The1972 VFL season was the 76th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 1 April until 7 October, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs – an increase from the four clubs which had contested the finals in previous years.

The premiership was won by theCarlton Football Club for the eleventh time, after it defeatedRichmond by 27 points in the1972 VFL Grand Final.

In 1972, 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 1972 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of theMcIntyre final five system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 93.7
Source:AFL Tables

• ThePage–McIntyre system for determining the VFL premiership team, that had been centered on a final four, and had operated from 1931 to 1971, was replaced by theMcIntyre final five system in 1972. This was done primarily to create new finals which could be played at the VFL-ownedVFL Park while still fulfilling the existing finals contract at theMelbourne Cricket Ground. The new finals system was used from 1972 until1990.^[1]
• In Round 1,Hawthorn full-forwardPeter Hudson kicked 8 goals at Glenferrie Oval before he sustained a knee injury that kept him out until Round 21 of the following season.
• In Round 10, the VFL changed a tradition: the field umpire, rather than team captains, tossed the coin at the start of the match, in order to reduce gamesmanship.
• In Round 14,Collingwood half-forwardJohn Greening was felled bySt Kilda back-manJim O'Dea 70 metres behind play. Greening was comatose for some time and was extremely lucky not to have died. After a VFL investigation, O'Dea received a 10-week suspension, which was seen by some as unsatisfactory.
• In the second quarter ofCarlton's Round 16 match againstEssendon,Alex Jesaulenko kicked six goals in eleven minutes. Carlton kicked 11 goals straight in that second quarter.
• In August, the VFL announced that it would grant a free transfer to any player who had played 10 years with a single club.
  • The "10-year rule" was introduced in order to render the VFL immune from the sorts of "restraint of trade" difficulties that were being experienced, at the time, in New South Wales in relation to Rugby League footballers.
  • Although twenty-two VFL players were eligible to do so, only six players,George Bisset (Footscray to Collingwood),Barry Davis (Essendon to North Melbourne),Carl Ditterich (St Kilda to Melbourne),Adrian Gallagher (Carlton to Footscray),John Rantall (South Melbourne to North Melbourne), andDoug Wade (Geelong to North Melbourne) took advantage of the new rule. The rule was rescinded in May 1973.
• In September,North Melbourne Football Club appointedRon Barassi as its 1973 coach.
• In Round 20, Geelong's Ken Newland kicked a behindafter the siren to win the match against Collingwood.
• In the Round 21 match betweenFitzroy andEssendon at theJunction Oval, bespectacled Essendon full-forwardGeoff Blethyn kicked his 100th goal. A mounted policeman galloped out to protect Blethyn from spectators, and Blethyn was temporarily rendered sightless when the policeman's horse slobbered all over his glasses.
• The 16 September First semi-final betweenRichmond andCarlton was tied at 8.13 (61) each. Angry fans invadedVFL Park immediately after the siren and field umpireIan Coates was assaulted.
• The Grand Final betweenCarlton andRichmond featured an aggregate score of 50.27 (327), setting the record for the highest aggregate score in any game, final or otherwise. The previous record of 48.25 (313) had stood since1942, and the record would last until1978.

• The 1972 VFL Premiership team wasCarlton.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasPeter McKenna ofCollingwood who kicked 130 goals.
• The winner of the 1972Brownlow Medal wasLen Thompson ofCollingwood with 25 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1972. The club would not "win" another wooden spoon again until2021, forty-nine years later.
• The reserves premiership was won byHawthorn. Hawthorn 13.10 (88) defeatedMelbourne 12.12 (84) in the grand final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 7 October.^[2]

• 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

• 1972 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1972 VFL season at Australian Football

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