The 1921 VFL season was the 25th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured nine clubs and ran from 7 May to 15 October, comprising a 16-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.
In 1921, the VFL competition consisted of nine teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match.
Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds (i.e., 16 matches and 2 byes).
Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1921 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".
Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for Average score: 66.0 Source: AFL Tables
Finals series
All of the 1921 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the semi-finals and preliminary final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the grand final the home team was the team that won the preliminary final.
Umpires demand that the VFL provides greater protection, including the wire netting of the umpire's race to the ground (in order to protect them from fists, projectiles and, particularly, ladies' hat-pins) and a stronger police guard.
In the last quarter of the Round 7 match between Richmond and Essendon at the Punt Road Oval, Richmond had kicked a point. The ball was returned from the crowd to the Essendon full-back Bert Day who was on the boundary line, not the goal line. The ball had been stabbed by someone in the crowd. Day, noticing the deflated condition of the ball, kicked it idly from the boundary line over to the field Umpire (E. P. Willamson) to inspect. Richmond full-forward George Bayliss pounced on the ball and kicked a goal with it. Day's kick from the boundary line was mistakenly treated as if it had been a kick out from the goal line and, despite all of Essendon's protests, a goal was awarded to Bayliss.
In Round 10 Charlie Hardy Debuted for Essendon Football Club at the age of 34 years 100 days old making him the oldest debutant in VFL/AFL History.
In Round 11, St Kilda failed to score a goal, and lost badly to a Fitzroy team that had four fewer scoring shots: Fitzroy 6.8 (44) to St Kilda 0.18 (18).
Prior to the Round 12 match between St Kilda and Carlton, a "ladies" football match was played between two female teams, "The Chorleys" and "The Fleetwoods", to the delight of the crowd. The Fleetwoods won 4.2 (26) to 2.4 (16). Whilst the women played in men's guernseys, shorts, socks, boots, etc. the (male) field umpire wore a dress.
The Preliminary Final on 8 October, played between Richmond and Carlton, was played in deep mud, and the second half was delayed until a driving hail-storm, that had turned the Melbourne Cricket Ground's playing surface white, had passed. The second half was played with the surface covered with pools of water six inches deep. (The VFA preliminary final, played at the nearby East Melbourne Cricket Ground, was abandoned in the third quarter and replayed the following week due to the same hail-storm).[1] Despite being behind at half-time, Carlton led by 2 points at three-quarter time, but then in a unique move, Richmond brought every big man on the ball and they claimed the victory.[2]
The five drawn matches during the 1921 season remains a VFL/AFL record for most draws in one season.
^"The Association – final abandoned through hail". The Argus. Melbourne. 10 October 1921. p. 3.
^Atkinson, Graeme (1982). Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about Australian Rules Football, But Couldn't be Bothered Asking. Canterbury, Victoria: The Five Mile Press. p. 1. ISBN9780867880090.
Hogan, P., The Tigers of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN0-646-18748-1
Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN0-9591740-2-8
Rogers, S. & Brown, A., Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998. ISBN0-670-90809-6
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. ISBN0-670-86814-0
