1922 VFL premiership season
Fitzroy Football Club, Premier team
Teams	9
Premiers	Fitzroy 7th premiership
Minor premiers	Collingwood 7th minor premiership
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	Horrie Clover (Carlton)
Matches played	76
Highest	64,148
← 1921 1923 →

The 1922 VFL season was the 26th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured nine clubs, ran from 6 May until 14 October, and comprised a 16-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The premiership was won by the Fitzroy Football Club for the seventh time, after it defeated Collingwood by eleven points in the 1922 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1922, 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 1922 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: 69.4
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1922 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

• Essendon began playing its home games at the Essendon Recreation Reserve (known today as Windy Hill) from this season, after the closure of the East Melbourne Cricket Ground at the end of 1921.
• Boundary umpires became responsible for bringing the ball back to the centre after a goal has been scored.
• Angry Richmond fans invaded the field after Richmond's 10-point loss against Essendon in Round 5. Field umpire Arthur Norden, later received a letter threatening his life, and he retired.
• The first issue of the "pink paper", the Saturday evening newspaper, The Sporting Globe, was published on 22 July 1922.
• In the round 17 match against Geelong, St Kilda's centre half-forward Dave McNamara had 12 kicks for the match. From the twelve kicks he scored ten goals, nine of them with place-kicks (one 70 yards, another 65 yards), and tenth with a punt-kick. By contrast with that accurate kicking, on the following Saturday, in the round 18 match against Richmond, McNamara kicked 1.13 (19).
• South Melbourne's percentage is the highest ever by the team finishing last.

Awards

• The 1922 VFL Premiership team was Fitzroy.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Horrie Clover of Carlton with 54 goals (56 after finals).
• South Melbourne took the "wooden spoon" in 1922.
• The Victorian Junior League premiership, which is today recognised as the VFL reserves premiership, was won by Collingwood District (main: 1922 VJFL season).