The 1963 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

Geelong Football Club The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed the Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition, and are the 2022 ...

and

Hawthorn Football Club The Hawthorn Football Club, nicknamed the Hawks, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Mulgrave, Victoria, that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was founded in 1902 in the inner-east suburb of Hawt ...

, 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 5 October 1963. It was the 66th 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

1963 VFL season The 1963 VFL season was the 67th season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured twelve clubs, ran from 20 April until 5 October, and comprised an 18- ...

. The match, attended by 101,209 spectators, was won by Geelong by a margin of 49 points, marking that club's sixth premiership victory.

Background

Hawthorn were minor premiers as a result of their superior percentage, as both clubs had finished the home and away season with 13 wins and a draw. Geelong was contesting its eighth VFL Grand final and chasing its sixth premiership, having previously contested in

1953 Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito i ...

and last won in

1952 Events January–February * January 26 – Black Saturday in Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes m ...

. The Hawks were contesting their second VFL Grand final, having beaten to win their maiden premiership in

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

. For the Cats, this was the third consecutive game they were playing against Hawthorn, having met at

Glenferrie Oval Glenferrie Oval is an Australian rules football stadium located in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is the historic home of, and is synonymous with, the Hawthorn Football Club, who played there from 1903 and as a VFL/AFL ...

in the final round of the home-and-away season, then in the Second Semi-final two weeks later. After the Cats' important win at Glenferrie, coach Bob Davis, when asked by a reporter what he thought of Hawthorn, called them "the roughest, dirtiest side that ehad ever seen" and that "Any time they want to play football, we'll give them a hiding". Davis later admitted he didn't care what he said at the time, and Hawthorn coach John Kennedy Sr. took offence at Davis' comments about dirty play, stating that while his team certainly played a vigorous brand of football, he never asked players to deliberately "fix up" opposition players.Hawke (2014), p. 189

Teams

Umpire –

Jeff Crouch Jeff Crouch (7 August 1934 – 5 August 1994) was a leading Australian rules football field umpire in the Victorian Football League (VFL) in the 1960s and 1970s. Crouch played in the 1953 Melbourne under-19s grand final and for Sandringh ...

Scorecard

References

Bibliography

* * *

Background

Teams

Scorecard

References

Bibliography

See also