1983 VFL season

1983 VFL Premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Hawthorn (5th premiership)
Minor premiers	North Melbourne (3rd minor premiership)
Night series	Carlton (1st Night series win)
Matches played	138
Attendance	3,638,017 (26,362 per match)
Highest attendance	110,332
Coleman Medallist	Bernie Quinlan Fitzroy (106 goals)
Brownlow Medallist	Ross Glendinning North Melbourne (24 votes)
← 1982 1984 →

The 1983 Victorian Football League season was the 87th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.

Night Series

Carlton defeated Richmond 14.16 (100) to 10.6 (66) in the Final.

Premiership season

Rounds 12-22 were the home-and-away reverse of Rounds 1-11.

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

Round 19

Round 20

Round 21

Round 22

Ladder

1983 VFL Ladder
	TEAM	P	W	L	D	PF	PA	%	PTS
1	North Melbourne	22	16	6	0	2789	2183	127.76	64
2	Hawthorn (P)	22	15	7	0	2675	2078	128.73	60
3	Fitzroy	22	15	7	0	2608	2059	126.66	60
4	Essendon	22	15	7	0	2664	2215	120.27	60
5	Carlton	22	13	9	0	2360	2244	105.17	52
6	Collingwood	22	12	10	0	2315	2247	103.03	48
7	Footscray	22	10	12	0	2102	2428	86.57	40
8	Melbourne	22	9	13	0	2220	2557	86.82	36
9	Geelong	22	8	14	0	1932	2197	87.94	32
10	Richmond	22	7	15	0	2124	2392	88.80	28
11	Sydney	22	7	15	0	2068	2670	77.45	28
12	St Kilda	22	5	17	0	2150	2737	78.55	20
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points for, PA = Points against

Finals

Elimination Finals

Qualifying Final

Semi Finals

Preliminary Final

Grand Final

Attendance

A total of 3,631,042 people attended VFL matches during the 1983 season, an average of about 26,312 per game (including finals matches). A combined total of 420,439 attended finals matches in 1983, an average of 70,073 per finals match. The largest attendance for a home and away game was Richmond versus Collingwood at the MCG, the attendance figure was 81,966.

Awards

• The Brownlow Medal was awarded to Ross Glendinning of North Melbourne.
• The Coleman Medal was awarded to Bernie Quinlan of Fitzroy.
• The VFL Players Association MVP Award, now known as the Leigh Matthews Trophy, was awarded to Terry Daniher of Essendon.
• The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Colin Robertson of Hawthorn.
• The “Wooden Spoon” was “awarded’ to St Kilda.
• The reserves premiership was won by Essendon. Essendon 19.14 (128) defeated Collingwood 15.9 (99) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final on 24 September.^[1]

Notable events

• In Round 4, St Kilda played Paul Morwood and Silvio Foschini without their clearances from the Sydney Swans being finalised. Had they beaten Geelong, they would have forfeited the points under the laws at the time.
• North Melbourne's 150-point loss to Fitzroy in Round 13 more than doubled the previous biggest loss by a minor premier of 69 points, which had occurred in 1952 and 1974.
• In Fitzroy's Round 17 game with St Kilda, a record quarter aggregate of 19.7 (121) - Fitzroy 12.6 (78), St. Kilda 7.1 (43) - was kicked during the second quarter.
• In Round 19, Kevin Bartlett became the first player to play 400 VFL games, after having in Round 11 of 1981 become the first to reach 350 games. As of 2015, only Michael Tuck, Dustin Fletcher and Brent Harvey have since equalled his achievement.

See also

• McIntyre "Final Five" system

References

1. "Grand final scores". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. 26 September 1983. p. 25.

Sources

• Stephen Rodgers: Every Game Ever Played VFL/AFL Results 1897-1991 3rd Edition 1992. Penguin Books Australia ISBN 0-670-90526-7.
• 1983 Season - AFL Tables