1953 VFA season

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1953 VFA premiership season
Port Melbourne, premier team
Teams14
PremiersPort Melbourne
7th premiership
Minor premiersPort Melbourne
5th minor premiership
← 1952
1954 →

The 1953 Victorian Football Association season was the 72nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Yarraville by 60 points in the Grand Final on 3 October. It was Port Melbourne's seventh VFA premiership, and it was the only premiership that the club won during a sequence of eight consecutive Grand Finals played from 1950 until 1957, and five consecutive minor premierships won from 1951 until 1955.

Premiership[edit]

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[edit]

1953 VFA ladder
TEAM P W L D PF PA Pct PTS
1 Port Melbourne (P) 20 18 2 0 2052 1047 195.9 72
2 Williamstown 20 16 3 1 1939 1278 151.7 66
3 Yarraville 20 13 5 2 1542 1361 113.2 56
4 Prahran 20 13 6 1 1745 1403 124.3 54
5 Oakleigh 20 13 6 1 1667 1354 123.1 54
6 Coburg 20 12 7 1 1682 1413 119.0 50
7 Brunswick 20 10 10 0 1383 1385 99.8 40
8 Moorabbin 20 9 10 1 1436 1477 97.2 38
9 Preston 20 8 12 0 1375 1484 92.6 32
10 Box Hill 20 7 13 0 1370 1704 80.3 28
11 Camberwell 20 5 14 1 1389 1730 80.2 22
12 Northcote 20 5 15 0 1312 1482 88.5 20
13 Sandringham 20 5 15 0 1237 2103 58.8 20
14 Brighton 20 2 18 0 1138 2046 55.6 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[edit]

Semifinals
Saturday, 12 September Yarraville 8.16 (64) def. Prahran 9.7 (61) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 16,000) [2]
Saturday, 19 September Port Melbourne 12.14 (86) def. Williamstown 12.4 (76) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 12,000) [3]
Preliminary Final
Saturday, 26 September Williamstown 11.13 (79) def. by Yarraville 12.11 (83) St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 20,000) [4]


1953 VFA Grand Final
Saturday, 3 October Port Melbourne def. Yarraville St Kilda Cricket Ground (crowd: 40,000) [5]
2.4 (16)
7.9 (51)
12.10 (82)
 21.15 (141) 		Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final 		2.2 (14)
3.5 (23)
9.8 (62)
 12.9 (81)
Fraser 7, Bonnett 6, Miller 2, Murray 2, Atkinson, Bragg, Laffey, Owens Goals Salt 3, Smallwood 3, Marchesi 2, H. Mason 2, N. Rohleder 2
Injuries Cook (ankle), Gwynn (thigh), Jones (concussion), Smith (back)

Awards[edit]

Notable events[edit]

Adelaide Carnival[edit]

The Association competed in the 1953 Adelaide Carnival, and finished in fourth place with a record of 1–3.[8] Two Association players were named in the inaugural All-Australian team, which was named based on performances at the carnival: Frank Johnson and Ted Henrys.[9]

1953 Adelaide Carnival
Wednesday, 8 July Victoria (VFA) 11.18 (84) def. Tasmania 5.11 (41) Adelaide Oval [10]
Monday, 13 July Victoria (VFL) 16.13 (109) def. Victoria (VFA) 11.10 (76) Adelaide Oval [11]
Wednesday, 15 July South Australia 16.16 (112) def. Victoria (VFA) 7.11 (53) Adelaide Oval [12]
Saturday, 18 July Western Australia 12.8 (80) def. Victoria (VFA) 8.14 (62) Adelaide Oval [8]

Other notable events[edit]

  • Early in the V.F.A. Sub-Districts season, the Port Melbourne Thirds team lost its first match since 1946, ending a 127-game winning streak. The team lost its first match in its inaugural season of 1946, before embarking on the record-breaking winning streak, which incorporated seven consecutive premierships.[13][14][15]
  • On 16 May, a premiership match between 1952 Grand Finalists Oakleigh and Port Melbourne was played at Bolton Park, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. The match was arranged by the Australian National Football Council to help spread the game to the New South Wales riverina district.[16] Port Melbourne 11.13 (79) defeated Oakleigh 8.13 (61) before a crowd of 4,000 people.[17]
  • On Tuesday 2 June (Coronation Day holiday), a representative match was played at the St Kilda Cricket Ground between teams representing the six North-of-the-Yarra clubs (Brunswick, Coburg, Northcote, Preston, Williamstown, Yarraville) and the eight South-of-the-Yarra clubs (Box Hill, Brighton, Camberwell, Moorabbin, Oakleigh, Port Melbourne, Prahran, Sandringham).[18] North 11.20 (86) defeated South 10.9 (69), after overcoming an eighteen-point three-quarter time deficit.[19] The North vs South game did not become a regular fixture in the VFA Senior competition, but later became the chief representative fixture in the VFL Thirds competition.
  • In July, the Association was granted full voting rights within the Australian National Football Council for the first time. When the Association first affiliated with the ANFC in 1950, it had all rights of a full delegate except that it could not vote on motions.[20]
  • Several Association clubs encountered financial difficulties during the 1953 season. By July, Brighton, Camberwell and Northcote were all operating on an amateur basis, having lost the financial capacity to pay their players.[21]
  • In September, Ray Gibb (Box Hill) died in a motorcycle accident.[22] A benefit game to raise money for his family was played on Show Day at Box Hill City Oval between a combined team of his two former VFL clubs, Richmond and Hawthorn, and a Box Hill team augmented with other VFL and VFA star players, including John Coleman and Bill Hutchison.[23] Including the gate and donations, £400 was raised from a crowd of 6,000 people; Box Hill 17.11 (113) defeated Hawthorn–Richmond 12.8 (80).[24]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "V.F.A match details". The Argus. Melbourne. 7 September 1953. p. 15.
  2. ^ Jack Dunn (14 September 1953). "Attack only weakness in win by Yarraville". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 28.
  3. ^ Jack Oates (21 September 1953). "Strong Williamstown final side". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 29.
  4. ^ Jack Oates (28 September 1953). "Yarraville's bid for V.F.A. title". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 24.
  5. ^ a b Jack Oates (5 October 1953). "Port trounces Yarraville to win pennant". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 29.
  6. ^ Jack Dunn (7 September 1953). "Prahran takes 4th place from Coburg". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 24.
  7. ^ "Henrys, Preston, wins J. J. Liston Trophy". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. 10 September 1953. p. 28.
  8. ^ a b Kevin Hogan (20 July 1953). "League wins bitter title match". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 24.
  9. ^ Kevin Hogan (20 July 1953). "National line-uplacks balance". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 23.
  10. ^ Kevin Hogan (9 July 1953). "Fine display by Association in defeat of Tasmania". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 25.
  11. ^ Kevin Hogan (14 July 1953). "Confidence and spirit of young V.F.A. players". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 26.
  12. ^ Kevin Hogan (16 July 1953). "S.A. beats Association. Thompson impresses". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 22.
  13. ^ Ron Carter (6 June 1951). "And what a record!". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 12.
  14. ^ "Jim Mahoney". Australian Football League Umpires Association. 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2013.
  15. ^ Gavin Cook (8 September 1952). "Yarraville wins way to first V.F.A. semi-final". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 25.
  16. ^ "Oakleigh to play Port at Wagga". The Argus. Melbourne. 3 March 1953. p. 8.
  17. ^ "Oakleigh down by 18 pts". The Argus. Melbourne. 18 May 1953. p. 11.
  18. ^ Dave Andersen (5 December 1952). "V.F.A. plans unique game". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 10.
  19. ^ Dave Andersen (3 June 1953). "VFA North men finish too well". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 10.
  20. ^ "Vote granted to Football Association". The Canberra Times. Canberra, ACT. 8 July 1953. p. 4.
  21. ^ Jack Dunn (17 July 1953). "Third VFA team to play as amateurs". The Sun News-Pictorial. Melbourne. p. 28.
  22. ^ The Age, "Appeal For Box Hill Footballer", 10 September 1953, p. 16
  23. ^ "Stars aid appeal". The Argus. Melbourne. 24 September 1953. p. 12.
  24. ^ "Big crowd at charity game". The Age. Melbourne. 25 September 1953. p. 8.
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