1939 VFL season

The 1939 VFL season was the 43rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 22 April until 30 September, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The premiership was won by the Melbourne Football Club for the third time, after it defeated Collingwood by 53 points in the 1939 VFL Grand Final.

In 1939, 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 1939 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 91.4
Source: AFL Tables

• Two key rule changes were made nationally in 1939.
  • The holding the ball rule was altered to eliminate the provision for a player to drop the ball when tackled, meaning that a player was forced to either kick or handpass the ball when tackled to avoid conceding a free kick.
  • The boundary throw-in was reintroduced whenever the ball went out of bounds, except when put out deliberately, instead of a free kick being awarded against the last player to touch the ball, as had been the case since 1925.^[1]
• Hawthorn's win over Carlton in round 5 was its first as a member of the VFL. Carlton had won the first 25 meetings.
• All round 18 matches were postponed for a week because all grounds were under water from constant rain.
• North Melbourne's win over Geelong in Round 18 was the club's first since their initial meeting in round 1 of the 1925 VFL season, North Melbourne's first match as a member of the VFL, breaking a streak of 23 consecutive wins by Geelong.
• Ahead of its semi-final against Richmond on 9 September, St Kilda president Dave McNamara put to the club's committee that it borrow and wear South Melbourne's guernseys for the game, to wear the white and red colours of the Polish merchant service in place of the red, white and black colours of Germany in the week after the declaration of World War II. St Kilda had done similar during McNamara's playing days in World War I adopting Belgium's red, white and yellow in place of the German colours for several years;^[2] but on this occasion the club decided to remain in its traditional colours.^[3]

• The 1939 VFL Premiership team was Melbourne.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Ron Todd of Collingwood with 98 goals (121 after finals).
• The Argus newspaper's "Player of the Year", was shared between Jack Dyer of Richmond and Dick Reynolds of Essendon.
• The winner of the 1939 Brownlow Medal was Marcus Whelan of Collingwood with 23 votes.
• South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1939.
• The seconds premiership was won by Melbourne. Melbourne 22.12 (144) defeated Richmond 17.13 (115) in the Grand Final, played as a stand-alone game on Thursday 28 September (Show Day holiday) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, before a crowd of 4,100.^[4]

• Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
• 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

• 1939 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1939 VFL season at Australian Football