 votes) Similar 1947 VFL season, 1929 VFL season, 1934 VFL season, 1931 VFL season

The 1983 Victorian Football League season was the 87th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.

Night Series

Carlton defeated Richmond 14.16 (100) to 10.6 (66) in the Final.

Premiership season

Rounds 12-22 were the home-and-away reverse of Rounds 1-11.

Attendance

A total of 3,631,042 people attended VFL matches during the 1983 season, an average of about 26,312 per game (including finals matches). A combined total of 420,439 attended finals matches in 1983, an average of 70,073 per finals match. The largest attendance for a home and away game was Richmond versus Collingwood at the MCG, the attendance figure was 81,966.

Awards

The Brownlow Medal was awarded to Ross Glendinning of North Melbourne.

The Coleman Medal was awarded to Bernie Quinlan of Fitzroy.

The VFL Players Association MVP Award, now known as the Leigh Matthews Trophy, was awarded to Terry Daniher of Essendon.

The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Colin Robertson of Hawthorn.

The “Wooden Spoon” was “awarded’ to St Kilda.

The reserves premiership was won by Essendon. Essendon 19.14 (128) defeated Collingwood 15.9 (99) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 24 September.

Notable events

In Round 4, St Kilda played Paul Morwood and Silvio Foschini without their clearances from the Sydney Swans being finalised. Had they beaten Geelong, they would have forfeited the points under the laws at the time.

North Melbourne's 150-point loss to Fitzroy in Round 13 more than doubled the previous biggest loss by a minor premier of 69 points, which had occurred in 1952 and 1974.

In Fitzroy's Round 17 game with St Kilda, a record quarter aggregate of 19.7 (121) - Fitzroy 12.6 (78), St. Kilda 7.1 (43) - was kicked during the second quarter.

In Round 19, Kevin Bartlett became the first player to play 400 VFL games, after having in Round 11 of 1981 become the first to reach 350 games. As of 2015, only Michael Tuck, Dustin Fletcher and Brent Harvey have since equalled his achievement.

References

1983 VFL season Wikipedia

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