1931 VFA season

The 1931 Victorian Football Association season was the 53rd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Oakleigh Football Club, after it defeated Northcote by three points in the Grand Final on 26 September. It was the club's second VFA premiership, achieved in only its third season of senior competition, and it was Oakleigh's second premiership in a row.

1931 VFA premiership season
Teams12
PremiersOakleigh
(2nd premiership)
Minor premiersOakleigh
(2nd minor premiership)
Matches played113
Attendance446,500 (3,951 per match)

Premiership

After playing sectional games in 1930, the Association reverted to a simple season format, with each club playing eighteen home-and-home matches, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder
1931 VFA Ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Oakleigh (P) 18 14 4 0 1546 1047 67.7 56
2 Port Melbourne 18 14 4 0 1502 1089 72.5 56
3 Preston 18 12 5 1 1418 1273 92.6 50
4 Northcote 18 12 6 0 1620 1171 72.3 48
5 Yarraville 18 11 6 1 1386 1328 95.8 46
6 Coburg 18 11 7 0 1371 1342 97.9 44
7 Brunswick 18 9 9 0 1386 1236 89.2 36
8 Sandringham 18 8 10 0 1665 1796 107.9 32
9 Prahran 18 7 11 0 1283 1492 115.8 28
10 Williamstown 18 5 13 0 1209 1476 122.1 20
11 Brighton 18 2 16 0 1237 1798 145.4 8
12 Camberwell 18 2 16 0 1164 1734 149.0 8
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points Source[1]

Finals
Semi Finals
Saturday, 5 September Port Melbourne 5.8 (38) def. by Northcote 9.11 (65) Brunswick Cricket Ground (crowd: 9,000) [2]
Saturday, 12 September Oakleigh 6.8 (44) def. by Preston 9.13 (67) Coburg Cricket Ground (crowd: 7,000) [3]
Final
Saturday, 19 September Preston 7.9 (51) def. by Northcote 11.22 (88) Coburg Cricket Ground (crowd: 10,000) [4]
1931 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 26 September Oakleigh def. Northcote Port Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 10,000) [1]
2.3 (15)
3.7 (25)
7.11 (53)
 10.14 (74)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 2.1 (13)
4.3 (27)
9.3 (57)
 11.5 (71)		 Umpires: Stuart
Fraser 3, Rodwell 3, Maher 2, Crameri, Dolan Goals Simmonds 4, Seymour 3, Byrne 2, Corrigan, Ross
Injuries Humphries (groin), Pruser (concussion)

Awards
  • Don Fraser, Sr. (Oakleigh) was the leading goalkicker for the season, kicking 77 goals in the home-and-home season and 83 goals overall.[2][1]
  • Bill Koop (Prahran) won the Recorder Cup as the Association's best and fairest, polling ten votes. Tom Lahiff (Port Melbourne) finished second with seven votes, and Doug Nicholls (Northcote) finished third with six votes.[2]
  • The seconds premiership was won by Brunswick. Brunswick 12.10 (82) defeated Coburg 5.14 (44) in the Grand Final at Preston on 26 September to win the title.[1]

Notable events
  • The Association and League re-established a permit agreement in 1931, meaning that players could not switch from one competition to the other without a clearance from his original competition. This was the first time a permit agreement had existed between the competitions since before the 1925 season.[5]
  • Following Coburg's 11-point victory against Port Melbourne on 30 May, Port Melbourne protested the result on the basis of a timekeeping error. The match was declared void, and in the replay on Wednesday 29 July, Coburg 11.15 (81) defeated Port Melbourne 8.17 (65) by 16 points.[6][7]
  • On 15 August, a combined Association team 16.11 (107) defeated a combined New South Wales League team 13.17 (95) by twelve points at the Sydney Cricket Ground, before a crowd of 8,608 spectators.[8]
  • Northcote lodged a protest against the result of the Grand Final, requesting the result be quashed a replay be held. Northcote contended that the Oakleigh timekeeper had rung the bell to signal the end of the third quarter approximately five seconds early, and had done so without the permission of the Northcote timekeeper; the ball was in Northcote's forward line at the time, although Oakleigh had possession. The Association found that there was a three to five second discrepancy between the two timekeepers' clocks, but could not say for sure whether the quarter had been played short or long, so it upheld Oakleigh's victory.[9]
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gollark: It uses a variable width osmarkspointer™ encoding.
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  • List of VFA premiers

References
  1. Onlooker (28 September 1931). "Association – Premiership decided". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  2. Onlooker (7 September 1931). "Association – first semi-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 12.
  3. Onlooker (14 September 1931). "Association – second semi-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 12.
  4. Onlooker (21 September 1931). "Association – Northcote wins". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 11.
  5. Fiddian, Marc (2003), Seagulls over Williamstown, Williamstown, VIC: Williamstown Football Club, p. 55
  6. Onlooker (30 July 1931). "Football – Association replay". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 10.
  7. Onlooker (23 June 1931). "Football – Association v. N.S.W.". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 13.
  8. "Association wins – match in Sydney". The Argus. Melbourne. 17 August 1931. p. 11.
  9. "Football – match in dispute". The Argus. Melbourne. 1 October 1931. p. 10.

Onlooker (5 September 1932). "Association – Northcote on top". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 12.

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