1941 VFA season

The 1941 Victorian Football Association season was the 63rd season of the Australian rules football competition, and it was the last season before the Association went into recess during World War II. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, which defeated Coburg by 19 points in the Grand Final on 4 October. It was Port Melbourne's fifth VFA premiership, and its second in a row.

1941 VFA premiership season
Port Melbourne FC, premier team
Teams12
PremiersPort Melbourne
(5th premiership)
Minor premiersPort Melbourne
(1st minor premiership)

Association membership

World War II had commenced in Europe in September 1939, and for the second consecutive season the Association opted to proceed with a full premiership season.[1] Many Association players had enlisted in the war effort, and the Sandringham Football Club elected to operate on an amateur basis for the season.[2]

Premiership

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
1941 VFA Ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Port Melbourne (P) 20 16 4 0 2546 1753 145.2 64
2 Prahran 20 16 4 0 2545 1820 139.8 64
3 Coburg 20 15 5 0 2641 1754 150.6 60
4 Preston 20 14 6 0 2481 1928 128.7 56
5 Brunswick 20 13 7 0 2353 1758 133.8 52
6 Williamstown 20 12 8 0 2351 1973 119.2 48
7 Camberwell 20 12 8 0 2265 2228 107.7 48
8 Northcote 20 7 13 0 1860 1978 94.0 28
9 Brighton 20 6 14 0 1933 2328 83.0 24
10 Oakleigh 20 5 15 0 1960 2403 81.6 20
11 Yarraville 20 4 16 0 1643 2621 62.7 16
12 Sandringham 20 0 20 0 1245 3279 38.0 0
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pct = Percentage; (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points Source[3]

Finals
Semi Finals
Saturday, 13 September Coburg 16.21 (117) def. Preston 11.21 (87) Toorak Park (crowd: 12,000) [4][5]
Saturday, 20 September Port Melbourne 15.19 (109) def. Prahran 15.17 (107) Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) [6]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 27 September Prahran 13.17 (95) def. by Coburg 19.12 (126) Toorak Park (crowd: 8,000) [7]
1941 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 4 October Port Melbourne def. Coburg Melbourne Cricket Ground (crowd: 36,289) [8]
1.4 (10)
6.10 (46)
9.12 (66)
 15.18 (108)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 3.10 (28)
3.14 (32)
9.20 (74)
 11.23 (89)		 Umpires: Groves
Freyer 6, Robertson 6, Goldsmith, Hurley, Livingstone Goals Pratt 4, Glenister 2, Beagley, Collins, Lonsdale, McLey, Turner

Awards
  • Bob Pratt (Coburg) was the leading goalkicker for the season, kicking 165 goals in the home-and-home season and 183 goals overall. Pratt broke George Hawkins' Association record of 164 goals, achieved in 1939. The achievement meant that Pratt simultaneously held the season goalkicking record in both the Association and the Victorian Football League, in which he kicked 150 goals in 1934.[3][8] Pratt's record exceeded Western Australian forward George Doig's national record of 152 goals in a season, but it was not recognised as a national record because the Association was not playing under ANFC rules at the time.
  • Des Fothergill (Williamstown) won the Association best and fairest, receiving both the V.F.A. Medal and the Recorder Cup as trophies for the achievement. Fothergill polled a huge total of 62 votes – an average of 3.1 votes per game – and was a comfortable winner ahead of E. Fay (Brunswick) on 33 votes and Lance Collins (Coburg) on 32 votes. Fothergill had transferred to the Association from League club Collingwood in 1941, and had shared the 1940 Brownlow Medal as best and fairest of that competition.[4]
  • Williamstown won the seconds premiership. Williamstown 18.17 (125) defeated Coburg in the Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the seniors Grand Final on Saturday 4 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[8]

Notable events
  • On 30 August, Port Melbourne 43.29 (287) defeated Sandringham 7.9 (51). Port Melbourne's score set a new record for the highest score in Association history, breaking Brunswick's record of 37.16 (238) set in 1939.[9]
  • Three Port Melbourne players – Ted Freyer, Austin Robertson, and R. Reynolds – were all initially suspended for the Grand Final, but successfully appealed to overturn the suspensions. In the Grand Final, Robertson and Freyer kicked twelve of Port Melbourne's fifteen goals between them.[10]
  • Port Melbourne's win against Coburg in the Grand Final was the first time that Port Melbourne had defeated Coburg since July 1929.[11]
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  • List of VFA/VFL Premiers

References
  1. "Football to continue". The Argus. Melbourne. 1 March 1941. p. 13.
  2. "Association teams – Preston's haul". The Argus. Melbourne. 12 April 1941. p. 16.
  3. Rover (8 September 1941). "Association final four not altered". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  4. Rover (15 September 1941). "Coburg comfortably defeats Preston". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  5. "Southern code games". Cairns Post. Cairns, QLD. 15 September 1941. p. 1.
  6. Rover (22 September 1941). "Port defeats Prahran in close finish". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  7. Rover (29 September 1941). "Coburg easily wins Association pre-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  8. Rover (6 October 1941). "Port too solid". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  9. Rover (1 September 1941). "No surprise in Association games". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 8.
  10. "3 Port players reregistered". The Argus. Melbourne. 25 September 1941. p. 10.
  11. "Coburg Football Club". Australian Football.com. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
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