The1975 VFL season was the 79th season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 5 April until 27 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top five clubs.

The premiership was won by theNorth Melbourne Football Club, after it defeatedHawthorn by 55 points in theVFL Grand Final. It was North Melbourne's first premiership, making it the last of the league's twelve clubs to win a premiership.

In 1975, 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 (except that rounds 14 and 15 were the reverse of 4 and 3 respectively).

Once the 22 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1975 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the"McIntyre final five system".

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 94.6
Source:AFL Tables

• Football matches were telecast in colour, following the official launch of colour television in Australia on 1 March 1975. In response to this, many clubs adopted brighter playing colours:Fitzroy changed its colours from maroon, blue and white to red, blue and gold;Melbourne changed the primary colour of its guernsey from navy blue to royal blue; and other clubs adopted coloured home shorts to replace the black they had previously worn (exceptCollingwood,Richmond &St Kilda where black is a club colour).^[1]
• The centre square replaced the centre diamond (which had been used throughout the 1973 and 1974VFL seasons).
• There was a wild brawl in the Round 1 match betweenHawthorn andNorth Melbourne involving 34 of the 36 players. Hawthorn'sDon Scott and North Melbourne'sBrad Smith did not participate. There were no reports from this match.
• Footscray had three new, highly talented recruits from interstate in 1975: 183 cm centremanPeter Featherby fromSubiaco Football Club in theWest Australian National Football League (WANFL), 183 cm forwardIan Low fromManuka Football Club in theCanberra Australian National Football League (CANFL), and 190.5 cm forward-flankerNeil Sachse fromNorth Adelaide Football Club in theSouth Australian National Football League (SANFL). In an accidental collision in the Round 2 match againstFitzroy at the Western Oval, Neil Sachse was badly injured and became aquadriplegic.
• On 17 June,Hawthorn announced that it had given full-forwardPeter Hudson who had only played three and a half games for Hawthorn in three years, a clearance toGlenorchy.
• The second quarter of the round 14 match betweenCarlton andEssendon atWindy Hill lasted almost 40 minutes, with Carlton scoring 14.1 (85) to Essendon's 4.1 (25) for a record quarter aggregate score of 18.2 (110). It is the first quarter to beat South Melbourne's 1919 team record of 17.4 (106).
  • Near the end of the quarter, a massive brawl involving all 36 players erupted when Essendon centremanNeville Fields ran past Carlton forwardCraig Davis and king-hit him in retaliation for some supposed earlier act of aggression against an Essendon player.^[2][3] Noticing the unconscious Davis, bothRod Ashman andRod Austin ran to remonstrate with Fields, followed by their Carlton team-mates, and the fight was on. Carlton'sPhillip Pinnell knocked out Essendon'sDean Hartigan.^[4]
    It took a long time for the match to resume. Field umpireIan Robinson was showered with cans by spectators. Eight players were reported. Many more players would have been reported had the umpires been able to turn their attention elsewhere (the VFL responded to this problem by introducing two field umpires in the following season).^[5]
    The tribunal decisions were:^[6]
  • Rod Ashman of Carlton was suspended for 4 weeks, for strikingNeville Fields.
  • Rod Austin of Carlton was suspended for 4 weeks, for strikingNeville Fields.
  • Phillip Pinnell of Carlton was suspended for 2 weeks, for strikingRobin Close.
  • David McKay of Carlton was found guilty of strikingLaurie Moloney, and severely reprimanded.
  • Ron Andrews of Essendon was found not guilty of strikingDavid McKay.
  • Robin Close of Essendon was suspended for 2 weeks, for strikingPhillip Pinnell.
  • Laurie Moloney of Essendon was suspended for 2 weeks, for chargingPhillip Pinnell.
  • Neville Fields of Essendon was found not guilty of strikingRod Austin.
• At the end of the season, greatly dissatisfied with the approach of coachDes Tuddenham (especially his emphasis on "vigour" with players who were renowned for their skill), and disturbed by the fact that, under Tuddenham,Essendon had been involved in two massive brawls in two consecutive years, the committee of the Essendon Football Club sacked Tuddenham and paid out his contract.
  • Also, given the example of an injuredJohn Nicholls in the 1973 Grand Final, and that of Tuddenham having his leg broken in the round 10 match againstRichmond, Essendon now recognized the dangers of having its coach on the playing field and liable to injury.

• The 1975 VFL premiership team wasNorth Melbourne.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasLeigh Matthews ofHawthorn who kicked 68 goals (including one goal in the finals).
• The winner of the 1975Brownlow Medal wasGary Dempsey ofFootscray with 20 votes.
• South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1975.
• The reserves premiership was won byGeelong. Geelong 16.18 (114) defeatedRichmond 11.17 (83) in the grand final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 27 September.^[7]

• 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

• 1975 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1975 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1975 in Australian rules football

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use Australian English from December 2017
• All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
• Use dmy dates from December 2021