1931 VFL season

The 1931 VFL season was the 35th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs and ran from 2 May to 10 October, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.

Geelong won the premiership, defeating Richmond by 20 points in the 1931 VFL grand final; it was Geelong's second VFL premiership. Geelong also won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 15–3 win–loss record. Fitzroy's Haydn Bunton Sr. won the Brownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and Carlton's Harry Vallence won the leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

In 1931, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 7.

Once the 18-round home-and-away season had finished, the 1931 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system. This was the first season to feature the new finals format, with the winner of the 2nd Semi Final going direct through to the Grand Final, and the loser through to a Preliminary Final against the winner of the 1st Semi Final. The league predominantly used variations of the Argus Challenge System over the previous thirty seasons.^[1]

Round 6 was a split round, but the two-halves of the round were unusually played almost three weeks apart. Three matches played on King's Birthday Monday (8 June), and the other three matches played Saturday 27 June – the Saturday between Rounds 8 and 9. This means that six teams played their Round 7 and 8 matches before their Round 6 match.^[2]

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 76.4
Source: AFL Tables

• The VFL changed its Brownlow Medal voting procedure. The field umpire now voted for the three "fairest and best" on the ground in each match, casting 3, 2, and 1 votes. If there was a tie, the player with the most "3" votes would be declared the winner, then the most "2" votes; the countback system was altered retrospectively in 1989 so that the medal would be shared in the event of a tie.^[3] A player who had been suspended during the year was now considered ineligible for the medal.
• The VFL altered the manner in which it determined its premiership team. Abandoning the "amended Argus systems" that had operated from 1902 to 1930 (except in 1924), the VFL instituted the Page–McIntyre system which, amongst other innovations, guaranteed that there would be a "Grand Final" at the end of every season (this system continued to operate until 1972).
• Prior to the season, the VFL and the Grounds Management Association (which represented the operators of most of the VFL grounds) entered a dispute over the use of the grounds for football matches. The dispute covered financial arrangements and the demarcation between the football and cricket seasons.^[4] After arbitration from the Minister for Lands, it was agreed that cricket clubs would be required to pay the league £20 per 100 members, ending the long-standing practice of cricket club members receiving admission to football games without compensation to the football clubs; but that the grounds management would still retain all receipts for admission to reserve areas, with the league receiving none of these takings.^[5] During the stand-off, the VFL arranged for the Motordrome and the Exhibition Oval to be available to serve as alternative venues during the year, and drew up a fixture which saw each of those grounds holding twelve games – with Fitzroy, Carlton, North Melbourne, St Kilda, Collingwood and Essendon each to have played four of their nine home games at one of the replacement grounds.^[6]
• In round 2, Richmond set the record for highest score in a game, scoring 30.19 (199) against North Melbourne. This beat South Melbourne's 1919 record by ten points, and remained unbeaten until 1969.
• In round 12, Carlton rover Tommy Downs was reported for kicking Richmond captain Maurie Hunter; despite the efforts of future Australian Prime Minister R. G. Menzies, KC, Downs was suspended for the remainder of the 1931 season and the whole of the 1932 season.
• The round 17 match between St Kilda and Collingwood was the first in which both sides scored twenty goals. Both Bill Mohr and Gordon Coventry kicked eleven goals. Coventry was the first to kick ten for a losing side.
• In the first semi-final, Carlton thrashed Collingwood 20.10 (130) to 5.12 (42). Harry "Soapy" Vallence, at full-forward for Carlton kicked a finals record 11 goals, including six in the last quarter.

• The 1931 VFL Premiership team was Geelong.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Harry "Soapy" Vallence of Carlton with 86 goals.
• In his first VFL season, and only 20 years old, the winner of the 1931 Brownlow Medal was Haydn Bunton, Sr of Fitzroy with 26 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1931.
• The seconds premiership was won by Melbourne. Melbourne 8.13 (61) defeated Geelong 8.5 (53) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 10 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.^[7]

• Hogan, P., The Tigers of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN 0-646-18748-1
• 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
• 1931 VFL v VFA Match – BoylesFootballPhotos

• 1931 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1931 VFL season at Australian Football