1931 VFL season

1931 VFL Premiership season
George 'Jocka' Todd
Teams	12
Premiers	Geelong (2nd premiership)
Minor Premiers	Geelong (4th minor premiership)
Matches played	112
Highest attendance	60,712
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	Harry Vallence (Carlton)
Brownlow Medallist	Haydn Bunton, Sr. (Fitzroy)
← 1930 1932 →

Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1931.

Premiership season

In 1931, 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 1931 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page-McIntyre System. This was the first season to feature the new finals format, with the league predominantly using variations of the Argus System over the previous thirty seasons.^[1]

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 6 was a split round, but the two halves of the round were unusually played almost three weeks apart. Three matches played on King's Birthday Monday (8 June), and the other three matches played Saturday 27 June – the Saturday between Rounds 8 and 9. This means that six teams played their Round 7 and 8 matches before their Round 6 match.^[2]

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Ladder

Finals

All of the 1931 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.

Semi finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final

Geelong defeated Richmond 9.14 (68) to 7.6 (48), in front of a crowd of 60,712 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

• The 1931 VFL Premiership team was Geelong.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Harry "Soapy" Vallence of Carlton with 86 goals.
• In his first VFL season, and only 20 years old, the winner of the 1931 Brownlow Medal was Haydn Bunton, Sr of Fitzroy with 26 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1931.

Notable events

• The VFL changed its Brownlow Medal voting procedure. The field umpire now voted for the three "fairest and best" on the ground in each match, casting 3, 2, and 1 votes. If there was a tie, the player with the most "3" votes would be declared the winner.
• The VFL altered the manner in which it determined its premiership team. Abandoning the "amended Argus system" that had operated from 1902 to 1930 (except in 1924), the VFL instituted the Page-McIntyre "Final Four" system which, amongst other innovations, guaranteed that there would be a "Grand Final" at the end of every season (this system continued to operate until 1972).
• In round 2, Richmond set the record for highest score in a game, scoring 30.19.199 against North Melbourne. This beat South Melbourne's 1919 record by ten points, and remained unbeaten until 1969.
• In round 12, Carlton rover Tommy Downs is reported for kicking Richmond captain Maurie Hunter; despite the efforts of one R. G. Menzies, K.C., Downs was suspended for the remainder of the 1931 season and the whole of the 1932 season.
• In the first Semi-Final, Carlton thrashes Collingwood 20.10 (130) to 5.12 (42). Harry "Soapy" Vallence, at full-forward for Carlton kicks a (Finals) record 11 goals, including six in the last quarter. Vallance would have had 12 goals if his last shot (the last kick in the match) had not hit the goal-post, and only counted as a "behind".
• The Round 17 match between St. Kilda and Collingwood is the first where both sides scored twenty goals. Both Bill Mohr and Gordon Coventry kicked eleven goals. Coventry was the first to kick ten for a losing side.

See also

• Page-McIntyre "Final Four" system

References

• Hogan, P., The Tigers Of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN 0-646-18748-1
• 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

External links

• 1931 Season - AFL Tables