1939 VFA season

1939 VFA season
Williamstown – 1939 VFA premiers
Overview
Date15 April – 7 October 1939
Teams12
PremiersWilliamstown
3rd premiership
Runners-upBrunswick
7th runners-up result
Minor premiersPrahran
2nd minor premiership
Recorder CupPat Hartnett
(Brighton – 5 votes)
VFA MedalArthur Cutting
(Williamstown – 32½ votes)
Leading goalkickerGeorge Hawkins
(Prahran – 164 goals)
Attendance
Matches played124
Total attendance591,050[1]
Highest (finals)47,098 (Grand Final, Brunswick vs Williamstown)

The 1939 VFA season was the 61st season of the Victorian Football Association (VFA).

Williamstown won the premiership for the third time, defeating Brunswick by nine points in the 1939 VFA Grand Final. The result was a strong revival for Williamstown, which had won the wooden spoon in 1938.

Home-and-away season

The home-and-home season was played over twenty matches, a large increase from 1938 when sixteen matches were played, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the Page–McIntyre system to determine the premiers for the season. This pushed the end of the season into October, the weekend after the Victorian Football League Grand Final. It became standard for the VFA Grand Final to be scheduled for the weekend after the VFL Grand Final until 1963.

Ladder

Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PP Pts
1 Prahran 20 15 5 0 2427 1849 131.3 60
2 Brunswick 20 15 5 0 2263 1751 129.2 60
3 Northcote 20 14 6 0 1918 1549 123.8 56
4 Williamstown (P) 20 14 6 0 2173 1773 122.6 56
5 Camberwell 20 13 7 0 2361 2045 115.5 52
6 Brighton 20 11 9 0 2087 1987 105.0 44
7 Coburg 20 10 10 0 2084 1958 106.4 40
8 Preston 20 9 11 0 1810 1854 97.6 36
9 Yarraville 20 7 13 0 1888 2462 76.7 28
10 Sandringham 20 6 14 0 1995 2131 93.6 24
11 Port Melbourne 20 5 15 0 1715 2293 74.8 20
12 Oakleigh 20 1 19 0 1728 2797 61.8 4
Source: [2]
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Finals

Semi-finals

Semi-finals
Saturday, 16 September Northcote 10.14 (74) def. by Williamstown 11.14 (80) Toorak Park (crowd: 11,000) [3]
Saturday, 23 September Prahran 16.13 (109) def. by Brunswick 16.17 (113) Toorak Park (crowd: 10,000) [4]

Preliminary final

Preliminary final
Saturday, 30 September Prahran 16.18 (114) def. by Williamstown 17.19 (121) Toorak Park (crowd: 14,000) [5]

Grand Final

1939 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 7 October Brunswick def. by Williamstown Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 47,098) [6]
4.5 (29)
8.7 (55)
11.11 (77)
14.11 (95) 		Q1
Q2
Q3
Final 		3.2 (20)
4.9 (33)
12.15 (87)
14.20 (104)
Crawford 4, McInnes 4, Jones 3, Dowling, McGrath, McKay Goals Vallence 5, Jamieson 2, Paterson 2, Thomas 2, McTaggart, Menzies, Quinn

Awards

  • George Hawkins (Prahran) was the leading goalkicker for the season, kicking 150 goals in the home-and-home season and 164 goals overall. Hawkins broke Frank Seymour's Association record of 130 goals in a season; he also exceeded Western Australian forward George Doig's national record of 152 goals in a season, although it was not recognised as a national record because the Association was not playing under ANFC rules at the time.[2][4][5]
  • In the parallel Association best and fairest awards:
  • Coburg won the seconds premiership. Coburg 11.22 (88) defeated Port Melbourne 7.7 (49) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the seniors Grand Final on Saturday 7 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[6]

Notable events

  • All matches on 26 August were postponed by one week due to heavy rain on the Friday night, coupled with persistent waterlogging throughout winter, making many grounds unplayable.[8]
  • On 2 September, Brunswick 37.16 (238) defeated Oakleigh 7.10 (52) by 186 points. The score set a new record for the highest score ever in an Association match, beating Hawthorn's record of 30.31 (211) set in 1922.[9][10]
  • With the high scores from the throw pass, five separate players – Hawkins, Harry Vallence (Williamstown), Harold Jones (Brunswick), Lance Collins (Coburg) and Laurie Nash (Camberwell) – kicked more than 100 goals for the season.[11]
  • The fact that the Association had moved the end of the season to the week after the VFL grand final, coupled with the postponement of 26 August's matches, resulted in a scheduling clash between the football finals and preparations for the district cricket season. The Association scheduled the preliminary final for Toorak Park, where most finals had been held for the previous four seasons; but, the Prahran Cricket Club, which held the lease, refused to allow the match to be played, as it wanted to topdress the ground so that it was ready for the start of the cricket season on 7 October; the club was concerned that it would be excluded from the Victorian Cricket Association if the ground was not ready. The Prahran City Council, which leased the ground to the cricket club, preferred to see the high-drawing football final played on the ground, and overruled the cricket club to ensure that the game was played at Toorak Park. Both sides believed that the terms of the lease put them in the legal right.[12] In the week leading up to the final, the cricket club's curator began to harrow the field, and was removed – allegedly physically – by representatives of the council.[13] The cricket club took the council to court to seek an injunction against the preliminary final being played at Toorak Park, but it was not granted and the match went ahead as scheduled.[14]
  • In the preliminary final, Williamstown opened a 43-point advantage early in the final quarter, before Prahran kicked eight of the next nine goals over the next twelve minutes to bring the margin back to one point. In the final minutes, Hawkins kicked a goal (his fifth for the quarter) to put Prahran ahead, before Williamstown goals in the final minute to Vallence and Jamieson restored the lead and a seven-point victory.[15]
  • The grand ginal attracted an all-time Association record attendance of 47,098,[6] despite drizzly weather.[16] The attendance broke the record set in the 1908 Grand Final.[17]
  • On Saturday 14 October, Coburg played an exhibition match against a combined team from Tasmania's North Western Football Association – a competition which had adopted the Association's throw-pass rule – at Devonport Oval in front of a large crowd. Coburg 21.23 (149) defeated the NWFA 7.8 (50).[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "VFA Crowd Numbers where Known". The VFA Project. Archived from the original on 26 September 2025. Retrieved 26 September 2025.
  2. ^ a b Rover (11 September 1939). "Williamstown in four; Prahran at top". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 13.
  3. ^ a b Rover (18 September 1939). "Northcote loses – exciting game". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 15.
  4. ^ a b Rover (25 September 1939). "Brunswick's fine win". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  5. ^ a b Rover (2 October 1939). "Gallant win by W'Town". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 13.
  6. ^ a b c Percy Taylor (9 October 1939). "Williamstown triumphs". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 12.
  7. ^ "Cutting wins medal". The Argus. Melbourne. 14 September 1939. p. 18.
  8. ^ C. H. Gardner (28 August 1939). "Blank Saturday for football public". The Sun News-Pictorial. p. 19.
  9. ^ Rover (4 September 1939). "V.F.A. four decided". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11. Reference erroneously states the previous record was set in 1924; a contemporary news report indicates it was set in 1922.
  10. ^ "Prahran's debacle". The Argus. Melbourne. 7 August 1922. p. 12.
  11. ^ Atkinson, Graeme and Hanlon, Michael; 3AW Book of Footy Records: All the Great Players, Matches, Goals, Kicks, Brawls and Sensations from More Than 100 Years of Aussie Rules in Australia; p. 148. ISBN 1863210091
  12. ^ "Fight for ground". The Argus. Melbourne. 12 September 1939. p. 12.
  13. ^ "Football or cricket?". The Argus. Melbourne. 28 September 1939. p. 16.
  14. ^ "Association final at Toorak Park". The Argus. Melbourne. 30 September 1939. p. 12.
  15. ^ Fowler, Xavier (2024), The Football War: the VFA and VFL's Battle for Supremacy, Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, p. 110–111
  16. ^ Old Boy (14 October 1939). "Australian Football problems". The Australasian. Melbourne. p. 11.
  17. ^ "Victory premiership to Williamstown". Williamstown Chronicle. Williamstown, VIC. 12 October 1945. p. 2.
  18. ^ "Coburg shows throw pass". The Argus, Supplement. Melbourne. 16 October 1939. p. 5.
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