The 1939 WANFL season was the 55th season of the various incarnations of the
Western Australian National Football League
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...
. It is best known for West Perth's record
losing streak
''Losing Streak'' is the second studio album by ska punk band Less Than Jake, released on November 12, 1996 on Capitol Records. The album was recorded at Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida and Mirror Image Studios in Gainesville, Florida, bo ...
of twenty-seven matches up to the fifteenth round, an ignominy equalled by
Peel Thunder
The Peel Thunder Football Club is an Australian rules football club playing in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and WAFL Women's (WAFLW). The team is based in Mandurah, Western Australia, with their home ground being Rushton Park. The ...
in their formative years but never actually beaten.
The Cardinals finished with the worst record since
Midland Junction
Midland is a suburb in the Perth metropolitan region, as well as the regional centre for the City of Swan local government area that covers the Swan Valley and parts of the Darling Scarp to the east. It is situated at the intersection of G ...
lost all twelve games in 1917, and were the first WANFL team with only one victory for twelve seasons. In their only win, champion forward
Ted Tyson became the first West Australian to kick over one thousand goals and he just failed to replicate his 1938 feat of leading the goalkicking for a bottom club. Subiaco, despite a second Sandover win from Haydn Bunton (in spite of several problematic leg injuries) won only three matches, and Swan Districts, affected by the loss of star goalkicker
Ted Holdsworth to Kalgoorlie, began a long period as a cellar-dweller with a fall to sixth.
Claremont, with captain George Moloney returning to the goalfront from the centre, won their second consecutive premiership despite the loss of many key players in the week before the Grand Final, whilst East Fremantle and East Perth remained firmly entrenched in the top and had a neck-and-neck battle late in the season for the double chance. Perth and South Fremantle, both of whom had had long periods in the wilderness, fought an exciting battle for the last place in the top four that ended with the red and whites winning by the narrowest of margins, in the process providing a basis for the club's
dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A ...
following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, which began on the weekend of the penultimate round.
Two key rule changes were made in the WANFL and nationally in 1939. The
holding the ball rule was altered to eliminate the provision for a player to drop the ball when tackled, meaning that a player was forced to either kick or handpass the ball when tackled to avoid conceding a free kick; and, the boundary throw-in was reintroduced whenever the ball went out of bounds, except when put out deliberately, instead of a free kick being awarded against the last player to touch the ball, as had been the case since 1925.
Home-and-away season
Round 1
Round 2 (Labour Day)
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Round 10 (Foundation Day)
Round 11
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16
Round 17
Round 18
Round 19
Round 20
Ladder
Finals
First semi-final
Second semi-final
Preliminary final
Grand final
References
External links
Official WAFL websiteWestern Australian National Football League (WANFL), 1939{{WAFL seasons
WANFL
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September ...
West Australian Football League seasons