The 1917 VFL Grand Final was an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

game contested between the

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club w ...

and

Fitzroy Football Club The Fitzroy Football Club is an Australian rules football club currently competing in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). Formed in 1883 to represent the inner-Melbourne municipality of Fitzroy, the club was a member of the Vi ...

, held at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadiu ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on 22 September 1917. It was the 20th annual

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

of the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

, staged to determine the

premiers Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

for the

1917 VFL season The 1917 VFL season was the 21st season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. Played during the latter stages World War I, only six of the league's nine senior clubs ...

. The match, attended by 28,512 spectators, was won by Collingwood by a margin of 35 points, marking that club's fourth premiership victory. War had restricted the competition to just six clubs during the home and away season and Fitzroy, despite winning just six of their 15 games, qualified for the final by finishing fourth. Fitzroy made it into the Grand Final by defeating minor premiers Collingwood by a goal a week earlier but Collingwood this time won comfortably, dominating from the opening quarter. Alec Mutch of Collingwood was playing his 100th VFL game.

Teams

* Umpire – Norden

Statistics

Goalkickers

Attendance

* MCG crowd – 28,512

References

1917 VFL Grand Final statistics
* ''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.

Teams

Statistics

Goalkickers

Attendance

References

See also