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1910 VFL premiership season
Collingwood 1910 VFL premiership team
Date	30 April—1 October 1910
Teams	10
Premiers	Collingwood 3rd premiership
Minor premiers	Carlton 4th minor premiership
Leading goalkicker medallist	Percy Martini (Geelong) 51 goals
Matches played	94
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The 1910 VFL season was the 14th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured ten clubs and ran from 30 April to 1 October, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.

Collingwood won the premiership, defeating Carlton by 14 points in the 1910 VFL grand final; it was Collingwood's third VFL premiership. Carlton won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 15–3 win–loss record. Geelong's Percy Martini won the leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

Background

In 1910, the VFL competition comprised ten 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.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1910 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: 54.1
Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1910 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

• Former Carlton coach Jack Worrall was appointed umpires' coach, with a view to raising standards and decreasing violence.
• Round 2, originally scheduled for 7 May, was postponed by one week, and remaining rounds pushed back by one week, due to the death of King Edward VII on 6 May. The Victorian Football Association and Metropolitan Junior Football Association also took the same action.
• In the last quarter of the round 4 match between Carlton and South Melbourne, Carlton's George Topping coward-hit South Melbourne's Bert Streckfuss behind the play, causing spectators to jump the fence and participate in an all-in melee with players and officials. Topping was suspended for the remainder of 1910 and all of 1911 as a result of the incident.
• VFL conducted an inquiry into allegations that particular players from Carlton, Fitzroy, Melbourne, and South Melbourne had been paid to play "dead". In particular, Carlton's Doug Gillespie, Alex "Bongo" Lang, and Doug Fraser were investigated (the inquiry dealt with Lang and Fraser behind closed doors). Gillespie was exonerated, while Lang and Fraser were each suspended for five years.
• St Kilda, after losing its first seventeen games, defeated minor premier Carlton in a major upset in the last round to avoid its expected fifth winless season. It remains the worst start by a VFL/AFL team that did not finish winless, equalled in 2001 by Fremantle.
• Carlton player and Secretary Arthur Charles "Shooter" Ford was charged with abusing and physically threatening the field umpire (off the field) after Carlton's round 14 match against Fitzroy; Ford was suspended for 12 months and debarred from his role as Club Secretary. There was speculation that the issue between the two was connected with the suspension of George Topping earlier in the season.
• T.W Sherrin manufactured special footballs for the Premiership Finals.

Awards

• The 1910 VFL Premiership team was Collingwood.
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Percy Martini of Geelong with 51 goals.
• St Kilda took the "wooden spoon" in 1910.

References

1. ^ Ross, John (1996). 100 Years of Australian Football. Ringwood, Australia: Viking Books. p. 382. ISBN 9781854714343.
2. Rodgers, Stephen, Every Game Ever Played, VFL/AFL Results 1897–1991, Ringwood, VIC: Viking O'Neal, p. 78
3. "METROPOLITAN ASSOCIATION". The Argus. 13 May 1910. p. 7. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
4. Rodgers, Stephen, Every Game Ever Played, VFL/AFL Results 1897–1991, Ringwood, VIC: Viking O'Neal, p. 78

• Player payments and the great bribery scandal

Sources

• 1910 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1910 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1910 in Australian rules football