1912 VFA season

The 1912 Victorian Football Association season was the 36th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won for the second consecutive time by the Essendon (Association) Football Club, after it defeated Footscray in the Grand Final by 21 points on 28 September. It was the club's second and last VFA premiership.

1912 premiership season
Teams10
PremiersEssendon (A.)
(2nd premiership)
Minor premiersFootscray
(2nd minor premiership)

Association membership

After several years of unsuccessful on-field performances by both clubs, the Association was keen to see an amalgamation between the Preston and Northcote clubs;[1] amalgamations between the two clubs, which represented neighbouring northern suburbs of Melbourne, had been mooted on several occasions since 1908, even before Northcote had joined the Association.[2][3] For the first few years of their amalgamation, the club was formally known as the Northcote and Preston Football Club;[4] but, it played its games in Northcote, retained Northcote's colours, and its team in the VFA was known as Northcote.[5] The merged entity is considered a continuation of the Northcote Football Club.

At the same time, the Association had been keen for many years to field a team in the inner city, an area historically dominated by League clubs. This vision was finally realised in 1912, with the establishment of the Melbourne City Football Club, which played its games at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground.[6]

With these two changes, the size of the Association remained constant at ten teams.

Rule changes

The Association reduced the number of players on the field seventeen-a-side to sixteen-a-side in 1912.[7] The change came only four years after reducing the numbers from eighteen to seventeen in 1908.[8]

Premiership

The home-and-home season was played over eighteen rounds, with each club playing the others twice; then, the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder
1912 VFA Ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Footscray 18 15 3 0 1559 900 173.2 60
2 North Melbourne 18 15 3 0 1269 907 139.7 60
3 Essendon (P) 18 13 5 0 1458 867 168.2 52
4 Brunswick 18 11 7 0 1140 1082 105.4 44
5 Brighton 18 10 8 0 1111 1085 102.4 40
6 Port Melbourne 18 8 10 0 985 1086 90.7 32
7 Williamstown 18 7 11 0 1027 1115 91.9 28
8 Northcote 18 6 12 0 1030 1230 83.7 24
9 Prahran 18 5 13 0 1125 1327 84.8 20
10 Melbourne City 18 0 18 0 762 1866 40.8 0
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points Source[9]

Finals
Semi Finals
Saturday, 24 August North Melbourne 9.6 (60) drew with Brunswick 9.6 (60) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 15,000) [10]
Saturday, 31 August Footscray 6.12 (48) def. by Essendon 10.11 (71) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 20,000) [11]
Saturday, 7 September North Melbourne 6.12 (48) drew with Brunswick 6.12 (48) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 11,000) [12]
Saturday, 14 September North Melbourne 12.11 (83) def. Brunswick 9.14 (68) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 11,000) [13]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 21 September North Melbourne 14.14 (98) def. by Essendon 16.6 (102) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 20,000) [14]
1912 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 28 September Footscray def. by Essendon North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 25,000) [15]
1.2 (8)
2.7 (19)
2.9 (21)
 5.11 (41)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 2.3 (15)
3.6 (24)
7.8 (50)
 9.8 (62)		 Umpires: Kendall
Banbury, Borthwick, Cotton, Craddock, Knight Goals Clarke 3, McNamara 3, Hoare, Lewis, Sevior

Notable events

Interstate matches

A representative Association team toured Broken Hill in June and July, playing two matches against a Barrier Ranges Football Association representative team. Jack McKenzie (Brunswick) was captain of the Association team.

1912 Interstate Matches
Saturday, 29 June Barrier Ranges 8.12 (60) def. by Victoria (VFA) 9.16 (70) Jubilee Oval, Broken Hill (crowd: 5,000) [16]
Wednesday, 3 July (morning) Barrier Ranges 8.10 (58) def. Victoria (VFA) 6.6 (42) Jubilee Oval, Broken Hill [17]

Other notable events
  • Dave McNamara (Essendon) set two new Association goalkicking records during the season. On 20 July, he kicked eighteen goals against Melbourne City, setting a new record for most goals in a game.[18] Then he set a new record for most goals in a season, kicking 107 goals in all matches (including finals) to break his own record of 81 goals from 1911. So dominant was McNamara that he kicked more goals than the next best two players combined.[19]
  • The semi-final between North Melbourne and Brunswick on 24 August finished as a draw, the first ever VFA final to finish as such. A replay was scheduled for two weeks later (the week after the other scheduled semi-final). The replay was also drawn, so another replay was held the following week.
  • The premiership trophy, which had first been presented in 1910, was awarded permanently to the Essendon (A.) Football Club.[15] The trophy was to be awarded to the first team to win it either three times overall, or twice consecutively.[20]

References
  1. "Preston's weak team". The Argus. Melbourne. 16 September 1911. p. 17.
  2. "Football – City of Melbourne Club". The Argus. Melbourne. 3 November 1908. p. 7.
  3. Old Boy (9 September 1910). "Football – the semi-finals". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 4.
  4. "Football – Northcote and Preston Club". The Argus. Melbourne. 14 March 1913. p. 9.
  5. "Football". Weekly Times. Melbourne, VIC. 20 April 1912. p. 22.
  6. "Brevities". The Independent. Footscray, VIC. 25 November 1911. p. 2.
  7. Old Boy (4 April 1912). "Thursday, 4 April, 1912". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  8. "Football Reform – seventeen a-side". The Argus. Melbourne. 18 April 1908. p. 12.
  9. Old Boy (19 August 1912). "Football – South Melbourne's victory". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 10.
  10. Old Boy (26 August 1912). "Association Semi-Final – a drawn game". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 16.
  11. Old Boy (2 September 1912). "Association Semi-Final – Footscray beaten". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 5.
  12. Old Boy (9 September 1912). "The second tie – a desperate game". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 5.
  13. Old Boy (16 September 1912). "Association Semi-Final – the third trial". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  14. Old Boy (23 September 1912). "The Association Game – Essendon's great victory". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  15. Old Boy (30 September 1912). "The Association – Essendon premiers". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  16. "Interstate football". The Barrier Miner. Broken Hill, NSW. 1 July 1912. p. 6.
  17. "Victorians at Broken Hill". The Argus. Melbourne. 4 July 1912. p. 10.
  18. "The country week". Western Mail. Perth, WA. 27 July 1912. p. 29.
  19. Old Boy (30 September 1912). "Leading Goalkickers". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.
  20. "Grand Final – North Melbourne v. Brunswick". North Melbourne Courier and West Melbourne Chronicle. Melbourne. 14 October 1910. p. 3.
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