The1971 VFL season was the 75th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 3 April until 25 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The premiership was won by theHawthorn Football Club for the second time, after it defeatedSt Kilda by seven points in the1971 VFL Grand Final. Hawthorn full-forwardPeter Hudson kicked 150 goals for the season, equalling the all-time record set byBob Pratt (South Melbourne) in1934.

In 1971, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the19th man and the20th 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 22 rounds; matches 12 to 22 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 11.

Once the 22 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1971 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of thePage–McIntyre system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 92.7
Source:AFL Tables

The consolation night series were held under the floodlights at Lake Oval,South Melbourne, for the teams (5th to 12th on ladder) out of the finals at the end of the home and away rounds.

Final:Melbourne 12.7 (79) defeatedFitzroy 9.9 (63).

• Fitzroy wingerTreva McGregor won the 1971, 130-yardStawell Gift in 11.7 seconds, off a handicap of 7¼ yards.
• Bill Barrot ofRichmond andIan Stewart ofSt Kilda swap clubs before the start of the 1971 season. Stewart went on to win his thirdBrownlow Medal at Richmond, while Barrott was so dissatisfied at St Kilda's demands that he play in defence that he requested, and was given, a clearance toCarlton during the season.
• The VFL sold its Harrison House headquarters and moved to 84 Jolimont Street.
• The Round 21 match betweenFitzroy andCarlton atJunction Oval was played in a thick fog with terrible visibility – so much so that goal umpires could not see each other's flags, forcing the boundary umpires to convey messages between the goal umpires for scorekeeping purposes.^[1]
• In the Grand Final,Peter Hudson could have brokenBob Pratt's season record of 150 goals except for three incidents:
  • He kicked what would have otherwise been an easy goal into the man on the mark (Barry Lawrence).
  • He kicked a goal on the run that was disallowed because the end of the quarter siren had gone before the ball hit his boot.
  • He ran into an open goal and kicked the ball out of bounds.
• The Committees of theCarlton Football Club andCollingwood decide not to renew the contracts of their respective coaches,Ron Barassi andBob Rose.

• The 1971 VFL Premiership team wasHawthorn.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasPeter Hudson ofHawthorn who kicked 150 goals (including 10 goals in the finals).
• The winner of the 1971Brownlow Medal wasIan Stewart ofRichmond with 21 votes.
• South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1971.
• The reserves premiership was won byRichmond. Richmond 14.14 (98) defeatedEssendon 8.18 (66) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 25 September.^[2]

• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the goalkicking at the end of that round.
• DNP = did not play in that round.

• 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

• 1971 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1971 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1971 in Australian rules football

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