The 1966 VFL season was the 70th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 23 April until 24 September, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.
| 1966 VFL premiership season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 12 |
| Premiers | St Kilda 1st premiership |
| Minor premiers | Collingwood 13th minor premiership |
| Consolation series | North Melbourne 2nd Consolation series win |
| Brownlow Medallist | Ian Stewart (St Kilda) |
| Coleman Medallist | Ted Fordham (Essendon) |
| Matches played | 112 |
| Highest | 102,055 |
The premiership was won by the St Kilda Football Club, after it defeated Collingwood by one point in the VFL Grand Final. It was St Kilda's first premiership, making it the last of the eight foundation clubs to win a premiership.
Background edit
In 1966, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.
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 1966 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.
Home-and-away season edit
Round 1 edit
Round 2 edit
Round 3 edit
Round 4 edit
Round 5 edit
Round 6 edit
Round 7 edit
Round 8 edit
Round 9 edit
Round 10 edit
Round 11 edit
Round 12 edit
Round 13 edit
Round 14 edit
Round 15 edit
Round 16 edit
Round 17 edit
Round 18 edit
Ladder edit
| (P) | Premiers |
| Qualified for finals |
| # | Team | P | W | L | D | PF | PA | % | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Collingwood | 18 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 1687 | 1073 | 157.2 | 60 |
| 2 | St Kilda (P) | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1641 | 1149 | 142.8 | 56 |
| 3 | Geelong | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1599 | 1162 | 137.6 | 56 |
| 4 | Essendon | 18 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 1457 | 1204 | 121.0 | 56 |
| 5 | Richmond | 18 | 13 | 4 | 1 | 1626 | 1320 | 123.2 | 54 |
| 6 | Carlton | 18 | 10 | 8 | 0 | 1233 | 1143 | 107.9 | 40 |
| 7 | North Melbourne | 18 | 7 | 10 | 1 | 1294 | 1381 | 93.7 | 30 |
| 8 | South Melbourne | 18 | 7 | 11 | 0 | 1486 | 1505 | 98.7 | 28 |
| 9 | Hawthorn | 18 | 5 | 13 | 0 | 1224 | 1650 | 74.2 | 20 |
| 10 | Footscray | 18 | 4 | 14 | 0 | 1004 | 1458 | 68.9 | 16 |
| 11 | Melbourne | 18 | 3 | 15 | 0 | 1235 | 1580 | 78.2 | 12 |
| 12 | Fitzroy | 18 | 1 | 17 | 0 | 1004 | 1865 | 53.8 | 4 |
Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 76.3
Source: AFL Tables
Finals series edit
Semi-finals edit
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geelong | 3.4 | 3.5 | 7.9 | 12.14 (86) |
| Essendon | 6.1 | 10.5 | 13.6 | 15.6 (96) |
| Attendance: 93,765 |
| Second Semi-final | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 September 2:30pm | Collingwood | def. | St Kilda | MCG (crowd: 95,614) | |
| 5.2 (32) 6.3 (39) 10.5 (65) 15.9 (99) |
Q1 Q2 Q3 Final |
0.1 (1) 6.5 (41) 10.9 (69) 13.11 (89) |
Umpires: L. Perkins Television broadcast: Seven Network | ||
| Tuddenham 7 Searl, Wallis, Graham 2 Richardson, Price 1 |
Goals | 3 Payze 2 Smith, Baldock, Neale 1 Mynott, Oakley, Cooper, Breen | |||
| Waters, Tuddenham, Wallis, Potter, K. Rose, Patterson, Clark, Montgomery, W. Richardson | Best | Murray, Morrow, Cooper, Breen, Smith, Payze, Griffiths, Synman | |||
Preliminary final edit
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Kilda | 4.1 | 10.2 | 10.2 | 15.4 (94) |
| Essendon[1] | 2.4 | 3.4 | 3.9 | 7.10 (52) |
| Attendance: 93,453 |
Grand final edit
| Team | 1 Qtr | 2 Qtr | 3 Qtr | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Collingwood | 2.1 | 5.7 | 7.11 | 10.13 (73) |
| St Kilda | 2.5 | 5.6 | 8.9 | 10.14 (74) |
| Attendance: 102,055 |
Night Series Competition edit
The night series were held under the floodlights at Lake Oval, South Melbourne, for the teams (5th to 12th on ladder) out of the finals at the end of the season.
Final: North Melbourne 20.12 (132) defeated Hawthorn 12.7 (79).
Season notes edit
- At pre-season training in mid-April, at the behest of Collingwood coach Bob Rose, Collingwood club secretary Jack Burns informed Duncan Wright that his services were no longer required at Collingwood. (See Duncan Wright and John Somerville.)
- Richmond, under coach Tom Hafey, trained pre-season with Percy Cerutty at his facilities in Portsea, Victoria.
- In the Round 14 match between Carlton and Fitzroy, there was a once-off trial of a rule to ease congestion at centre bounces: a rectangle measuring 30yds goal-to-goal and 50yds wing-to-wing was drawn in the centre of the ground, and no more than four players from each team were permitted within the rectangle at a centre bounce.[2] The rule was trialled again, with the area expanded to a 50yd square, during the Night Series,[3] and it was eventually introduced as a permanent rule change in 1973.[4]
- In Round 17, Fitzroy hosted its last senior VFL match at the Brunswick Street Oval, its home ground since 1883. A total of 612 VFL matches were played at the venue, including four finals games. Fitzroy began its nomadic journey of playing at various grounds over the next thirty years following its departure from Brunswick Street: Princes Park (twice), Junction Oval, Victoria Park, and Western (Whitten) Oval.
- After the home-and-away season was finished, Richmond's reserves and under-19s teams were stripped of any premiership points earned in matches in which they fielded Frank Loughran, an unregistered player from the Latrobe Valley. The reserves team, which went through the entire season undefeated, was stripped of twelve premiership points; it fell from first to second on the ladder, but still went on to win the premiership. The under-19s team was stripped of 28 premiership points, and dropped out of the final four as a result.[5]
- At the end of the season South Melbourne's captain-coach, Bob Skilton, resigned as coach in the belief that he could do more for the club by continuing to lead the players on the field.
Awards edit
- The 1966 VFL Premiership team was St. Kilda (its first, and to date, only premiership since the VFL's formation in 1897).
- The VFL's leading goalkicker was Ted Fordham of Essendon who kicked 76 goals (including 3 goals in the final series).
- The winner of the 1966 Brownlow Medal was Ian Stewart of St Kilda with 21 votes.
- Fitzroy took the "wooden spoon" in 1966.
- The reserves premiership was won by Richmond. Richmond 14.11 (95) defeated Collingwood 13.12 (90) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 24 September.[6]
References edit
- ^ Of the twenty players selected to play for Essendon, (see [1]) twelve of them – Greg Brown, Jack Clarke, Barry Davis, Kevin Egan, Ted Fordham, Ken Fraser, Darryl Gerlach, Geoff Gosper, Graeme Johnston, Don McKenzie, Hugh Mitchell, and Geoff Pryor – had grown up in the Essendon district (also, another two "locals", Russell Blew, and Barry Capuano had played and five and six senior games, respectively, that season) (see [2]).
- ^ Bob Crimeen (1 August 1966). "Angle on rectangle". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 42.
- ^ "New rules in night series". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 18 August 1966. p. 46.
- ^ "Rule changes 1858-2013". Australian Football League. Archived from the original on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
- ^ "Richmond out of under-19 four". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 31 August 1966. p. 63.
- ^ Rex Pullen (26 September 1966). "Hart clinched Tigers' win". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 42.
- Hogan, P., The Tigers of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN 0-646-18748-1
- 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
- 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
- Strevens, S., Bob Rose: A Dignified Life, Allen & Unwin, (Crows Nest), 2004. ISBN 1-74114-465-5
Sources edit
- 1966 VFL season at AFL Tables
- 1966 VFL season at Australian Football