The1962 VFL season was the 66th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 21 April until 29 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 theEssendon Football Club for the eleventh time, after it defeatedCarlton by 32 points in the1962 VFL Grand Final.

In 1962, 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 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 1962 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: 75.5
Source:AFL Tables

The night series was 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 season.

Final:Richmond 8.16 (64) defeatedHawthorn 9.6 (60)

• Having abandoned live telecasts of the last quarters of VFL matches at the end of 1960, and having forbidden Saturday evening replays during the 1961 season, the VFL agreed to allow television stations to broadcast one hour of replays each Saturday evening, provided no more than 30 minutes of any one match was broadcast. A separate arrangement was made to allow a replay of the entire Grand Final match.
• St Kilda won its first match againstCollingwood atVictoria Park sinceround 2, 1919.
• OnAnzac Day, a representative match was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between theVictorian team from the1961 Brisbane Carnival, and a team representing the rest of the league. The Rest 13.7 (85) defeated the Carnival team 10.17 (77) in front of a crowd of 17,068.^[1]
• In the Round 10 match betweenCarlton andFitzroy at theBrunswick Street Oval, scores were level at 51 apiece when the final siren sounded; but, play was at the opposite end of the venue to the grandstand where the siren was located, and the umpire did not hear it. From the ensuing ball-up, Carlton'sMartin Cross punched the ball through for a rushed behind, and Carlton won by that point. Fitzroy did not protest the result;^[2] it did request that theFitzroy Cricket Club install new sirens at the other end of the field, but the request was rejected.^[3]
• In September, the VFL purchased land to the east of Melbourne, atMulgrave, upon which later builtVFL Park.
• The preliminary final replay betweenCarlton andGeelong was by Carlton won by five points. In the final moments of the match, Geelong full forwardDoug Wade took a strong mark directly in front of the Geelong goals, but he was penalised for interfering with Carlton full-backPeter Barry.
• In the grand final, abadly injured Geoff Leek played one of the best matches in his career to nullify Carlton'sJohn Nicholls and pave the way for a sound 32 point win byEssendon.

• The 1962 VFL Premiership team wasEssendon.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasDoug Wade ofGeelong who kicked 68 goals (including 6 goals in the final series).
• The winner of the 1962Brownlow Medal wasAlistair Lord ofGeelong with 28 votes.
• South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1962.
• The reserves premiership was won byFootscray. Footscray 13.13 (91) defeatedSt Kilda 10.8 (68) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the Preliminary Final Replay at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 22 September.^[4]

• Hogan, P.,The Tigers of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996.ISBN 0-646-18748-1
• 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
• Ross, J. (ed.),The Australian Football Hall of Fame, HarperCollinsPublishers, (Pymble), 1999.ISBN 0-7322-6426-X

• 1962 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1962 VFL season at Australian Football

• 1962 VFL season
• Australian Football League seasons
• 1962 in Australian men's sport
• 1962 in Australian rules football

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