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The 1961 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football
game contested between the Footscray Football Club and Hawthorn Football Club, held at
the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 23 September
1961. It was the 65th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League,
staged to determine the premiers for
the 1961 VFL
season. The match, attended by 107,935 spectators, was won by
Hawthorn by a margin of 43 points, marking that club's first
premiership victory.
Hawthorn, who were competing in their inaugural VFL Grand Final
despite being in the competition since 1925, came into the game as
minor premiers and favourites. Footscray, the 1954
premiership winners, had finished the home and away season in
fourth place but upset the Ron Barassi-led Melbourne by 27 points in
the Preliminary Final to end the Demons' sequence of seven
consecutive Grand Final appearances.
It was a young Footscray side, with only two players coming into
the game with more than 80 VFL games behind them, although one of
them was veteran Ted
Whitten. Hawthorn's Brendan Edwards was playing in his
100th VFL game and dominated in the centre. Despite trailing at
half time, Hawthorn won comfortably in the end courtesy of a
dominant third quarter in which they kicked six goals to just one
by Footscray.
The Bulldogs are yet to appear in another Grand Final.
Teams
Statistics
Goal
kickers
|
Hawthorn:
- Browne 3
- Law 2
- Mort 2
- Arthur 1
- Cunningham 1
- Edwards 1
- Hill 1
- Nalder 1
- Peck 1
|
Footscray:
- Whitten 3
- Quarrell 2
- Hobbs 1
- McKellar 1
|
Attendance
References
- 1961 Grand Final page on AFL
Tables
- The Official statistical history of the AFL 2004
- Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996:
The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great
Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported,
Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN 0-670-86814-0
See also
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