1967 VFL Season - Notable Events

Notable Events

• Former Carlton ruckman Graham Donaldson, now coaching in Morwell, Victoria, is also the manager of one of the district's State Savings Bank of Victoria (SSB) branches. He convinces the Bank's head office to sponsor a new competition involving children (under 12), representing their VFL club and playing in their club colours, to be played during the half-time break in the senior VFL game each Saturday. The SSB Mini League, which eventually evolved into the "Little League", conducts its first matches during the 1967 VFL season.
• Fitzroy moved to Carlton's home ground, Princes Park, sharing the ground on alternate weeks.
• Hawthorn, having instituted an exhaustive schedule of pre-season and regular in-season training developed by coach John Kennedy and former star centreman, now gymnasium owner, Brendan Edwards, as a consequence of them having undertaken this gruelling schedule in addition to their normal, on-going skills training, the Hawthorn players become known as "Kennedy's Commandos".
• In the round 7 match between Richmond and Geelong at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the teams were tied 8.5 (53) each. Richmond scored 8.3 (51) to Geelong's 1.2 (8) in the third quarter, emulating its burst of 9.4 (58) to 3.1 (19) against Geelong in the fifth round of 1966.
• In the Second Semi-Final between Richmond and Carlton Richmond's Neville Crowe and Carlton's John Nicholls were wrestling for the ball when Nicholls hit Crowe "in the guts", Crowe stepped back with the football grasped to his chest in his left hand and attempted to slap Nicholls with his open right hand. Crowe missed making any contact with Nicholls by about three inches. Nicholls, always the opportunist, immediately lifted his own left hand to his face, and pretending to have been badly affected, reeled away from Crowe. Despite Crowe's protests, he was reported (for the first time in 11 senior seasons and 151 games) for striking Nicholls. At the tribunal Crowe received no assistance from Nicholls who was, obviously, most reluctant to admit that he was only acting. The case itself was complicated by the fact that the incident itself had taken place in front of where the tribunal members had sat during the match in question; and, despite the fact that none of them actually had seen Crowe hit Nicholls, they had certainly all seen Nicholls' reaction — and the nature of his dramatic performance had convinced them that he had, in fact, been hit by Crowe. It was also a controversial case because the VFL tribunal (no doubt, in part, because they trusted their own eyes) refused to allow television footage to be presented that unequivocally and without any doubt showed that Crowe's attempt to slap Nicholls had missed him altogether. Crowe was suspended for 4 weeks. He missed the Grand Final, and never played VFL football again.
• At the end of the season, Harry Beitzel's squad of players drawn mainly from the VFL, known as "The Galahs", play matches in Ireland, England, and the United States.