The 1965 VFL season was the 69th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 17 April until 25 September, 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 Essendon Football Club for the twelfth time, after it defeated St Kilda by 35 points in the 1965 VFL Grand Final.

Background

In 1965, 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 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 7. Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1965 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

North Melbourne Football Club moved its playing and training base from the Arden Street Oval to Coburg City Oval.^[1] The move was intended to be permanent, with some initial negotiations seeking long-term leases for up to 40 years,^[2] but it was ultimately cancelled after only eight months, and North Melbourne returned to the Arden Street Oval in 1966.^[3][4]

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: 73.3
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

Semi-finals

Preliminary final

Grand final

Night Series Competition

The 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 season.

Final: North Melbourne 14.13 (97) defeated Carlton 9.3 (57).

Season notes

• Melbourne's 1964 premiership captain Ron Barassi was cleared to Carlton as captain/coach, one of the most significant player transfers in the Coulter Law era.
• Three teams moved their home grounds in 1965:
  • St Kilda moved its training and playing base from Junction Oval to Moorabbin Oval, after signing a 75-year lease with the Moorabbin Council in June 1964.
  • Richmond moved its home ground for matches to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, sharing it with Melbourne, while continuing to train at the Punt Road Oval, because roadwork to widen Punt Road was going to significantly reduce Punt Road Oval's capacity.^[5]
  • North Melbourne moved its training and playing base from Arden Street Oval to Coburg City Oval, after signing a seven-year lease with the Coburg Council in April 1965. The move was not successful for either party, and the club returned to Arden Street Oval in 1966.
• In the Round 2 match against Essendon, Hawthorn forward Garry Young sustained a painful injury from a hard knock. Hawthorn captain Graham Arthur stood over him and said "Get up you weak bastard", and Young returned to the play and did his best to continue. Eventually he left the ground and went to hospital where it was discovered that he had a perforated bowel and peritonitis, both of which are life-threatening conditions. He never played again.
• In Round 6, Essendon forward Geoff Gosper was the first VFL player to play with a mouthguard.
• Victoria played two interstate matches against South Australia during the season. On Saturday 19 June, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Victoria won 19.17 (131) to 9.18 (72); on 10 July, in Adelaide, South Australia won 12.11 (83) to 3.1 (19).
• After opening the season with eight consecutive wins, Melbourne fell to 9–3 after Round 12, then sacked coach Norm Smith. He was reinstated before Round 14, but Smith had also been unhappy about his lack of support from the Melbourne Football Club in the libel case that had been brought against him by VFL umpire Don Blew in the late 1964. The sacking is said to have given rise to a sports curse, which saw Melbourne miss the finals for the first time since 1953 (after a twelve-year period under Smith which had netted six premierships), fail to reach another finals series until 1987, and fail to win another premiership until 2021.
• St Kilda played in a Grand Final for the first time since 1913.
• Essendon's half-forward flanker John Somerville was felled behind play in first 10 minutes of the 1965 Preliminary Final. His opponent for the day, Collingwood's Duncan Wright, was never selected to play for Collingwood again. The field umpire, Ron Brophy, was never selected to umpire a VFL match again. (See Duncan Wright and John Somerville.)

Awards

• The 1965 VFL Premiership team was Essendon.
• Hawthorn won the "wooden spoon" for 1965. As of 2022, this remains the club's latest wooden spoon.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was John Peck of Hawthorn who kicked 56 goals; he was the third player to win the goalkicking when his team won the "wooden spoon", the first since Roy Park of University in 1913 and the last until Brendan Fevola in 2006.^[6]
• The winner of the 1965 Brownlow Medal was Ian Stewart of St Kilda with 20 votes; he won on a count-back from Noel Teasdale of North Melbourne.
  • As a consequence of its 1981 decision to change its rules relating to tied Brownlow Medal contests, the AFL awarded a retrospective medal to Teasdale in 1989.
• The reserves premiership was won by Collingwood. Collingwood 16.9 (105) defeated Geelong 10.20 (80) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 25 September.^[7]