1912 VFL season

In 1912, the VFL competition consisted of ten 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.

Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1912 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".

All of the 1912 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.

Essendon defeated South Melbourne 5.17 (47) to 4.9 (33), in front of a crowd of 54,436 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

• The 1912 VFL Premiership team was Essendon.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Harry Brereton of Melbourne with 56 goals.
• University took the "wooden spoon" in 1912.

• On 27 April 1912, the first issue of the VFL's Football Record was published.[1]
• For the first time, all VFL players wore a number on the back of their guernsey. The number designated the player himself, rather than his position and, in most cases, he played his entire career with the same number on his back (however, if he changed clubs, his number would also alter).
• University's Round 3 victory over Richmond was ultimately to be the last win in the VFL club's history. University would go on to lose its next 51 matches (including two winless seasons in 1913 and 1914), a VFL/AFL record, before they dropped out of the competition.
• South Australia defeated Victoria 9.8 (62) to 6.7 (43) in Adelaide on 10 August 1912.[1]
• In a match against Collingwood, Essendon's Dan Hanley was impeded from taking part in a contest for the ball along one of the boundary lines, when a boundary umpire grasped him by the hand. There were no "official" witnesses to this incredible incident, and the boundary umpire went unpunished.
• The captains of the two 1912 Second Semi-Final teams, Allan Belcher of Essendon and Vic Belcher of South Melbourne, were brothers. This is a VFL/AFL record.
• VFL decided to appoint two stewards to each match. They had the power to report players.[1] They wear an all-white uniform, with the word "Steward" in red on their breast.[1]

• 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

• 1912 Season - AFL Tables