1982 VFL season

The Swans defeated North Melbourne 13.12 (90) to 8.10 (58) in the final.

• McIntyre "Final Five" system

• The leading goalkicker was Malcolm Blight of North Melbourne with 94 goals.
• The Brownlow Medal was won by Brian Wilson.
• The inaugural VFL Players Association Most Valuable Player Award was won by Leigh Matthews. In 2002, the award was renamed the Leigh Matthews Trophy in his honour.
• The reserves premiership was won by Geelong for the third consecutive season. Geelong 19.18 (132) defeated St Kilda 12.11 (83) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 25 September.[2]

• South Melbourne, affected by limited finances and loss of its inner-city support base ever since World War II, relocated to Sydney after experimental matches played by the VFL there since 1979. Early in the season, the team was still formally known as South Melbourne, although it marketed itself as 'Sydney Swans' in Sydney; on 2 June, the team formally became known as 'the Swans' for the remainder of the season,[3] before formally becoming the 'Sydney Swans' in 1983.[4]
• From 4 May, patrons were banned from bringing alcoholic beverages into VFL matches, and were limited to purchasing at most two pre-opened cans at a time from vendors at the ground.[5]
• Owing to the extreme drought and consequent firm grounds, the 1982 season remains the highest-scoring on record. Among the records were:
  • an average game score of 112 points; the next highest average score in a season was 106 points in 1979 and 1983
  • St Kilda and Footscray became the only teams ever to concede 3,000 points in one season
  • 66 scores of 20 goals occurred, a record equalled only in 1991
  • 57 matches where both teams scored more than 100 points - no other season had more than fifty such matches
  • Round 10 is the only round in VFL/AFL history in which every team scored 100 or more points.
• In Round 16 against North Melbourne, Hawthorn set record scores of 13.3 (81) for the first quarter and 20.7 (127) for the first half. The former record stood until 2011, and the latter stood until 2004.
• After a negative response from the players since its introduction in 1980, the VFL abandoned the practice of presenting runners-up medals to the losing team as part of the Grand Final post-match presentation.[6]
• In Round 18, Leigh Matthews ran into and broke a behind post at Windy Hill.
• Early in the season, the VFL arranged for the Grand Finalists to play a rematch as a demonstration sport at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, held in Brisbane shortly after the season was finished.[7] Carlton and Richmond played the exhibition match at the Gabba on Wednesday, 6 October, and Richmond won the high-scoring match 28.16 (184) to 26.10 (166).[8]

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