|
The 1983 Victorian Football Association season was the 102nd season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 23rd season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Preston Football Club, after it defeated Geelong West in the Grand Final on 18 September by seven points; it was Preston's third Division 1 premiership. The Division 2 premiership was won by Springvale; it was the club's first Association premiership, won in only its second season of competition. ==Association membership== Two new clubs joined Division 2 for the 1983 season, increasing the size of the lower division to twelve teams. The new clubs were Moorabbin and Berwick. They were the last new clubs to join the competition during the Association era: it was not until the competition had become the Victorian Football League in the 1990s that another new club was admitted. Their admissions brought the total size of the Association to twenty-four clubs for the 1983 season. ;Moorabbin The Moorabbin Football Club had been formed in 1979 after the neighbouring McKinnon and Bentleigh Football Clubs in the Federal League merged; the amalgamated club had been based at McKinnon, but was known as Moorabbin. It took its name and colours from the former Moorabbin Football Club, which had established itself as one of the Association's dominant clubs from 1951 until 1963, before being expelled prior to the 1964 season for its role in the St Kilda Football Club's move to its home ground, Moorabbin Oval. The newly merged club competed in the Federal League until 1981, after which the league folded, and then played in the South East Suburban Football League in 1982, before being admitted as the second division's eleventh club on 5 October 1982. ;Berwick A successful club in the South West Gippsland Football League, Berwick had played finals for the previous eleven seasons, and was admitted to the second division as the twelfth club on 19 November 1982. The SWGFL did not want to lose Berwick, which was one of its more successful and higher drawing clubs, so it refused to grant its players clearances to join the Association; there was a stand-off between the two competitions, and both the Association and the SWGFL included Berwick in their 1983 fixtures. The Victorian Country Football League, to which the SWGFL belonged, was one of the only football bodies with which the Association still had a valid transfer agreement, and the Association did not wish to jeopardise the relationship, so it refused to issue playing permits to the Berwick playing list in the lead-up to the season. Berwick consequently took action in the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking clearance to the Association, and claiming that the VCFL's impedance was an illegal restraint of trade. It was not the only such court action taking place at the time: the landmark case in which Silvio Foschini successfully had the Victorian Football League's zoning and clearance system declared an illegal restraint of trade was going through the courts at the same time. On 30 March – only four days before the season commenced – the court found that the agreement between the Association and the VCFL was valid specifically for cases where a player was transferring from a VCFL club to an Association club, or ''vice versa''; but, it did not cover cases where a player remained at the same club, and the club itself was transferring from the VCFL to the Association. Berwick's playing list was registered by the Association the same day.〔 ;Association structure No clubs were promoted or relegated between the two divisions for 1983, after the Association had abandoned automatic promotion and relegation in 1981. However, in July 1983, the Association decided to reverse this change, and automatic promotion for the Division 2 premier and relegation for the Division 1 wooden spooner was reintroduced, starting from the end of the season. The Association executive had expressed an interest in expanding the competition to as many as 30 teams, and splitting the second division into two lower divisions of equal status, but this motion did not proceed to the vote; as a consequence, the size of the Association in 1983, at twenty-four teams, was the largest ever in the Association's history. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1983 VFA season」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|