1925 VFL season

Infobox Victorian Football League season
year = 1925


imagesize = 150px
caption = Brownlow winner Colin Watson
clubs = 12
home-and-away season = 17 rounds
premiership team = Geelong
count = 1st
minor premiers = Geelong
brownlow medalist = Colin Watson
champion of the season = Colin Watson
top goal kicker = Lloyd Hagger (78)

Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1925.

New Teams

In 1915, and from 1919 to 1924, there were nine teams in the VFL competition. In these seasons each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds (i.e., they played 16 matches and had 2 byes).

In 1919, in order to eliminate these unsatisfactory byes, the VFL had sought expressions of interest from clubs wishing to join the VFL.

Whilst there was talk of an Ex-Servicemen's Club and a Public Servants' Club, applications were actually lodged on behalf of a combined Ballarat Football League team and VFA clubs Brunswick, Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, and Prahran.

The VFL took six years to make a decision.

At the end of 1924, the VFL was applications from Brighton, Brunswick, Camberwell, Caulfield (not the Caulfield Football Club that played in the VFA 1965-1987), Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, and Prahran. By its 9 January 1925 meeting, the VFL had short listed four candidates: Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, and Prahran. Three weeks later, the VFL announced that it was admitting Footscray, Hawthorn, and North Melbourne to its competition.

Premiership season

In 1925, 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 17 rounds; matches 12 to 17 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 6.

Once the 17 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1925 VFL "Premiers" were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus" system".

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Grand Final

Geelong defeated Collingwood 10.19 (79) to 9.15 (69), in front of a crowd of 64,288 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Ladder

Awards

* The 1925 VFL Premiership team was Geelong.
* The VFL's leading goalkicker was Lloyd Hagger of Geelong with 78 goals.
* "The Argus" newspaper's "Player of the Year", Colin Watson of St Kilda, was declared 1925 Champion of the Season.
* The winner of the 1925 Brownlow Medal Colin Watson of St Kilda, with 9 votes.
* Hawthorn took the "wooden spoon" in 1925.

Notable Events

* The laws of the game were altered so that the last player to touch the ball before it went out of bounds was penalized by the award of a free kick to the opposing team. This meant that almost all of the play was directed up the centre of the ground along the goal-to-goal line, and very little was directed along the flanks at the sides of the ground. This brought a considerable advantage to full-forwards.
* Fred Rutley of North Melbourne is suspended for life for kicking an opponent in the vicious round 12 match at Geelong. Geelong footballers Stan Thomas and Arthur Coghlan are both suspended until the end of the 1926 VFL season.

References

* 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

External links

* [http://stats.rleague.com/afl/seas/1925.html 1925 Season - AFL Tables]