1924 VFA season

The 1924 Victorian Football Association season was the 46th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Williamstown by 45 points in the Final on 20 September. It was the club's ninth and last VFA premiership before it, along with North Melbourne and Hawthorn, joined the Victorian Football League the following year; this marked the end of a long period of dominance for Footscray, which had seen it win five minor premierships in a row and four major premierships in six years.

1924 VFA premiership season
Teams10
PremiersFootscray
(9th premiership)
Minor premiersFootscray
(8th minor premiership)

Premiership

The home-and-home season was played over eighteen rounds, with each club playing the others twice; then, the top four clubs contested a finals series under the amended Argus system to determine the premiers for the season.

Ladder
1924 VFA Ladder
TEAMPWLDPFPAPctPTS
1 Footscray (P) 18 16 1 1 1484 916 61.7 66
2 Williamstown 18 13 5 0 1197 944 78.9 52
3 Northcote 18 11 6 1 1315 1176 89.4 46
4 Brunswick 18 11 7 0 1380 1016 73.6 44
5 North Melbourne 18 10 8 0 1282 1025 80.0 40
6 Hawthorn 18 10 8 0 1283 1058 82.6 40
7 Port Melbourne 18 10 8 0 1277 1179 92.3 40
8 Geelong 18 4 14 0 933 1485 159.2 16
9 Brighton 18 2 16 0 1090 1422 130.3 8
10 Prahran 18 2 16 0 797 1818 228.1 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
Semi Finals
Saturday, 6 September Williamstown 8.9 (57) def. Brunswick 5.16 (46) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 16,000) [2]
Saturday, 13 September Footscray 9.7 (61) def. Northcote 4.8 (32) North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 16,000) [3]
1924 VFA Final
Saturday, 20 September Footscray def. Williamstown North Melbourne Recreation Reserve (crowd: 15,000) [4][5]
3.5 (23)
4.6 (30)
9.9 (63)
 11.11 (77)		 Q1
Q2
Q3
 Final		 0.1 (1)
0.4 (4)
0.4 (4)
 3.4 (22)		 Umpires: Leheny
Mullens 5, O'Brien 4, Hopkins 2, Goals Munn 2, Britt

Had Williamstown won, minor premiers Footscray would have been entitled to a rematch the following Saturday to decide the premiership.

Notable events
  • Prior to the season, the V.F.A. became affiliated with the Victorian Junior Football Association. Under the arrangement, each of the junior clubs which served as a seconds team for a V.F.A. club joined the V.J.F.A; and, the V.J.F.A expanded to eighteen clubs in two divisions.[6][7] The V.J.F.A. would end up becoming the V.F.A. seconds competition over the following few years.
  • On 2 August, a combined Association team played against the visiting Perth Football Club team at the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve. Perth 5.8 (38) defeated the Association 4.12 (36) by two points.[8]
  • George Gough (Northcote) kicked 25 goals and 7 behinds in Northcote's match against Prahran in the final round of home-and-home matches on August 30.[1] Gough broke the Association record of 18 goals in a match, scored by Dave McNamara (Essendon (A.)) in 1912, and broke the national record of 23 goals in a top level senior match, set by Bos Daly (Norwood) in 1893 and matched by Hugh Campbell (Western Australia) in 1924.[9] Gough scored eleven goals in the final quarter.[1]
  • George Gough was the Association's leading goalscorer for the year, finishing with eighty goals in the home-and-home season.[1]
  • Bob Johnson (Northcote) won the Woodham Cup as the best and fairest player in the Association.[10]
  • Two clubs completed extremely long home winning streaks during the season: Footscray left the Association at the end of the season, after being unbeaten at the Western Oval in 47 consecutive matches; and Port Melbourne was beaten at the Port Melbourne Cricket Ground for the first time since 1920, ending a 33-match winning streak.[11]
  • Premiers Footscray played off against League premiers Essendon on 4 October in an exhibition match for Dame Nellie Melba's appeal for Limbless Soldiers. It was only the third match between League and Association teams since the breakaway of the League in 1897. Footscray 9.10 (64) defeated Essendon 4.12 (36) by 28 points.[12]
  • List of VFA premiers

References
  1. Onlooker (1 September 1924). "The Association – End of home and home matches". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 14.
  2. Onlooker (8 September 1924). "Penalty of inaccuracy – Williamstown wins semi-final". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 18.
  3. Onlooker (15 September 1924). "Footscray prevails". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 5.
  4. Onlooker (22 September 1924). "The Association – Footscray's superiority". The Argus. Melbourne. pp. 6–7.
  5. "Association – W'mstown (sic) v. Footscray". The Herald. Melbourne. 20 September 1924. p. 4.
  6. "Victorian Association – Affiliation with junior body". The Argus. Melbourne. 25 March 1924. p. 6.
  7. "Victorian Junior Association". The Argus. Melbourne. 4 April 1924. p. 5.
  8. "Football – Perth team victorious". The Daily News. Perth, WA. 4 August 1924. p. 8.
  9. Old Boy (1 September 1924). "Football – Fourth place struggle". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 13.
  10. "Downes (sic) wins Woodham Cup". The Argus. Melbourne. 11 August 1925. p. 12.
  11. Marc Fiddian (28 May 1983). "Injury just the start for Mills". The Age. Melbourne. p. 29.
  12. Old Boy (6 October 1924). "Football – Footscray champions". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 7.
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