The 1919 VFL season was the 23rd season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.

For the first time since the peak of World War I, all nine senior clubs competed. The season ran from 3 May until 11 October, and comprised a 16-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs. The league's seconds/reserves competition – known as the Victorian Junior Football League – played its inaugural season.

The premiership was won by the Collingwood Football Club for the fifth time, after it defeated Richmond by 25 points in the 1919 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1919, 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 1919 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".

Home-and-away season

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

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 61.1
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1919 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.

Semi-finals

Preliminary final

Grand final

Season notes

• Melbourne returned to the VFL competition, and also changed its constitution so that direct payments (i.e., other than reimbursement of expenses) could be made to players, thus making the team professional, eight years after the VFL had officially done so.
• Since the nine-team competition required one bye each week, the VFL sought expressions of interest from clubs wishing to join the VFL. Whilst there was talk of an Ex-Servicemen's Club and a Public Servants' Club, an application was actually lodged on behalf of a combined Ballarat Football League team, as well as on behalf of the VFA clubs Brunswick, Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, and Prahran.^[1]
• The VFL introduced a Second Eighteen competition between its constituent clubs, known as the Victorian Junior Football League.^[1]
• At the start of the 1919 season, the VFL had already donated £9,436-0-0 to the Patriotic Fund since the start of the war.^[1]
• In its Round 12 match against St Kilda, South Melbourne set the record for highest score in a quarter, kicking 17.4 (106) in the last quarter of the match. This remains the record, and is a full two goals better than any other team has managed, as of 2023.^[1] South's record score was helped by St Kilda only having 15 fit players at the start of the quarter, followed up by several Saints players walking off in the course of the last quarter.^[1]
  • Other records which have since been broken were set in that same match: South Melbourne full-forward Harold Robertson kicked 14 goals in the match (a record until 1929); South Melbourne kicked a match score of 29.15 (189) (a record until 1931), and a winning margin of 171 points (a record until 1979).^[1]
• In Round 16, Collingwood defeated Carlton 17.11 (113) to 5.16 (46). No team had scored 100 points against Carlton since round 1, 1904, a streak of 292 consecutive matches, which remains a VFL/AFL record as of 2023.^[2]
• St Kilda's win at Collingwood in Round 2 was its first ever win over Collingwood on the road after a winless streak of 24 matches at Victoria Park (20 in the VFL and four in the VFA).^[1]

Awards

• The 1919 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Dick Lee of Collingwood with 56 goals.
• Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1919.
• The Victorian Junior League premiership, which is today recognised as the inaugural VFL reserves premiership, was won by Collingwood's team, Collingwood District. Collingwood District 6.11 (47) defeated University A 4.8 (32) in a challenge Grand Final, played as a curtain-raiser to the senior Grand Final on 11 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.^[3]