Teams 13 J. J. Liston Trophy Shane Valenti | Leading goalkicker Patrick Rose (67) | |
Premiers Port Melbourne
(16th premiership) Minor premiers Port Melbourne
(19th minor premiership) | ||
The 130th season of the Victorian Football League/Victorian Football Association was held in 2011.
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Teams
The league contracted from fourteen teams to thirteen, after the Gold Coast Football Club left and entered the Australian Football League. The fledgling Gold Coast club had used the 2009 TAC Cup season and the 2010 VFL season as preparation for joining the AFL. There was originally speculation that the Greater Western Sydney Giants, which had played TAC Cup in 2010 and was set to join the AFL in 2012, may have spent the 2011 season in the VFL under a similar plan, but instead the club opted to play in the North East Australian Football League.
The VFL continued to serve as both the top state-level football league in Victoria, and as a reserves competition for Victorian-based clubs in the Australian Football League, as had been the case since 2000. The affiliation agreements between VFL and AFL clubs were unchanged from 2010.
The top three teams from 2010 – North Ballarat, Northern Bullants and Williamstown – competed in the inaugural Foxtel Cup competition, with Williamstown winning the event.
Port Melbourne dominated the 2011 season, winning twenty-one games in a row to win the premiership undefeated. In the home-and-away season, the Borough finished with a record of 18-0, finishing four games clear atop the ladder; it was the first time a club had finished the home-and-away season undefeated since Geelong West in 1972 Division 2, and the first to do so in the top division since Williamstown in 1957. The Borough maintained its undefeated record through the finals to claim the premiership, replicating the feat of Geelong West's 1972 team, but becoming the first team to achieve the feat in the top division since North Melbourne in 1918.