1928 VFL season
Encyclopedia
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League
season of 1928.
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 1928 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".
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.
defeated Richmond
13.18 (96) to 9.9 (63), in front of a crowd of 50,026 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football
).
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
season of 1928.
Premiership season
In 1928, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match.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 1928 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".
Finals
All of the 1928 finals were played at the MCGMelbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
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
CollingwoodCollingwood Football Club
The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
defeated Richmond
Richmond Football Club
The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed The Tigers, is an Australian rules football club which competes in the Australian Football League. Richmond shares healthy rivalries with Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon. After winning five premierships between 1967 and 1980, the club hit the depths in 1990,...
13.18 (96) to 9.9 (63), in front of a crowd of 50,026 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
).
Awards
- The 1928 VFL Premiership team was CollingwoodCollingwood Football ClubThe Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
. - The VFL's leading goalkickerColeman MedalThe Coleman Medal is awarded yearly to the Australian Football League player who kicks the most goals in regular-season matches in that year...
was Gordon CoventryGordon CoventryGordon "Nuts" Coventry was an Australian rules footballer who played for Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League . With 1,299 goals over 18 seasons, Coventry remains one of the greatest full forwards the game has ever seen...
of CollingwoodCollingwood Football ClubThe Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
with 89 goals. - The winner of the 1928 Brownlow MedalBrownlow MedalThe Chas Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal , is awarded to the "fairest and best" player in the Australian Football League during the regular season as determined by votes cast by the officiating field umpires after each game...
was Ivor Warne-SmithIvor Warne-SmithIvor Warne-Smith , was an Australian footballer, who played for the Melbourne Football Club in the Victorian Football League and for the Latrobe Football Club in the North-Western Football Union in Tasmania...
of MelbourneMelbourne Football ClubThe Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....
with 8 votes. - HawthornHawthorn Football ClubThe Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club in the Australian Football League . The club, founded in 1902, is the youngest of the Victorian-based teams in the AFL. The team play in Brown & Gold vertically striped guernseys...
took the "wooden spoonWooden spoon (award)A wooden spoon is a mock or real award, usually given to an individual or team which has come last in a competition, but sometimes also to runners-up. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous events...
" in 1928.
Notable events
- One of the most unusual games was played at Corio Oval in round 6, between FitzroyFitzroy Football ClubThe Fitzroy Football Club, formerly nicknamed The Lions, is an Australian rules football club formed in 1883 to represent the inner Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria and was a foundation member club of the Victorian Football League on its inception in 1897...
and GeelongGeelong Football ClubThe Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...
. The game finished with Fitzroy scoring only 2.27 (39), hitting the goalposts 5 times, and only scoring their final goal in time on of the fourth quarter. With 25 more behinds than goals, this remains the least accurate performance from any team under this category. Geelong, on the other hand, scored 19.8 (122). Geelong had two fewer scoring shots than the Maroons, but won by eighty-three points; this remains the record winning margin for a team with fewer scoring shots than the opponent. - The VFL changes its definition of the holding-the-ball rule, so that a player must now be held, rather than bumped, clutched at or touched.
- In the round 7 match between RichmondRichmond Football ClubThe Richmond Football Club, nicknamed The Tigers, is an Australian rules football club which competes in the Australian Football League. Richmond shares healthy rivalries with Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon. After winning five premierships between 1967 and 1980, the club hit the depths in 1990,...
and GeelongGeelong Football ClubThe Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...
that was played under atrocious weather conditions on a slushy, wet Punt Road OvalPunt Road OvalPunt Road Oval is a sporting ground located in Yarra Park, East Melbourne, Victoria situated only a few hundred metres to the east of the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground....
, Richmond players wear fingerless gloves (mittens) to help them control the slippery football. - In round 13 CollingwoodCollingwood Football ClubThe Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
finishes the match with only 16 players on the field, increasing the pressure on the VFL to allow clubs to replace injured players. - On Saturday 16 June, three separate VFL combined teams played representative matches at three different locations, the first VFL team beat a Combined Ovens and Murray Football LeagueOvens & Murray Football LeagueThe Ovens and Murray Football League, often referred to locally as the O&M, is a semi-professional Australian rules football league based around ten clubs in north-eastern Victoria and the southern Riverina region of New South Wales, and affiliated with the Victorian Country Football League...
side 16.15 (111) to 15.14 (106) at Wangaratta, VictoriaWangaratta, VictoriaWangaratta is a cathedral city of almost 17,000 people in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, about from Melbourne along the Hume Highway, with Benalla to the southwest, and Albury-Wodonga to the northeast. It is located at the junction of the Ovens and King rivers which flow from the...
, the second beat a Combined New South Wales Australian Football AssociationSydney AFLThe "AFL Sydney" is an Australian rules football League, based in metropolitan Sydney, Australia.The AFL Sydney competition comprises 21 clubs playing across 5 senior divisions with 2 under 18 competitions.-History:...
side 26.13 (169) to 14.11 (96) at the Sydney Cricket GroundSydney Cricket GroundThe Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
, and the third drew with a Combined South Australian Football LeagueSouth Australian National Football LeagueThe South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia....
team 13.10 (88) to 11.22 (88) in AdelaideAdelaideAdelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, once an incorrectly attributed behind had been deducted from Victoria's scoreboard score by the goal umpires. - The Second Semi-Final match between CollingwoodCollingwood Football ClubThe Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
and MelbourneMelbourne Football ClubThe Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....
finished in a draw, the first draw in the history of VFL finals. The draw meant that the game was replayed the following week, giving Richmond a second bye week. Richmond would ultimately lose the season's Premiership match to a battle-hardened Collingwood by 33 points: 13.18 (96) to 9.9 (63).