1935 VFL season

The 1935 VFL season was the 39th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 27 April until 5 October, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1935 VFL premiership season
Premiership player Keith Stackpole
Teams	12
Premiers	Collingwood 10th premiership
Minor premiers	South Melbourne 4th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Haydn Bunton Sr. (Fitzroy)
Leading goalkicker medallist	Bob Pratt (South Melbourne)
Matches played	112
Highest	54,154

The premiership was won by the Collingwood Football Club for the tenth time, after it defeated South Melbourne by 20 points in the 1935 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1935, 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 1935 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Home-and-away season

Ladder

(P)	Premiers
	Qualified for finals

#	Team	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	Pts
1	South Melbourne	18	16	2	0	1940	1410	137.6	64
2	Collingwood (P)	18	14	2	2	1895	1561	121.4	60
3	Carlton	18	14	3	1	1958	1383	141.6	58
4	Richmond	18	12	6	0	1572	1339	117.4	48
5	St Kilda	18	11	7	0	1708	1545	110.6	44
6	Melbourne	18	8	9	1	1601	1582	101.2	34
7	Fitzroy	18	8	9	1	1488	1649	90.2	34
8	Essendon	18	7	11	0	1526	1703	89.6	28
9	Geelong	18	6	11	1	1683	1747	96.3	26
10	Hawthorn	18	5	13	0	1460	1805	80.9	20
11	Footscray	18	2	14	2	1272	1731	73.5	12
12	North Melbourne	18	1	17	0	1208	1856	65.1	4

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 89.4
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1935 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the semi-finals and preliminary final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the preliminary final.

Grand final

Main article: 1935 VFL Grand Final

Season notes

• In February 1935, the VFL advanced an emergency interest-free loan of £500 to the North Melbourne Football Club, which had not won a match since 19 August 1933.
• The VFL experimented with rubber footballs during pre-season practice matches. The experiment was not successful: the balls were found to float far too much in the air, and bounce far too much on the ground.
• Footscray changed their jumper design from the traditional red and white hoops on a blue background to a jumper with vertical red and blue stripes with white piping. Designed to make the club more distinctive, these jumpers were destroyed when dry-cleaned at the end of the season.
• On 30 March, a practice match between Richmond and South Melbourne was played at night, with a white ball, under electric light at Olympic Park.
• On 18 May, 24-year-old Clen Denning played his first VFL senior match. Playing in the forward-pocket for Carlton, against South Melbourne, he kicked a goal with each of his first six kicks in the match.
• In the third quarter of the round 18 match between Essendon and Geelong, Geelong was clawing back Essendon's lead, when the Windy Hill ground was invaded by a swarm of schoolboys. A small balloon had drifted over the ground and had dropped small parachutes and papers, and the schoolboys invaded the ground to capture the "treasures" dropped from the balloon, oblivious of the fact that the match was still in progress. The match was delayed for some time before order was restored. Essendon eventually won the match 14.23 (107) to 11.13 (79).
• At the end of the 1935 season, the Hawthorn Football Club was unable to make any of its contracted payments to its players, many of whom were unemployed and relying on the £3 weekly match fees to sustain their families.
• On Grand Final eve, South Melbourne's champion full-forward Bob Pratt was hit by a brick truck when alighting from a tram. He was replaced in the team by Roy Moore. Neither Moore at full-forward nor Laurie Nash at centre half-forward scored a goal in the match; their opponents were Charlie Dibbs and Jack Regan respectively.

Awards

• The 1935 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Bob Pratt of South Melbourne with 97 goals (103 after finals).
• The winner of the 1935 Brownlow Medal was Haydn Bunton, Sr of Fitzroy with 24 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1935.
• The seconds premiership was won by Melbourne for the fifth consecutive season. Melbourne defeated Geelong in the Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 5 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

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
• 1935 Pre-Season Richmond v South Melbourne – Under Lights – BoylesFootballPhotos

Sources

• 1935 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1935 VFL season at Australian Football