1929 VFL season

In 1929, 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 1929 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".

All of the 1929 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.

Collingwood defeated Richmond 11.13 (79) to 7.8 (50), in front of a crowd of 63,336 people at the MCG 28 September.

• The leading goalkicker was Gordon Coventry of Collingwood

• The 1929 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Gordon Coventry of Collingwood with 124 goals.
• The winner of the 1929 Brownlow Medal was Albert "Leeter" Collier of Collingwood with 6 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1929.
• The seconds premiership was won by Richmond. Richmond 12.8 (80) defeated Geelong 7.15 (57) in the challenge Grand Final, played as a stand-alone game on Thursday 26 September (Show Day holiday) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a crowd of 6,544.[1]

• Collingwood set many records during the 1929 season, including:
  • First team to remain undefeated through an entire home-and away season (never matched, although Essendon came close – with just one loss – in 2000). However, given that they lost the second semi-final to Richmond, they were not undefeated for the entire season.
  • In three seasons, 1927, 1928, and 1929, the team had played 61 matches, for 53 wins, 1 draw, and 7 losses.
  • First team to score more than 2,000 points in a single season.
  • First team to have a full-forward scoring more than 100 goals in a single season.
  • First team to have a player kick 16 goals in a single match.
  • First team to be VFL premiers on eight occasions.
• On 18 June 1929 the VFL was incorporated as a public company, and it purchased a three-storey building (later named Harrison House after Henry Harrison who died later that year, on 2 September) on the corner of Spring Street and Flinders Lane.
• Clarrie Hearn of Essendon won the 1929 130-yard Stawell Gift in eleven and fifteen sixteenths of a second (approx. 11.94 seconds), off a handicap of 10 yards.
• Footscray's 23 effective scoring shots (7 goals and 16 behinds) against Hawthorn in the third quarter of their Round 6 match remains the most scoring shots by a team in one quarter.
  • Footscray's 16 behinds in that quarter has been equalled only by Collingwood against North Melbourne in the third quarter in the same round of 1970.

• 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
• 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

• 1929 Season - AFL Tables