The 1982 Escort Championships (also known as the Escort Cup) was an Australian rules football

knockout tournament A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking, a ...

held between March and July 1982. The tournament was organised by Australian Football Championships, and was contested by teams from 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 ...

South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport. Originally formed as t ...

and

West Australian 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 ...

. The tournament was won by the Swans, who defeated in the Grand Final.

Background

The 1982 Escort Championships was the sixth season of the national night premiership competition. The size of the competition was reduced to 18 teams in 1982, after 34 teams had competed in each of 1980 and 1981. The competing teams were all twelve VFL teams, and three teams each from the SANFL and WAFL, who qualified based on their league finishing positions in 1981. The format for the competition was a simple knock-out tournament. The twelve VFL clubs and the 1981 premiers from both the SANFL and WAFL qualified directly for the round of sixteen; the remaining four qualifiers from the SANFL and WAFL started from the preceding elimination round. With the exception of the initial elimination round, all matches were played at

VFL Park Waverley Park (also and originally called VFL Park) was an Australian rules football stadium in Mulgrave, Victoria, Australia. For most of its history, its purpose was as a neutral venue and used by all Victorian-based Victorian Football Le ...

on Tuesday nights. Matches were televised. The tournament was mostly played concurrently with the premiership season, although some early matches were played during the preseason.

Qualified Teams

¹ Includes previous appearances in the

Championship of Australia The Championship of Australia was an Australian rules football tournament which was contested between football clubs from the Victorian, South Australian, Western Australian and Tasmanian football leagues. The Championship took place three ti ...

and

NFL Night Series The NFL Night Series was an Australian rules football tournament which was contested annually from 1976 until 1979. The tournament, played concurrently with the premiership season, was contested at different times by football clubs from the Victo ...

Venues

Games

Elimination round

, - bgcolor="#CCCCFF" , Home team , Home team score , Away team , Away team score , Ground , Crowd , Date , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , Swan Districts , 21.14 (140) , Glenelg , 15.12 (102) ,

Subiaco Oval Subiaco Oval (; nicknamed Subi) was a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia, located in the suburb of Subiaco. It was opened in 1908 and closed in 2017 after the completion of the new Perth Stadium in Burswood. Subiaco Oval was the high ...

, , Saturday, 13 March , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , Norwood , 10.12 (72) , South Fremantle , 18.16 (124) ,

Football Park Football Park, known commercially as AAMI Stadium, was an Australian rules football stadium located in West Lakes, a western suburb of Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, Australia. It was built in 1973 by the South Australian Na ...

, , Saturday, 13 March ,

Round of sixteen

, - bgcolor="#CCCCFF" , Winning team , Winning team score , Losing team , Losing team score , Ground , Crowd , Date , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" ,

Fitzroy Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: **FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beau ...

, 12.13 (85) , , 7.8 (50) ,

, , Tuesday, 9 March , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , Carlton , 14.16 (100) , Port Adelaide , 5.6 (36) ,

, 6,220 , Tuesday, 16 March , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 12.12 (84) , , 6.5 (41) ,

, 6,859 , Tuesday, 23 March , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 18.13 (121) , Claremont , 11.11 (77) ,

, 4,552 , Tuesday, 6 April , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , Swan Districts , 13.9 (87) , , 11.11 (77) ,

, 6,504 , Tuesday, 20 April , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 10.6 (66) , , 2.6 (18) ,

, 6,958 , Tuesday, 27 April , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 16.14 (110) , , 6.11 (47) ,

, 4,628 , Tuesday, 4 May , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 24.16 (160) , South Fremantle , 6.9 (45) ,

, 4,752 , Tuesday, 11 May ,

Quarter-finals

, - bgcolor="#CCCCFF" , Winning team , Winning team score , Losing team , Losing team score , Ground , Crowd , Date , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 12.14 (86) , , 12.8 (80) ,

, 7,063 , Tuesday, 25 May , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 11.16 (82) , , 10.10 (70) ,

, 4,228 , Tuesday, 1 June , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , The Swans , 8.11 (59) , , 7.9 (51) ,

, 4,761 , Tuesday, 8 June , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 33.16 (214) , Swan Districts , 4.4 (28) ,

, 2,688 , Tuesday, 22 June ,

Semi-finals

, - bgcolor="#CCCCFF" , Winning team , Winning team score , Losing team , Losing team score , Ground , Crowd , Date , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , , 13.12 (90) , , 8.13 (61) ,

, 5,642 , Tuesday, 29 June , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , The Swans , 13.17 (95) , , 6.6 (42) ,

, 4,955 , Tuesday, 6 July ,

Final

, - bgcolor="#CCCCFF" , Winning team , Winning team score , Losing team , Losing team score , Ground , Crowd , Date , , - bgcolor="#FFFFFF" , The Swans , 13.12 (90) , , 8.10 (58) ,

, 20,028 , Tuesday, 20 July ,

Notable events

Swan Districts controversy

The WAFL's Swan Districts Football Club generated controversy when it sent a team of reserves and colts players to contest its quarter-final against in protest at the rescheduling of the match. The match had already been pushed back from 1 June to 8 June to accommodate an interstate match between

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

and

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

on Monday 17 May. Then, after and both qualified for the quarter-finals, it happened that those teams would be playing two televised matches against each other inside three days: a league match on Sunday 20 June in Sydney, and then the Escort Cup match on Tuesday 22 June. This was unfavourable for the teams; and in a time when few football matches were broadcast live, it was also unfavourable for the television sponsors. As such, the AFC moved the Swans–St Kilda match to 8 June and the Swan Districts–Richmond match to 22 June. Swan Districts was unhappy with the way the games were rescheduled. The club was not consulted prior to the AFC announcing the reschedule, and it affected arrangements that the club had already made for a social club function on the night of 8 June. Additionally, the 8 June timing was located between league matches against the WAFL's bottom two teams; but, the 22 June timing was located between league matches against the second- and third-placed teams—and, being placed first at the time, Swan Districts was worried about the effect of a midweek match in Melbourne upon its WAFL premiership aspirations. More generally, Swan Districts coach John Todd was already a vocal critic of the dominance of Victorian influence in the administration of the game at a national level, and he was unhappy at seeing his club treated in a way in which he did not believe a Victorian club would have been treated. When the reschedule was first announced on 19 May, Swan Districts considered forfeiting the match. On 1 June, the club announced that it had decided that it would send a full-strength team to the match. But, two days before the match, it reneged on this promise, and sent an inexperienced team of reserves and colts players, only two of which had played seniors the previous weekend, and which had a total of 69 senior games' experience across its 21 members. Unsurprisingly, the inexperienced team was completely uncompetitive against Richmond—which was at that time on top of the VFL ladder—and lost the match by 186 points. The following month, the AFC banned Swan Districts from competing in the Escort Championships until 1985 as punishment for the controversy.

Other notable events

*Due to a guernsey clash, Collingwood wore a white guernsey with a black yoke instead of its normal white and black stripes in its match against Swan Districts. *The quarter-final between the Swans and St Kilda was played in a heavy fog. Swans coach

Ricky Quade Ricky Quade (born 26 August 1950) is a former Australian rules footballer who represented South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Quade later became better known as the inaugural coach of the Sydney Swans, when South Melbourne ...

was unable to see the action from the coaches' box, and visibility on the field was reportedly only about six metres. The ground developed frost as the game went on, also affecting handling skills. *For the first time in Escort Cup history, a championship flag was awarded to the winning team in addition to a trophy.

Footnotes

:1. During 1982, the South Melbourne Football Club was in transition as it moved to Sydney to become the Sydney Swans. Although it played all of its premiership season home games in Sydney in 1982, the club was still known as South Melbourne until 2 June, after which it was known as simply ''the Swans''. It formally became the Sydney Swans prior to the 1983 season.

References

External links

1982 AFC Escort Championships - detailed review including quarter-by-quarter scores, best players and goalkickers for each match
{{AFL pre-season seasons Australian rules football competitions in Australia Escort Championships, 1982