1980 VFL season

North Melbourne defeated Collingwood 8.9 (57) to 7.12 (54) in the final.

Richmond defeated Collingwood 23.21 (159) to 9.24 (78), in front of a crowd of 113,461 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

• The leading goal kicker was Michael Roach of Richmond with 112 goals
• The Brownlow Medal was won by Footscray's Kelvin Templeton
• The Richmond Football Club set a record that, as yet, has not been beaten: the club's three full-forwards each kicked more than 100 goals in the 1980 season.
  • The full-forward of its Senior team, Michael Roach, kicked 112 goals.
  • The full-forward of its Reserve team, Mark Jackson, kicked 131 goals (a record for the Reserve competition).
  • The full-forward of its Under-19 team, Peter Lane, kicked 116 goals.
• The reserves premiership was won by Geelong. Geelong 24.15 (159) defeated South Melbourne 19.12 (126) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 27 September.[1]

• Following persistent wrestling between ruckmen Peter Moore and Gary Dempsey at centre bounces during the 1979 Preliminary Final between Collingwood and North Melbourne, the VFL introduced for the 1980 season a dividing line drawn across the centre circle in the wing-to-wing direction; under the new rules, each ruckman was forced to begin and run from his side of the line at a centre bounce, to eliminate wrestling.[2] The rule was officially adopted at the national level in November 1982.[3]
• In Round 4, Essendon's Phil Carman was reported for striking St. Kilda's Garry Sidebottom and headbutting boundary umpire Graham Carberry at Windy Hill. He was suspended for a total of 20 matches—4 for striking Sidebottom and 16 for headbutting Carberry.
• North Melbourne's Kerry Good scored the winning goal after the final siren had sounded in the 1980 Escort Championships Night Grand Final at VFL Park—a goal that was highly controversial as the umpires had not heard the siren seconds before Kerry Good had marked the ball from a kick by Malcolm Blight. Collingwood lost the match by only three points.
• The league threatened to kick Footscray off the Western Oval and force it to play its games away from home, after the Footscray Council granted the Footscray J.U.S.T. (a soccer team playing in the NSL) a lease to play games at the ground on Sundays – in defiance of a League stipulation that League grounds could not be shared with other codes during winter. In the end, Footscray-J.U.S.T. played most of its games elsewhere, and the League was not forced to follow through on its ultimatum.[4]
• On 5 July, the VFL put together three separate Victorian representative teams to compete in different interstate games. The No. 1 team recorded a 21-point victory against Western Australia at VFL Park, and the No. 2 team recorded an 80-point win against Queensland at the Gabba; but, the No. 3 team suffered an upset 13-point loss against the A.C.T. at Manuka Oval, prompting league president Dr Allan Aylett to describe it as the worst team ever to represent Victoria.[5]
• 1980 was the first season in which neither of the top two teams of the home-and-away season reached the Grand Final. It would be the only such instance for nearly four decades, until the 2019 AFL season.
• To date, this is the only season in which the bottom placed side scored more points during the home & away season than the top finishing side.

• McIntyre "Final Five" system

• Stephen Rogers and Ashley Brown (1998). Every Game Ever Played. 6th ed. Victoria: Penguin Books.