Footy finals are here again, so what a good time for an Australian Rules themed blog!
Over the history of the VFL/AFL, a number of teams have been added, and a few have left.
The Victorian Football League (VFL) men’s competition commenced in 1897 with 8 teams: Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, Carlton, St Kilda and South Melbourne, breaking away from the Victorian Football Association (VFA).
University and Richmond joined in 1908, with University leaving after the 1914 season. With the addition, in 1925, of Footscray, Hawthorn and North Melbourne, the 12 team VFL competition remained stable for nearly 60 years.
In the 1980s the disparity, both in support and finance, made for an increasingly lopsided competition. Powerhouses of the early years, South Melbourne and Fitzroy, found themselves under increasing pressure to amalgamate or relocate.
Porter, C. (2006). Fitzroy 1883-1996 [picture] / Carol Porter. Melbourne: RedPlanet. (in copyright) H2006.155/1
The South Melbourne Bloods ended up in Sydney in 1982. Sadly Fitzroy played their last VFL/AFL game in 1996, unhappily pushed into a merger of sorts with theBrisbane Bears, who changed identity to the Brisbane Lions. 1
New clubs from other states joined and the AFL is now an 18 team competition with a 19th team, from Tasmania, on the horizon.
This year’s grand final finds the relocated Swans and Lions battling for the 2024 premiership cup.
University in the VFL
The Melbourne University team is one of the oldest teams in any football code, having been established in 1859. Very successful in the Metropolitan Football Association, University was invited to join the VFL competition as the ninth team for season 1908. The existing clubs felt that a tenth team should also be added, and despite strong support for Brighton, it was Richmond that joined.
The University Football Team after one of their greatest victories, defeating the reigning premier Carlton in the opening round of the 1909 season, Weekly Times 8 May 1909, p. 26.
The University team’s home from 1908 to 1910 was the East Melbourne Oval (near the Jolimont railyards). In 1911 they moved to become a co-tenant, with Melbourne, at the MCG.
Initially the students from Melbourne University were competitive, but their strictly amateur status, and the players’ focus on their studies, meant they struggled to compete with an increasingly professional competition.
Through 1911 to 1914, they amassed a 51 match losing streak, only ending when they voluntarily withdrew from the league.
One of their stars was their diminutive forward, medical student Roy Park. Over three seasons and 44 games he failed to play in a winning side which made his goal kicking feats all the more impressive. Remarkably, in 1913, at the end of a winless home and away series, he led the league goalkicking (with 53 goals) 3
The Football Record highlighted his achievement:
One of the first questions that those who were not at the South-University match asked on Saturday night was, ‘How many goals did Park kick?’ The brilliant forward seemed to have been the hero of the hour. His has been a phenomenally clever performance this season, and, if there were a plebiscite on the question as to who is the best forward, I should be one to vote ‘Park’. Here is a youth in a team that has not won a match. Yet he stands at the head of the goal-kicking list. 4
With the demise of University, Roy Park (and a number of team mates) joined Melbourne Football Club, where he finally tasted victory in 9 of his 13 games for the Demons.
Recently qualified as a doctor, and more recently married, he enlisted with the Australian Army Medical Corps in 1917, surviving the war and returning to Australia in 1919.
In 1920 Park turned out for Footscray in the Victorian Football Association, enjoying a rather more eventful and successful season than his long losing run with University.
Footscray and North Melbourne lined up against each other in a semi final, the winner to face Brunswick in the grand final.
Originally scheduled for 18 September, the game was postponed by wild weather. The teams reconvened on 25 September in a tense, closely fought and controversial encounter. With Footscray 5 points up, the umpire didn’t hear the final bell and paid a mark to North Melbourne player Considine well within scoring distance.
The crowd invaded the field, fights broke out and the kick couldn’t be taken. Scrambled meetings were held to decide the winner. Ultimately it was decided that the match should be replayed, much to the chagrin of the Footscray supporters who felt the bell had clearly rung before the mark was taken.
The sides lined up the next Saturday in front of 22,000 fans at the East Melbourne ground, and again the game was a thriller. Footscray opened an early lead but were pegged back by North. At three-quarter time North were 13 points up and with an early goal in the last quarter, seemed headed for victory. The ‘tri-colours’ would not be denied though, and deep in time-on, ‘Doc Park’ soccered the winner.
The newspapers were full in their praise of his performance:
Park played a wonderful game on the forward line, and was one of the best men on the ground. He wriggled, twisted, and squirmed into a firing position, and then kicked with deadly effect. His last goal, which won the match, he got whilst practically lying down.
After Park kicked the winning goal Martin kissed him, and when the game was over the jubilant supporters carried the little forward shoulder high. He looked, and probably felt, about as comfortable as a spider on a hot shovel, for he hates ‘limelight.’ 5
After the excitement of the semi final, Footscray faced Brunswick in the grand final and again triumphed in another thriller, and again it was Roy Park slotting the winner in time-on.
Craddock was working like a fiend, and snapping the ball up, he kicked to Park, and the wizard took the mark amidst a hurricane of yells. Cool as ice, Park punted a goal and Footscray led by three points.
Park was undoubtedly the hero of the match. His work on the forward line was one of the best exhibitions of ‘battery’ work ever seen in Melbourne and will be talked of for many years to come. 6
Roy Park was also an outstanding cricketer, regularly representing Victoria, and after his triumphant footballing final series, he was named in the Australian cricket team in the second test of the 1920/21 series against England.
He batted first wicket down, but alas his was the shortest possible test batting career, out first ball in the first innings in an easy Australian victory that didn’t require a second innings.
He died at age 54 in 1947. The cricket tradition continued through his son-in-law Ian Johnson, a veteran of 45 tests for Australia, including 9 as captain.
Melbourne University Football Club fields the very successful Uni Blacks and the Blues men’s teams in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). In 1996, the Melbourne University Women’s Football Club was established and currently fields three teams in the VAFA.
The Brisbane Bears unique angry koala logo was lost to football, replaced by a rather more fierce and regal Lion. The Fitzroy Football Club has carried on, fielding teams in the VAFA.
Bert Hartkopf was also a fine cricketer playing for Victoria and representing Australia in a single test match in 1924. Edward Cordner had 4 sons who all represented Melbourne in the VFL, his son Don won the 1946 Brownlow medal
Fitzroy’s Jimmy Freake, on 49 goals over the home and away season, added a further 7 in the finals.
