1927 VFL premiership season
Brownlow Medal winner Syd Coventry
Teams	12
Premiers	Collingwood 6th premiership
Minor premiers	Collingwood 9th minor premiership
Brownlow Medallist	Syd Coventry (Collingwood)
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	Gordon Coventry (Collingwood)
Matches played	111
Highest	63,620
← 1926 1928 →

The 1927 VFL season was the 31st season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 30 April until 1 October, and comprised an 18-game home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring the top four clubs.

The premiership was won by the Collingwood Football Club for the sixth time, after it defeated Richmond by 12 points in the 1927 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1927, the VFL competition consisted of twelve 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.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 17 were the "home-and-away reverse" of matches 1 to 6, and match 18 the "home-and-away reverse" of match 11.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1927 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: 74.1
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1927 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

Grand final

Season notes

• In round 9, remembered as "Duncan's Match", Carlton's centre-halfback Alex Duncan took at least 33 marks (some claim he took as many as 45) in a single match.
• South Melbourne Football Club introduced a popular innovation: selling reserved grandstand seats.
• After the round 10 match, the Secretary of the Richmond Football Club, Percy "Pip" Page of "Page–McIntyre system fame, had his jaw broken in a fight that erupted during a club dance.
• The Grand Final was played under atrocious weather conditions on a Melbourne Cricket Ground that resembled a swamp. The two teams scored a combined 38 points, and it was the lowest combined score of any VFL/AFL game (Grand Final or otherwise) played in the 20th century. Including the four seasons played in the 19th century (1897–1900), it was the equal 11th lowest-scoring game of all time.

Awards

• The 1927 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Gordon Coventry of Collingwood with 97 goals.
• The winner of the 1927 Brownlow Medal was Syd Coventry of Collingwood with 7 votes.
• Hawthorn took the "wooden spoon" in 1927.
• The seconds premiership was won by Carlton for the second straight year. Carlton 12.22 (94) defeated South Melbourne 11.9 (75) in the challenge Grand Final, played as a stand-alone game on 8 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before a crowd of 4,210.^[1]