1966 VFL season

In 1966, the VFL competition consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus two substitute players, known as the 19th man and the 20th man. A player could be substituted for any reason; however, once substituted, a player could not return to the field of play under any circumstances.

Teams played each other in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds; matches 12 to 18 were the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 7.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1966 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page–McIntyre system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 76.3
Source: AFL Tables

The night series were held under the floodlights at Lake Oval, South Melbourne, for the teams (5th to 12th on ladder) out of the finals at the end of the season.

Final: North Melbourne 20.12 (132) defeated Hawthorn 12.7 (79).

• At pre-season training in mid-April, at the behest of Collingwood coach Bob Rose, Collingwood club secretary Jack Burns informed Duncan Wright that his services were no longer required at Collingwood. (See Duncan Wright and John Somerville.)
• Richmond, under coach Tom Hafey, trained pre-season with Percy Cerutty at his facilities in Portsea, Victoria.
• In the Round 14 match between Carlton and Fitzroy, there was a once-off trial of a rule to ease congestion at centre bounces: a rectangle measuring 30yds goal-to-goal and 50yds wing-to-wing was drawn in the centre of the ground, and no more than four players from each team were permitted within the rectangle at a centre bounce.^[2] The rule was trialled again, with the area expanded to a 50yd square, during the Night Series,^[3] and it was eventually introduced as a permanent rule change in 1973.^[4]
• In Round 17, Fitzroy hosted its last senior VFL match at the Brunswick Street Oval, its home ground since 1883. A total of 612 VFL matches were played at the venue, including four finals games. Fitzroy began its nomadic journey of playing at various grounds over the next thirty years following its departure from Brunswick Street: Princes Park (twice), Junction Oval, Victoria Park, and Western (Whitten) Oval.
• After the home-and-away season was finished, Richmond's reserves and under-19s teams were stripped of any premiership points earned in matches in which they fielded Frank Loughran, an unregistered player from the Latrobe Valley. The reserves team, which went through the entire season undefeated, was stripped of twelve premiership points; it fell from first to second on the ladder, but still went on to win the premiership. The under-19s team was stripped of 28 premiership points, and dropped out of the final four as a result.^[5]
• At the end of the season South Melbourne's captain-coach, Bob Skilton, resigned as coach in the belief that he could do more for the club by continuing to lead the players on the field.

• The 1966 VFL Premiership team was St. Kilda (its first, and to date, only premiership since the VFL's formation in 1897).
• The VFL's leading goalkicker was Ted Fordham of Essendon who kicked 76 goals (including 3 goals in the final series).
• The winner of the 1966 Brownlow Medal was Ian Stewart of St Kilda with 21 votes.
• Fitzroy took the "wooden spoon" in 1966.
• The reserves premiership was won by Richmond. Richmond 14.11 (95) defeated Collingwood 13.12 (90) in the Grand Final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 24 September.^[6]