The AFL Australian Football League is the top professional Australian rules football league in the world. The league consists of eighteen teams: nine based in the city of Melbourne, one from regional Victoria, and eight based in other Australian states. The reason for this unbalanced geographic distribution lies in the history of the league, which was based solely within Victoria from the time it was established in 1897, until the time the league expanded through the addition of clubs from interstate to the existing teams starting in the 1980s; until this expansion, the league was known as the VFL (Victorian Football League).
VFL begins The Victorian Football League was established in 1896 when six of the strongest clubs in Victoria—Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, and South Melbourne—broke away from the established Victorian Football Association to establish the new league.Rohan, J.M., "Growth of Victorian Football League", The Sporting Globe, (Saturday, 17 February 1934), p.8. The six clubs invited two more VFA clubs—Carlton and St Kilda—to join the league for its inaugural season in 1897. Among the notable initiatives established in the new league was an annual finals tournament rather than awarding the premiership directly to the team with the best record in the season; additionally, the formal establishment of the modern scoring system was set in which six points are scored for a goal, and one point scored for a behind.
Although the Victorian Football League and the Victorian Football Association continued to compete for spectator interest for many years, the VFL quickly established itself as the premier competition in Victoria. In the early years, Fitzroy and Collingwood were the dominant teams. Following the arrival of Jack Worrall as coach in 1903, Carlton began a dominating period, during which they won three successive flags from 1906 to 1908; although Worrall was the club secretary, he took on a player management and "direction role", which is today recognised as the first official coaching job in the league. Essendon won flags in 1911 and 1912, also under Jack Worrall's coaching.
In 1908, the league expanded to ten teams, with Richmond crossing from the VFA, and University from the Metropolitan Football Association. University, after three promising seasons, finished last each year from 1911 until 1914, including losing an unprecedented 51 matches in a row; this was in part caused by its players' focus on their studies rather than football, particularly during examinations, and it was partly because the club operated on an amateur basis at a time when player payments were becoming common—and, as a result, the club withdrew from the VFL at the end of 1914. University teams now compete in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.
From 1907 until 1914, the VFL premier and the premier of the Adelaide-based South Australian Football League met in a playoff match for the Championship of Australia.
Between the world wars (1914–1945)
In 1919, the VFL established a seconds/reserves competition to run alongside the senior competition. In 1924, the VFL inaugurated the Brownlow Medal for the player who received the most votes from the umpires for the fairest and best player. Richmond won its first Premierships in 1920 and 1921, but Essendon—battlers since their 1912 flag—took over as the dominant team between 1922 and 1926.
In 1925, the VFL expanded from nine teams to twelve, with Footscray, Hawthorn and North Melbourne each crossing from the VFA. North Melbourne and Hawthorn remained very weak in the VFL for a very long period. North Melbourne did not win more than eight games in a season until 1944, and Hawthorn only once won more than seven in a season until 1954. Between them, Hawthorn and North Melbourne finished in last place 15 of the 29 years from their admittance until 1953. Footscray adapted to the VFL with the most ease of the three clubs, and by 1928 were well off the bottom rungs of the ladder.
Between the years of 1927 and 1930, Collingwood became the first and, so far, only team to win four successive premierships. The club also finished the 1929 home-and-away season without losing a game, a feat yet to be repeated. This team became known as "the Machine" because of the organised and consistent way it played. With premiership victories in 1935 and 1936, the Collingwood Football Club had already won 11 Premierships, four more than the next most successful club, Fitzroy (7).
In the 1930s, Richmond and South Melbourne rivaled Collingwood as the best team. Melbourne, which had won the Premiership in 1926 but had fallen off sharply, developed a powerful attacking side that swept all before it between 1939 and 1941 to win three successive flags. Essendon, after a lean decade in the 1930s, enjoyed a dominant period with nine grand final appearances between 1941 and 1951. For more information on how world wars affected the VFL, see: The VFL during the World Wars.
1950s In 1946, the VFL established an Under-19s grade of competition to run alongside the seniors and reserves. In 1951, the McClelland Trophy was established as a prize for the best-performing team across all three grades. In 1952, the VFL hosted 'National Day', where all six matches were played outside of Melbourne. Matches were played at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Brisbane Exhibition Ground, North Hobart Oval, Albury Sports Ground and Victorian country towns Yallourn and Euroa. Of these matches Geelong v Essendon in Brisbane drew 28,000, Collingwood v Richmond in Sydney drew 25,000, Fitzroy v Melbourne in Hobart drew 18,387 and Melbourne s North Melbourne in Albury drew 15,000 spectators.
In 1959, the VFL planned the code's first purpose-built mega-stadium, VFL Park (later known as Waverley Park), to give it some independence from the Melbourne Cricket Club, which managed the Melbourne Cricket Ground. VFL Park was planned to hold 155,000 spectators, to make it making it one of the largest stadiums in the world—although it would ultimately be built with a capacity of 78,000. Land for the stadium was purchased at Mulgrave, in those days just farmland, but one day predicted to be near demographic centre of Melbourne's population.
Geelong was the stand-out team at the beginning of the 1950s, winning the Premiership in 1951 and then setting an enduring record of 23 consecutive wins, starting in Round 12, 1952, and ending in Round 13, 1953. This streak included the 1952 Premiership. In 1954, Footscray became the first of the 1925 expansion teams to win the premiership.
Melbourne became a powerhouse during the 1950s and early 1960s under coach Norm Smith and star player Ron Barassi. The club contested seven consecutive grand finals from 1954 to 1960, winning five Premierships, including three in a row between 1955 and 1957.
Television coverage began in 1957, with direct telecasts of the final quarter permitted. At first, several channels competed by broadcasting different games. However, when the VFL found that television was reducing crowds, it decided that no coverage was to be allowed in 1960. In 1961, replays in Melbourne were introduced, although direct telecasts were rarely permitted there; other states and territories, however, enjoyed live telecasts every Saturday afternoon.
The VFL Premiership Trophy was first awarded in addition to a pennant flag in 1959; essentially, the same trophy design has been in use since.
1960s In the 1960s, television began to have a huge impact, which continues unabated to this day. Spectators hurried home from games to watch replays, and many former players took up positions as commentators on pre-game preview programs and post-game review programs. There were also several attempts at variety programs featuring VFL players, which proved a good way to supplement player salaries as well as capitalise on their popularity. The VFL played the first of a series of exhibition matches in 1962 in an effort to lift the international profile of the league.
Hawthorn won its first premiership in 1961, beating Footscray. Melbourne extended its success from the 1950s by winning the premiership in 1964, but its success ended abruptly when Barassi was recruited by Carlton as captain-coach after the season, followed by Norm Smith being sacked during the 1965 season. Melbourne would not return to the finals for 22 years, and they did not win another flag until 57 years later in 2021.
In 1966, St Kilda, which had never won a senior premiership in 84 years of competition, won its first and, to date, only premiership, in a famous grand final victory against Collingwood by one point.
1970s With the number of players recruited from country leagues increasing, the wealthier clubs were gaining an advantage that metropolitan zoning and the Coulter law (salary cap) restricting player payments had prevented in the past. Country zoning was introduced in the late 1960s, and while it pushed Essendon and Geelong from the top of the ladder, it created severe inequality during the 1970s and 1980s. In the six years between 1972 and 1987, only six of the league's twelve clubs—Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and Richmond—played in grand finals; by comparison, nine different clubs had contested the seven grand finals between 1961 and 1967.
The 1970 season saw the opening of VFL Park, with the inaugural match being played between Geelong and Fitzroy on 18 April 1970. Construction work was carried out at the stadium as the 1970s progressed, culminating in the building of the now-heritage-listed Sir Kenneth Luke stand. The Queen of Australia, Elizabeth II, was a guest at the game and officially opened the stadium to the public. The 1970 grand final between traditional rivals Carlton and Collingwood, arguably the league's most famous game of all time, saw Carlton recover from a 44-point deficit at half-time to win the game by ten points; it featured a famous spectacular mark by Alex Jesaulenko, and it was witnessed by a record crowd of 121,696.
Carlton and Richmond won three premierships each between 1968 and 1974, facing each other in three grand finals. North Melbourne, after struggling for most of its time in the VFL, finally won its first premiership in 1975, contesting the grand final each year from 1974 to 1978 and winning two; three of those deciders were against fellow 1925 expansion team Hawthorn, who also won two premierships. Carlton won three premierships in four years, from 1979 to 1982.
Among the notable rule changes made during the decade were: The finals series was expanded from four teams to five in 1972. The introduction of the centre diamond, later changed to a square, to limit the number of players allowed around the center bounce to four per team. The introduction of a second field umpire in 1976. The introduction of unlimited interchange in 1978, replacing substitution, which had been in place previously.
1980s The 1980s was a period of significant structural change in Australian football around the country. The VFL was the most popular and dominant of the state leagues around the country in terms of overall attendance, interest, and money, and began to look towards expanding its influence directly into other states. The VFL and its top clubs already had the buying power to recruit top players from interstate. As a result of this, rising cost pressures were driving some of Victoria's weaker clubs into dire financial situations.
But in spite of the increasing dominance of Victoria, the country's three top leagues—the VFL, South Australia's SANFL, and Western Australia's WAFL—were never closer to an integrated competition than they were in the early 1980s, with teams from all three leagues competing in the Australian Football Championships Night Series, a competition run separately to the league competitions on weekday evenings.