The 1914 VFL season was the 18th 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 25 April to 26 September, comprising an 18-match home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top four clubs. It was the last season to feature, which withdrew from the VFL after seven seasons after its strict policy of amateurism when player payments were becoming common, and its players focusing primarily on their studies, meant that the club could not remain competitive or viable in the league. won the premiership, defeating by six points in the 1914 VFL grand final; it was Carlton's fourth VFL premiership. Carlton also won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 13–3–2 win–loss–draw record. 's Dick Lee won his fourth leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

Background

In 1914, the VFL competition consisted of 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 1914 VFL premiers were determined through the amended Argus system.

Withdrawal of University

On 16 October 1914, three weeks after the end of the 1914 season, the University Football Club dropped out of the VFL and folded. The reasons given for this decision were: As such, both the club and the VFL had conceded it would be virtually impossible for University to become viable and/or competitive in an increasingly professional competition. Despite the outbreak of World War I eleven weeks earlier, the war was not given as a contributing factor in University's decision, especially as the conflict was not, at the time, expected to escalate to the extent it did. Following University's dissolution, players who wished to continue playing in the VFL were all cleared to through an informal arrangement beneficial to both clubs: University wished to see its best players playing together in the same VFL club to retain the strength of its own team for intervarsity competition, and Melbourne, which had mostly struggled since its 1900 premiership due to the lack of a natural recruiting district (formal zoning was not introduced until the following year), gained exclusive access to a valuable source of recruits. Among those who transferred from University to Melbourne were Jack Brake, Claude Bryan, Jack Doubleday, Dick Gibbs, Roy Park, and Percy Rodriguez. University reformed in 1919, and after two seasons in the VFL seconds (reserves) competition where they fielded "A" and "B" teams, both teams returned to the Metropolitan Amateur Football Association (MAFA) in 1921, and they have continued in that competition (now known as the VAFA) to this day.

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: 60.3 Source: AFL Tables

Finals series

All of the 1914 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

Awards

Sources