1967 VFL season

Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1967.

Premiership season

In 1967, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th 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 1967 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the "Page-McIntyre system".

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 15

Round 16

Round 17

Round 18

Ladder

Night Series Competition

The 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 season.

Final: Footscray 15.11 (101) defeated South Melbourne 8.8 (56).

Premiership Finals

Semi-finals

Preliminary Final

Grand final

Umpires: P. Sheales, A. Cook, R. Kidd, L. Barratt, B. Grant.^[1]

Awards

• The 1967 VFL Premiership team was Richmond (its first since 1943).
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Doug Wade of Geelong who kicked 96 goals (including 17 goals in the final series).
• The winner of the 1967 Brownlow Medal was Ross G. Smith of St Kilda with 24 votes.
• Footscray took the "wooden spoon" in 1967.

Notable events

• Former Carlton ruckman Graham Donaldson, now coaching in Morwell, Victoria, is also the manager of one of the district's State Savings Bank of Victoria (SSB) branches. He convinces the Bank's head office to sponsor a new competition involving children (under 12), representing their VFL club and playing in their club colours, to be played during the half-time break in the senior VFL game each Saturday. The SSB Mini League, which eventually evolved into the "Little League", conducts its first matches during the 1967 VFL season.
• Fitzroy moved to Carlton's home ground, Princes Park, sharing the ground on alternate weeks.
• Hawthorn, having instituted an exhaustive schedule of pre-season and regular in-season training developed by coach John Kennedy and former star centreman, now gymnasium owner, Brendan Edwards, as a consequence of them having undertaken this gruelling schedule in addition to their normal, on-going skills training, the Hawthorn players become known as "Kennedy's Commandos".
• In the round 7 match between Richmond and Geelong at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the teams were tied 8.5 (53) each. Richmond scored 8.3 (51) to Geelong's 1.2 (8) in the third quarter, emulating its burst of 9.4 (58) to 3.1 (19) against Geelong in the fifth round of 1966.
• In the Second Semi-Final between Richmond and Carlton Richmond's Neville Crowe and Carlton's John Nicholls were wrestling for the ball when Nicholls hit Crowe "in the guts", Crowe stepped back with the football grasped to his chest in his left hand and attempted to slap Nicholls with his open right hand. Crowe missed making any contact with Nicholls by about three inches. Nicholls, always the opportunist, immediately lifted his own left hand to his face, and pretending to have been badly affected, reeled away from Crowe. Despite Crowe's protests, he was reported (for the first time in 11 senior seasons and 151 games) for striking Nicholls. At the tribunal Crowe received no assistance from Nicholls who was, obviously, most reluctant to admit that he was only acting. The case itself was complicated by the fact that the incident itself had taken place in front of where the tribunal members had sat during the match in question; and, despite the fact that none of them actually had seen Crowe hit Nicholls, they had certainly all seen Nicholls' reaction — and the nature of his dramatic performance had convinced them that he had, in fact, been hit by Crowe. It was also a controversial case because the VFL tribunal (no doubt, in part, because they trusted their own eyes) refused to allow television footage to be presented that unequivocally and without any doubt showed that Crowe's attempt to slap Nicholls had missed him altogether. Crowe was suspended for 4 weeks. He missed the Grand Final, and never played VFL football again.
• At the end of the season, Harry Beitzel's squad of players drawn mainly from the VFL, known as "The Galahs", play matches in Ireland, England, and the United States.

Footnotes

1. ↑ VFL/AFL Grand Final umpires 1897-2005 (accessed 2011-06-06)

References

• Hogan, P., The Tigers Of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN 0-646-18748-1
• 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

External links

• 1967 Season - AFL Tables
• Ben Broad, "Surprise debut a huge thrill for Tiger legend", Official AFL Website, (4 January 2008)