All available evidence suggests that Jack Worrall was a man of practical methods. A plain-speaking disciplinarian who proved a model for most successful coaches who followed. His famous recommendation to his players that ‘football and booze don’t mix’ suggests a man of temperate habits and firm resolve. The teams he coached were renowned for [Read more]

  The area just south of the Yarra was one of Melbourne’s most populous from the 1840’s. In the gold rush days  it was known as Canvas Town, after the huge tent city that was temporary home to thousands on their way inland to seek fortune. Then it was called Emerald Hill in honour of [Read more]

The scandals of the VFL in this period seem wild and woolly by today’s standards, but it must be said they don’t look out of place with the general conduct of Melbourne society at the time. Both state and city were in many ways still recovering from the most controversial period in their history, when [Read more]

  Fitzroy players would have woken on the day of Round 17 aware of the task ahead of them. Whilst most would still have jobs to attend to in the morning,  their minds would have been contemplating how they might defeat top side Essendon to keep their finals hopes alive. That Collingwood, their bitter local [Read more]

The VFL was more prepared to make allowances for interstate football one hundred years ago than it would ever consider today. The 50th jubilee of the codification of the games’ rules had seen a grand festival of football held in Melbourne in 1908 under the nominal auspice of the Australian Football Council. With nationalist fervour [Read more]

  Any hope that St Kilda might resolve the internal conflict of the previous weekend soon dissipated as the following week unfolded. The committee stuck fast to their position in relation to withdrawing dressing room passes. At Tuesday training the players voted unanimously that ‘the indignity to which Messrs Eicke and Hogan had been subjected [Read more]

  Even before the VFL era had begun, the Australasian newspaper had formed the following opinion of the St Kilda football club: “There are 2 classes of men who play football. With one the pleasure of participating is more than sufficient recompense for defeat: the other class thinks that a win is above everything else. [Read more]

A ‘grey, windless, foggy afternoon’ was the setting for round 12, the coldest football match-day recorded to this time. The temperature wouldn’t rise above 7.1 °C (44.8 °F) as six clubs began the day within close proximity of a top four position. 20,000 spectators ignored the conditions and flocked to Brunswick St to watch fourth [Read more]

Though King George V had ascended the throne after his father’s death the previous year, his official coronation was held on Thursday 22nd of June in 1911. The VFL took advantage of the public holiday to stage two games to commence the second half of the season. The Argus believed that ‘altogether the idea of [Read more]