1935 VFL season

Infobox VFL Premiership Season
year = 1935


imagesize = 120px
caption = Premiership player Keith Stackpole
teams = 12
premiers = AFL Col
count = 10th
minor premiers = South Melbourne
mpcount = 4th
matches =
top goal scorer = Bob Pratt South Melbourne
brownlow medalist = Haydn Bunton, Sr. (AFL Fit)

Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1935.

Premiership season

In 1935, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th 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 1935 VFL "Premiers" were determined by the specific format and conventions of the "Page-McIntyre system".

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Grand Final

"See List of Australian Football League premiers for a complete list."

Collingwood defeated South Melbourne 11.12 (78) to 7.16 (58), in front of a crowd of 54,154 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Ladder

Awards

* The 1935 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
* The VFL's leading goalkicker was Bob Pratt of South Melbourne with 97 goals (103 after finals).
* "The Argus" newspaper's "Player of the Year", Laurie Nash of South Melbourne, was declared 1935 Champion of the Season.
* The winner of the 1935 Brownlow Medal was Haydn Bunton, Sr of Fitzroy with 24 votes.
* North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1935.

Notable Events

* In February 1935, the VFL advances an emergency interest-free loan of ₤500 to the North Melbourne Football Club, which had not won a match since 19 August 1933.
* The VFL experiments with rubber footballs during pre-season practice matches. The experiment is an abject failure: the balls were found to floaat far too much in the air, and bounce far too much on the ground.
* On 30 March, a practice match between Richmond and South Melbourne is played at night, with a white ball, under electric light.
* On 27 April, the VFL decides that its "Schoolboy Tickets", which admit schoolboys to any match at any ground for an annual fee of five shillings, are to be renamed "School Tickets" and made available to any schoolgirl who may wish to purchase one for her own use.
* In the third quarter of the round 18 match between Essendon and Geelong, Geelong was clawing back Essendon's lead, when the Windy Hill ground was invaded by a swarm of schoolboys. A small balloon had drifted over the ground and had dropped small parachutes and papers, and the schoolboys invaded the ground to capture the "treasures" dropped from the balloon, oblivious of the fact that the match was still in progress. The match was delayed for some time before order was restored. Geelong lost its impetus. Essendon eventually won the match 14.23 (107) to 11.13 (79).
* At the end of the 1935 season, the Hawthorn Football Club is unable to make any of its contracted payments to its players (many of whom are unemployed and relying on the ₤3 weekly match fees to sustain their families).
* On 13 September, Haydn Bunton, Sr having won his third Brownlow Medal, comments that, in his view, the voting procedure unfairly favours players under the umpire's eye.
* On Grand Final eve, South Melbourne's champion full-forward Bob Pratt is hit by a brick truck when alighting from a tram. He is replaced in the team by Roy Moore. Neither Moore at full-forward nor Laurie Nash at centre half-forward scored a goal in the match; their opponents were Charlie Dibbs and Jack Regan respectively.

References

* Maplestone, M., "Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872-1996", Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN 0-959-17402-8
* 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

External links

* [http://stats.rleague.com/afl/seas/1935.html 1935 Season - AFL Tables]