1940 VFA premiership season
Port Melbourne FC, premiers
Teams12
PremiersPort Melbourne
4th premiership
Minor premiersWilliamstown
2nd minor premiership

The 1940 Victorian Football Association season was the 62nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, which defeated Prahran by 47 points in the Grand Final on 5 October. It was Port Melbourne's first VFA premiership since 1922, and its fourth overall.

Premiership

World War II had commenced in Europe in September 1939, and the Association opted to proceed with a full premiership season.[1] The home-and-home season was played over twenty matches, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the Page–McIntyre system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder

1940 VFA ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Williamstown 20 16 4 0 2400 1768 135.4 64
2 Port Melbourne (P) 20 14 6 0 2368 1952 121.3 56
3 Prahran 20 14 6 0 2246 1919 117.0 56
4 Preston 20 14 6 0 2106 1959 107.5 56
5 Brunswick 20 13 7 0 2101 1772 118.6 52
6 Coburg 20 12 7 1 1965 1720 114.2 50
7 Northcote 20 9 10 1 1967 2032 96.8 38
8 Camberwell 20 7 13 0 2250 2319 97.0 28
9 Brighton 20 7 13 0 1980 2118 93.5 28
10 Yarraville 20 7 13 0 2019 2548 79.2 28
11 Oakleigh 20 5 15 0 1888 2391 79.0 20
12 Sandringham 20 1 19 0 1753 2545 68.9 4
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points Source[2]

Finals

Semifinals
Saturday, 14 September Prahran 16.26 (122) def. Preston 17.11 (110) Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) [3]
Saturday, 21 September Williamstown 13.14 (92) def. by Port Melbourne 24.14 (158) Toorak Park (crowd: 12,000) [4]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 30 September Williamstown 11.16 (88) def. by Prahran 15.21 (111) Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) [5]
1940 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 5 October Port Melbourne def. Prahran Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 30,882) [6]
4.8 (32)
11.12 (78)
17.18 (120)
 23.22 (160)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 2.5 (17)
9.7 (61)
12.8 (80)
 17.11 (113)		 Umpires: Hayes
Freyer 12, Hurley 5, Robertson 4, Castles, Lahiff Goals Lyons 9, Hawkins 3, O'Donnell 2, White 2, Gravell

Awards

  • Ted Freyer (Port Melbourne) was the leading goalkicker for the season, kicking 133 goals in the home-and-home season and 157 goals overall.[2][6]
  • This season, the Recorder Cup and the Association Medal, which had been parallel best and fairest awards for the Association since 1933, were merged into a single award; both trophies still existed, but they were both awarded to the same winner based on the voting system which had previously been used for the Association Medal. Brighton captain-coach Jack Davis, in his sixteenth and final season of senior football, was the winner for 1940, polling 38½ votes. Lance Collins (Coburg) was second with 34 votes, and Alby Morrison (Preston) was third with 31 votes.[3]
  • Coburg won the seconds premiership for the fourth consecutive season. Coburg 14.16 (100) defeated Brunswick 15.5 (95) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the seniors Grand Final on Saturday 5 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[6]

Notable events

  • Association clubs continued to aggressively recruit star players from the Victorian Football League, with the agreement between the two competitions relating to player transfers having ended in 1938. In one of the Association's highest profile recruiting coups of all time, Williamstown recruited Collingwood's Ron Todd, who had won the League goalkicking in both 1938 and 1939 and was thought to be one of the best full forwards that the League had ever seen.[7] With Todd in the team, Williamstown's membership increased from less than 1,000 to around 2,500,[8] and ground record crowds saw Todd play at Yarraville Oval (for Todd's first Association game) and at Preston.[9][10]
  • Following Brunswick's six-point victory against Northcote on 8 June, Northcote protested the result on the basis that the timekeepers had rung the bell to end the third quarter ten minutes early. The match was declared void, and in the replay on 20 July, Brunswick 16.13 (109) defeated Northcote 14.16 (100) by nine points.[11][12]
  • In the final round of home-and-home matches, Prahran 2.10 (22) trailed Brighton 11.8 (74) by 52 points at three-quarter time; then, with the aid of a strong wind, kicked ten goals to one in the final quarter to win 12.16 (88) to 12.9 (81). As of 2023, it remains the largest three-quarter time deficit overcome for victory in VFA/VFL history,[13] and the come-from-behind win saw Prahran stay ahead of Brunswick and in the final four.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Association to coninue (sic)". The Argus. Melbourne. 13 June 1940. p. 14.
  2. 1 2 3 "Statistics – Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 9 September 1940. p. 9.
  3. 1 2 Percy Taylor (16 September 1940). "Exciting V.F.A. semi-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  4. ↑ Percy Taylor (23 September 1940). "Williamstown routed". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  5. ↑ Percy Taylor (30 September 1940). "Association – Prahran wins pre-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 9.
  6. 1 2 3 "Football – Pt. Melbourne premiers". The Argus. Melbourne. 7 October 1940. p. 9.
  7. ↑ "Todd for V.F.A. – will play today". The Argus. Melbourne. 20 April 1940. p. 1.
  8. ↑ "Record crowd sees Todd". The Argus. Melbourne. 22 April 1940. p. 1.
  9. ↑ Rover (22 April 1940). "62,000 at V.F.A opening". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 13.
  10. ↑ "Coburg's vital match". The Argus. Melbourne. 9 August 1940. p. 14.
  11. ↑ "Northcote to protest". The Argus. Melbourne. 10 June 1940. p. 11.
  12. ↑ "Brunswick determined". The Argus. Melbourne. 22 July 1940. p. 9.
  13. ↑ Brendan Rhodes (8 May 2022). "VFL Rd7: Dolphins produce a Saturday night stunner". Australian Football League. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
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