The1987 VFL season was the 91st season of theVictorian Football League (VFL). The season ran from 27 March until 26 September, and comprised a 22-game home-and-away season followed by afinals series featuring the top five clubs.
The season saw the beginning of a decade-long period of expansion of the Victorian league to the rest of Australia, with the admission of two newly established clubs: theWest Coast Eagles, based inPerth, Western Australia, and theBrisbane Bears, based inSouth East Queensland. While the league remained the highest level seniorAustralian rules football competition and administrative body in Victoria, it also became thede facto highest level senior competition in Australia, with representation across four states. In the pre-season, the first modernVFL draft was held.
Rounds 16 and 17 were played concurrently over three weekends: five matches were played on the weekends of 11 and 18 July, and four matches were played on the weekend of 25 July. This fixturing effectively gave each team onebye during the three-week period. However, the matches are still grouped into two complete rounds rather than three partial rounds, which results in a chronological anomaly in which six teams played their Round 17 matches before their Round 16 matches.
At theSCG,Sydney recorded the club's highest score in a match. It marked the third time they had kicked 30 goals in a game, the previous time being in Round 13 of the1982 VFL season againstSt Kilda. Swans roverStephen Wright kicked a career-best eight goals in his first game back after missing five weeks due to a hamstring strain.[1]
The final round of the 1987 VFL home-and-away season turned out to be one of the most dramatic and significant in VFL/AFL history. The composition of thefinal five would be determined by a number of scenarios:
If Carlton defeated North Melbourne, they would secure theminor premiership and advance straight to the second semi-final
Hawthorn would win the minor premiership if they beat Geelong and Carlton lost to North
North could grab third place - and hence the "double chance" - if it beat Carlton and Sydney lost to Fitzroy
Going into the final round, Geelong held fifth spot, ahead of Footscray on percentage, with Melbourne two premiership points behind both teams. Hence, if the Cats could beat Hawthorn, they would secure a finals berth, but if they lost, then the winner out of Melbourne and Footscray would advance to the finals.
The round began on the Friday night with Richmond and the fledgling Brisbane Bears playing for the wooden spoon; the Bears won easily to ensure they didn't come last in their first season. The significant matches to determine the final five were all played on Saturday afternoon, and they were all thrillers.
Sydney's win overFitzroy marked the club's first win atPrinces Park in 22 years. The Swans trailed at one stage by 41 points in the third quarter, but thereafter began to play more direct football and held off the Lions to secure third spot and the double chance.[4]
Tom Hafey coached his 500th League game, becoming the third to reach the milestone afterJock McHale and his opponentAllan Jeans.
Warwick Capper kicked four goals to become the second player afterTony Lockett to reach 100 goals for the season. He also took a spectacular mark over his opponentChris Langford.
Melbourne was leading by 4 points at the final siren, though Hawthorn'sGary Buckenara had a free kick 55 metres out. But Melbourne'sJim Stynes ran across the mark and incurred a 15-metre penalty, bringing Buckenara close enough to kick the winning goal after the siren.[5][6]
This season saw the introduction of two new interstate sides: the West Coast Eagles, based inPerth, Western Australia, and the Brisbane Bears, based inGold Coast, Queensland. They were the first new clubs to join the league since the expansion of1925, and the first time the league changed from twelve teams since1943. The clubs were admitted to the league in a meeting on 1 October 1986, with West Coast admitted by an 8–4 majority of the twelve clubs, and Brisbane admitted unanimously. The two new clubs each paid a$A4 million licence fee which was divided equally amongst the existing twelve clubs, many of whom were in desperate need of such a cash injection.[7]
When theSeven Network refused to offer a significant increase on its previous deal – which the VFL thought was warranted, given the broader audience that interstate expansion would bring – the VFL sold the television rights to on-seller Broadcom, who sold them to theABC and satellite network Sportsplay. The deals lasted one year, and Seven purchased the exclusive rights back from Broadcom in 1988 at almost double the 1986 rate.[8] Free-to-air broadcasts, alongside the nationally aired games on ABC (and all locally broadcast games via ABV in Victoria), were split on state lines with Seven retaining broadcasts for Western Australia via TVW-7, the games were broadcast as well onSBS Television andThe Prime Network (New South Wales) and onNetwork 10 (Queensland and South Australia).
The Round 10 match between West Coast and Collingwood was played on the Foundation Day public holiday, which is not observed in Victoria.
In awful conditions in Round 13, Collingwood kicked only 2.6 (18), the lowest score by any team since 1968.Brian Taylor kicked their only goals in the first few minutes of the second quarter.
In three home games from Round 16 to Round 18, theSydney Swans amassed the most prolific string of high scores in VFL history, scoring a total of 97.53 (635). Their individual scores were: 30.21 (201) against West Coast, winning by 130 points; 36.20 (236) against Essendon, winning by 163 points; and 31.12 (198) against Richmond, winning by 91 points.
The VFL made a loss on the Round 17 match betweenFitzroy andBrisbane Bears, which drew a meagre crowd of only 5,824 toPrinces Park, despite being one of only three matches in Melbourne that weekend. The league had considered rescheduling the match as the first half of a double-header with one of the other two senior matches that weekend to reduce overall operating expenses, but contracts already in place precluded double-headers from being staged.[9]
Melbourne ended the third-longest finals drought in league history (twenty-two seasons) by finishing fifth, making the finals for the first time since1964.
The Under-19s Grand Final, in whichNorth Melbourne 13.16 (94) defeatedRichmond 13.11 (89), ended in controversy when the final siren was alleged to have been blown early. The timekeeper, who was independent of the clubs, was alleged to have blown the siren after only two minutes oftime on; but there had been five goals kicked in the final quarter, which would usually have been expected to result in four or five minutes of time on. Richmond lodged a complaint against the timekeeper, but did not protest the result or seek a replay of the match.[10][11]
Carlton won the reserves premiership. Carlton 18.17 (125) defeatedSt Kilda 15.15 (105) in the grand final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 26 September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[12]
