1929 VFL season

The 1929 VFL season was the 33rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs and ran from 27 April to 28 September, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.

1929 VFL premiership season
Overview
Date	27 April—28 September 1929
Teams	12
Premiers	Collingwood 8th premiership
Runners-up	Richmond 5th runners-up result
Minor premiers	Collingwood 11th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Albert Collier (Collingwood) 6 votes
Leading goalkicker medallist	Gordon Coventry (Collingwood) 118 goals
Attendance
Matches played	112
Total attendance	1,911,541 (17,067 per match)
Highest (H&A)	41,316 (round 18, Melbourne v Collingwood)
Highest (finals)	63,336 (grand final, Collingwood v Richmond)

Collingwood won the premiership, defeating Richmond by 29 points in the 1929 VFL grand final; it was Collingwood's third consecutive premiership and eighth VFL premiership overall. Collingwood also won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with an 18–0 win–loss record, the only time in the league's history that a team has gone through a home-and-away season undefeated, however its loss to Richmond in the semi-finals prevented the club from achieving a perfect season. Collingwood's Albert Collier won the Brownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and teammate Gordon Coventry won his fourth consecutive leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker, becoming the first player to kick over 100 goals in a season.

Background

In 1929, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-away reverse" of matches 1 to 7.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1929 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".

Home-and-away season

Ladder

(P)	Premiers
	Qualified for finals

#	Team	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	Pts
1	Collingwood (P)	18	18	0	0	1918	1117	171.7	72
2	Carlton	18	15	3	0	1589	1161	136.9	60
3	Richmond	18	12	5	1	1703	1399	121.7	50
4	St Kilda	18	12	6	0	1493	1146	130.3	48
5	Melbourne	18	11	6	1	1228	1164	105.5	46
6	Essendon	18	9	8	1	1349	1405	96.0	38
7	Geelong	18	8	10	0	1175	1082	108.6	32
8	South Melbourne	18	7	11	0	1338	1578	84.8	28
9	Footscray	18	6	11	1	1268	1464	86.6	26
10	Hawthorn	18	4	14	0	1170	1522	76.9	16
11	Fitzroy	18	3	15	0	1340	1827	73.3	12
12	North Melbourne	18	1	17	0	1070	1776	60.2	4

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 77.0
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1929 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the semi-finals and Preliminary Final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the Preliminary Final.

Grand final

Main article: 1929 VFL Grand Final

Season notes

• Collingwood set many records during the 1929 season, including:
  • First team to remain undefeated through an entire home-and away season. However, given that they lost the second semi-final to Richmond, they were not undefeated for the entire season.
  • In three seasons, 1927, 1928, and 1929, the team had played 61 matches, for 53 wins, 1 draw, and 7 losses.
  • First team to score more than 2,000 points in a single season.
  • First team to have a full-forward scoring more than 100 goals in a single season.
  • First team to have a player kick 16 goals in a single match.
  • First team to be VFL premiers on eight occasions.
• On 18 June 1929 the VFL was incorporated as a public company, and it purchased a three-storey building (later named Harrison House after Henry Harrison who died later that year, on 2 September) on the corner of Spring Street and Flinders Lane.
• Clarrie Hearn of Essendon won the 1929 130-yard Stawell Gift in eleven and fifteen sixteenths of a second (approx. 11.94 seconds), off a handicap of 10 yards.
• Footscray's 23 effective scoring shots (7 goals and 16 behinds) against Hawthorn in the third quarter of their Round 6 match remains the most scoring shots by a team in one quarter.
  • Footscray's 16 behinds in that quarter has been equalled only by Collingwood against North Melbourne in the third quarter in Round 6, 1970.

Awards

• The 1929 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Gordon Coventry of Collingwood with 124 goals.
• The winner of the 1929 Brownlow Medal was Albert "Leeter" Collier of Collingwood with 6 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1929.
• The seconds premiership was won by Richmond. Richmond 12.8 (80) defeated Geelong 7.15 (57) in the challenge Grand Final, played as a stand-alone game on Thursday 26 September (Show Day holiday) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a crowd of 6,544.

References

• 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

Sources

• 1929 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1929 VFL season at Australian Football