1954 VFA season

The 1954 Victorian Football Association season was the 73rd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, after it defeated Port Melbourne by 32 points in the Grand Final on 2 October. It was Williamstown's sixth premiership, and the first of five premierships won in six seasons from 1954 until 1959.

1954 VFA premiership season
Williamstown FC, premiers
Teams14
PremiersWilliamstown
(6th premiership)
Minor premiersPort Melbourne
(6th minor premiership)

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
1954 VFA Ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Port Melbourne 20 17 3 0 2047 1360 150.5 68
2 Williamstown (P) 20 16 4 0 1783 1147 155.4 64
3 Moorabbin 20 13 6 1 1701 1241 137.0 54
4 Northcote 20 13 6 1 1463 1265 115.6 54
5 Preston 20 13 7 0 1659 1426 116.3 52
6 Coburg 20 12 7 1 1511 1359 111.1 50
7 Prahran 20 10 10 0 1771 1687 104.9 40
8 Box Hill 20 9 11 0 1582 1459 108.4 36
9 Oakleigh 20 8 10 2 1757 1677 104.7 36
10 Brunswick 20 9 11 0 1413 1421 99.4 36
11 Yarraville 20 9 11 0 1460 1580 92.4 36
12 Brighton 20 5 14 1 1279 1689 75.4 22
13 Camberwell 20 2 18 0 1425 2079 68.5 8
14 Sandringham 20 1 19 0 1035 2495 41.4 4
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, 11 September Moorabbin 6.8 (44) def. by Northcote 12.18 (90) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 16,000) [2]
Saturday, 18 September Port Melbourne 7.12 (54) def. Williamstown 5.12 (42) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 18,000) [3]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 25 September Williamstown 17.11 (113) def. Northcote 10.12 (72) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 14,500) [4]
1954 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 2 October Port Melbourne def. by Williamstown St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 30,000) [5]
0.1 (1)
4.3 (27)
5.4 (34)
 7.12 (54)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 4.7 (31)
6.9 (45)
10.16 (76)
 11.20 (86)		 Umpires: Jack Irving
Bonnett 3, McDonald, Owens, Walsh, Wharton Goals Alford 3, Simpson 3, Fisher 2, Anderson, Kent, Linton
Kelsey (cartilage), Stone (knee) Injuries Linton (concussion)

Awards
  • The leading goalkicker for the season was Peter Schofield (Moorabbin), who kicked 95 goals for the home-and-home season and 96 goals overall. Schofield sealed the title in Moorabbin's final home-and-home match for the season against Sandringham, in which he kicked 22 goals, including all sixteen of Moorabbin's second-half goals.[2][6]
  • The J. J. Liston Trophy was won by Ted Turner (Brighton), who polled 39 votes. Eric Simpson (Williamstown) was second with 31 votes; and George Gerry Collins (Oakleigh) was third with 31 votes, but behind Simpson on a countback.[7]
  • Moorabbin won the seconds premiership. Moorabbin 11.10 (76) defeated Williamstown 10.8 (68) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 2 October.[5]

Notable events
  • Former Brunswick player and delegate Alec Gillon became president of the Association at the annual general meeting in February 1954, challenging and defeating Lewis Page, who had served as president since 1951.[8] Gillon went on to become the longest serving president of the Association, serving until 1981.[9]
  • Prior to the season, two soccer clubs attempted to gain partial occupancy of Association grounds. The Jugoslav United Soccer Team tendered an offer of £800 to the City of Prahran for the use of Toorak Park on alternate weekends during the season, a move which would have left the Prahran Football Club – which paid only £25 in rent for the year – without a venue for its seconds team to use; but the council rejected J.U.S.T's offer, citing its desire to remain loyal to Prahran as the reason.[10] However, the Brighton Soccer Club was successful in securing a lease for alternate weekends at Elsternwick Park, sharing the venue with Brighton; in Brighton's case, the club's seconds already played at a different venue – Brighton Beach Oval – and it was Brighton's existing co-tenant, the Elsternwick Football Club from the Victorian Amateur Football Association, which was evicted as a result.[11] It was the first time an Association club had been forced to share its ground with a club from a rival code, and it re-established grounds control as a major issue within the Association – ultimately escalating to the events of 1959, when the Association suspended Prahran after the council leased Toorak Park to the Victorian Rugby Union on alternate weekends.[12]
  • Despite having played as an amateur team since mid-1953 due to financial hardships, Northcote managed to reach the final four.[13][14]
gollark: Only if they have tape drives and computers.
gollark: Now to make PotatOS copy itself onto tapes.
gollark: It has been done.
gollark: If you know of a serialization library which *does* and which emits compact output, please tell me.
gollark: I'm just using a boring old JSON library, okay? I don't see why I'd want to serialize that to tapes.
  • List of VFA/VFL Premiers

References
  1. "Association ladder". The Herald. Melbourne. 4 September 1954. p. 34.
  2. "Moorabbin beaten by keener Northcote". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 13 September 1954. p. 29.
  3. Jack Dunn (20 September 1954). "'Town weakened, Port went on to 2 goals win". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 30.
  4. Jack Dunn (27 September 1954). "Methodical 'Town never in danger". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 29.
  5. Jack Dunn (4 October 1954). "'Town, buffeted early, had easy pennant win". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 32.
  6. "Association match details". The Argus. Melbourne. 6 September 1954. p. 15.
  7. "Turner VFA top". The Argus. Melbourne. 9 September 1954. p. 1.
  8. "V.F.A. president defeated". The Argus. Melbourne. 23 February 1954. p. 17.
  9. Dave Nadel. "Victorian Football Association". Retrieved 21 November 2013.
  10. "Soccer £800 refused". The Argus. Melbourne. 16 February 1954. p. 15.
  11. Dave Anderson (24 February 1954). "Soccer victory shock to national code". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 20.
  12. "Prahran expelled by VFA". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 17 March 1959. pp. 61, 64.
  13. Jack Dunn (17 July 1953). "Third VFA team to play as amateurs". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 28.
  14. Dave Andersen (6 September 1954). "Triumph for "amateurs"; Northcote wins way to V.F.A. four". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 19.
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