1970 VFL season

1970 VFL premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Carlton 10th premiership
Minor premiers	Collingwood 15th minor premiership
Consolation series	Footscray 4th Consolation series win
Brownlow Medallist	Peter Bedford (South Melbourne)
Coleman Medallist	Peter Hudson (Hawthorn)
Attendance
Matches played	136
Total attendance	3,321,925 (24,426 per match)
Highest	121,696

The 1970 VFL season was the 74th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

The season featured twelve clubs, and ran from 4 April until 26 September. It was the first season to play comprise a 22-game home-and-away season, which became the standard for the following fifty years, and which was followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs. The season saw the opening of the league's privately owned stadium, VFL Park, in Mulgrave.

The premiership was won by the Carlton Football Club for the tenth time, after it defeated Collingwood by ten points in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. A crowd of 121,696 attended the match, the all-time record for the highest Australian rules football crowd.

Background

In 1970, 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 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 1970 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Ladder

(P)	Premiers
	Qualified for finals

#	Team	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	Pts
1	Collingwood	22	18	4	0	2333	1709	136.5	72
2	Carlton (P)	22	16	6	0	2146	1911	112.3	64
3	St Kilda	22	14	8	0	1926	1532	125.7	56
4	South Melbourne	22	14	8	0	1914	1828	104.7	56
5	Geelong	22	12	10	0	1949	1903	102.4	48
6	Richmond	22	12	10	0	2029	1998	101.6	48
7	Footscray	22	11	11	0	1728	1894	91.2	44
8	Hawthorn	22	10	12	0	2264	1986	114.0	40
9	Fitzroy	22	9	13	0	1774	2155	82.3	36
10	Melbourne	22	6	16	0	1705	2043	83.5	24
11	Essendon	22	6	16	0	1734	2128	81.5	24
12	North Melbourne	22	4	18	0	1574	1989	79.1	16

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 87.4
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

Semi-finals

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
St Kilda	6.1	9.3	14.8	22.11 (143)
South Melbourne	2.5	9.8	10.10	13.12 (90)
Attendance: 110.467

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Collingwood	5.2	9.7	12.11	17.16 (118)
Carlton	5.0	9.2	14.3	17.6 (108)
Attendance: 109.345

Preliminary final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Carlton	2.6	6.12	13.16	17.21 (123)
St Kilda	1.4	4.12	6.16	7.19 (61)
Attendance: 102.118

Grand final

Main article: 1970 VFL Grand Final

Team	1 Qtr	2 Qtr	3 Qtr	Final
Carlton	0.3	4.5	12.5	17.9 (111)
Collingwood	4.8	10.13	13.16	14.17 (101)
Attendance: 121,696

Consolation Night Series Competition

The consolation 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 home and away rounds.

Final: Footscray 13.17 (95) defeated Melbourne 13.15 (93).

Season notes

• Unhappy with their treatment over the three seasons they spent at Princes Park, Fitzroy moved their home ground to the Junction Oval in St Kilda.
• VFL Park was opened. As part of accommodating the neutral ground, the 1970 VFL season was extended to 22 rounds, with each of the 12 clubs to play three games at VFL Park. The idea was that six clubs would play ten games on their home grounds, and the other six would play nine home ground matches. In 1971, the home ground advantage would be reversed, so that those teams that had nine home ground games in 1970 would play ten home ground games in 1971 and vice versa.
• On Monday 9 March, the Victoria representative team played a match under Gaelic football rules against the 1969 All-Ireland Senior football champions, Kerry, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Kerry 4-11 defeated Victoria 2–10.
• Essendon's Don McKenzie, Geoff Gosper, Darryl Gerlach, Geoff Pryor, and Barry Davis, and Collingwood's Len Thompson and Des Tuddenham did not play in Round 1 due to separate disputes over player payments with their respective clubs (see Dispute over player payments).
• The second half of the Round 1 match between Richmond and Fitzroy, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday, 5 April 1970, was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales (now Charles III) and Anne, Princess Royal, who were present as part of the 1970 royal tour commemorating the bicentenary of the first voyage of James Cook. The royals met the players on the field at half time and were present to unfurl Richmond's 1969 premiership flag before watching the second half. The match was specially scheduled to accommodate the royals' itinerary; it was the first VFL match played on a Sunday, and the second half was televised live in spite of the rules which normally precluded live telecasts of VFL matches.
• In Round 10, Collingwood trailed St Kilda by 60 points late in the second quarter, before coming back in the second half to win by seven points. It set a new record for the biggest comeback in VFL history which stood until 1999. The half-time deficit of the 52-point deficit remains, as of 2024, the greatest half-time deficit by a winning side.
• The 1970 VFL season was the first in which three full-forwards (Alex Jesaulenko, Peter McKenna, and Peter Hudson) kicked at least 100 goals in a home-and-away season.
• South Melbourne ended the second-longest finals drought in league history (twenty-four seasons) by finishing fourth, making the finals for the first time since 1945.
• In Round 5, Ted Whitten played his 321st senior VFL game, breaking the record set by Dick Reynolds. Whitten retired after this match.
• On Monday 31 August HSV-7 broadcast the first live Brownlow Medal count.
• In the 1970 Second Semi-Final, Carlton's Syd Jackson was reported for striking Collingwood defender Lee Adamson. Carlton president George Harris, eager to have Jackson in his Grand Final team, devised the strategy of having the club's advocate to assert to the tribunal (on Jackson's behalf) that Jackson had been provoked by an extended series of racial taunts from Adamson, including repeatedly calling him "Sambo" and, furthermore, stating that Jackson would respond in the same way to any future vilification. The tribunal took the stance that the VFL had to be seen to protect its only top-level Aboriginal footballer at the time, and they immediately exonerated him, without hearing Adamson's side of the story, stating that Jackson had no case to answer.
• The 1970 Grand Final between Collingwood and Carlton was considered to be the most memorable Grand Final in VFL/AFL history. Collingwood had a great lead over Carlton during most of the game, however Carlton managed to come back and win the Grand Final by 10 points.

Awards

Major awards

• The 1970 VFL Premiership team was Carlton.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Peter Hudson of Hawthorn who kicked 146 goals.
• The winner of the 1970 Brownlow Medal was Peter Bedford of South Melbourne with 25 votes.
• North Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1970.
• The reserves premiership was won by Melbourne for the second consecutive year. Melbourne 16.10 (106) defeated Richmond 16.8 (104) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 26 September.

Leading goalkickers

• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the goalkicking at the end of that round.
• DNP = did not play in that round.

	Player	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	SF	PF	GF	Total
1	Peter Hudson	88	412	820	323	629	837	340	1353	659	564	771	374	377	986	894	11105	2107	9116	6122	4126	9135	11146				146
2	Peter McKenna	1111	718	624	731	132	DNP	DNP	840	545	550	757	663	467	572	476	379	382	991	9100	12112	7119	9128	9137		6143	143
3	Alex Jesaulenko	99	615	621	526	430	1040	343	447	350	656	763	366	066	167	269	978	381	485	186	490	595	5100	8108	412	3115	115
4	Doug Wade	66	39	716	420	525	530	DNP	DNP	333	336	541	DNP	DNP	748	250	959	463	265	267	370	474	074				74
5	John Sudholz	DNP	DNP	DNP	22	46	39	514	317	320	121	324	327	633	235	540	040	343	245	348	452	456	121	360			60
6	Syd Jackson	DNP	DNP	33	47	18	614	115	419	423	225	328	230	333	437	037	DNP	DNP	239	039	241	546	147	148	654	155	55
7	Peter Bedford	22	02	35	38	210	313	417	017	118	119	524	327	330	333	134	135	136	238	240	343	447	047	350			50
8	Alex Ruscuklic	22	13	14	48	08	19	DNP	DNP	716	824	327	128	129	231	233	538	139	342	345	247	047	249				49
9	Bob Keddie	22	13	03	36	17	29	09	312	315	015	318	422	325	025	328	432	234	135	237	441	344	347				47
10	George Bisset	33	58	210	111	314	115	318	220	424	024	226	329	130	232	032	133	336	339	039	544	145	DNP				45

References

• Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
• Rogers, S. & Browne, 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

Sources

• 1970 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1970 VFL season at Australian Football