1926 VFL premiership season
Melbourne 1926 VFL premiership team
Overview
Date	1 May – 9 October 1926
Teams	12
Premiers	Melbourne 2nd premiership
Runners-up	Collingwood 9th runners-up result
Minor premiers	Collingwood 8th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Ivor Warne-Smith (Melbourne) 9 votes
Leading goalkicker medallist	Gordon Coventry (Collingwood) 78 goals
Attendance
Matches played	112
Total attendance	1,966,841 (17,561 per match)
Highest (H&A)	32,475 (round 15,Melbourne vCollingwood)
Highest (finals)	59,632 (grand final,Collingwood vMelbourne)
← 1925 1927 →

The1926 VFL season was the 30th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs and ran from 1 May to 9 October, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-weekfinals series featuring the top four clubs.

Melbourne won thepremiership, defeatingCollingwood by 57 points in the1926 VFL grand final; it was Melbourne's second VFL premiership. Collingwood won theminor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 15–3 win–loss record. Melbourne'sIvor Warne-Smith won theBrownlow Medal as the league's best and fairest player, and Collingwood'sGordon Coventry won theleading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

In 1926, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 17 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 6, and match 18 the "home-and-away reverse" of match 9.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1926 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of theamended "Argus system".

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 74.7
Source:AFL Tables

All of the 1926 finals were played at theMCG so the home team in the semi-finals and preliminary final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the preliminary final.

• In order to ensure that each team had nine home games in every season, the 17 game home-and-away season of 1925 was extended to 18 matches in 1926.
• Following the retirement due to ill-health ofSir Baldwin Spencer, formerMelbourne footballer, club doctor, and VFL delegateDr. William C. McClelland became President of the VFL. He served from 1926 to 1956.
• Halfway through the 1924 season,Carlton's championHorrie Clover retired as a player due to a serious illness. He was subsequently appointed Secretary of the Carlton Club and, as well, he was made a member of the VFL's Umpire and permit Committee. By the start of 1926, Clover's health had improved to the extent that he resumed his career with Carlton, playing another 78 senior games from 1926 to 1931. Due to the perceived conflict of interest, he was made to resign from the VFL Committee.
• As the players were walking off the field for their half-time break in the preliminary final, the Melbourne centremanBob Corbett was viciously king-hit from behind, suffering a broken jaw; Essendon'sCharlie May was subsequently suspended for all of 1927 for the incident. With no replacements allowed, Melbourne were forced to continue with 17 men and were gamely defending against the Essendon onslaught in the last quarter when, with only minutes to go in the match, a barely conscious Corbett staggered out onto the field with his head swathed in bandages, and took up his position in the centre, freeing upIvor Warne-Smith to lead the Melbourne attack. In a mark of respect for Corbett's great courage, Essendon tough-man and rugged full-backHarry Hunter, who was racing up the ground towards the Essendon goals, saw a battered Corbett standing in his way. Under normal circumstances, Hunter, who was known to take no prisoners, would have run straight through Corbett; however, in what was described as an act of great chivalry by a sportsman and a gentleman, Hunter sidestepped Corbett, and delivered the ball down the ground through another avenue.Melbourne won 6.6 (42) toEssendon's 5.9 (39). The king-hit led to strong calls for substitute replacement players.^[1][2]

• The 1926 VFL Premiership team wasMelbourne.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasGordon Coventry ofCollingwood with 83 goals; a VFL record.
• The winner of the 1926Brownlow Medal wasIvor Warne-Smith ofMelbourne with 9 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1926.
• The seconds premiership was won byCarlton. Carlton 14.11 (95) defeatedGeelong 5.13 (43) in the challenge Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 9 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.^[3]

• 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

• 1926 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1926 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1926 in Australian rules football

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