1970 VFL Season - Notable Events

Notable Events

• The 1970 Grand Final between Collingwood and Carlton was considered to be the most memorable Grand Final in VFL/AFL history. Collingwood have a great lead over Carlton during most of the game, however Carlton managed to come back and win the Grand Final by 10 points. Which as this point Collingwood receive the nickname "Colliwobbles" from.
• Unhappy with their treatment over the three seasons they spent at Princes Park, Fitzroy move their home ground to the Junction Oval.
• Essendon's Don McKenzie, Geoff Gosper, Darryl Gerlach, Geoff Pryor, and Barry Davis, and Collingwood's Len Thompson and Des Tuddenham do not play in round 1 due to separate disputes over player payments with their respective clubs (see Dispute over player payments).
• In round 1, Richmond play Fitzroy at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 5 April 1970. This was the first-ever VFL Sunday match. Before the start of the third quarter the Richmond and Fitzroy players lined up in front of the Members' Stand and were introduced to The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales and The Princess Anne, who then watched the last half of the match. In one of the best football matches seen for decades, in terms of the technical skills displayed by both teams, Fitzroy went on to beat Richmond 16.20 (116) to 14.12 (96).
• In Round 5, Fitzroy achieved the remarkable feat of beating North Melbourne despite kicking fewer goals than any team since Round 15 of 1968. No team since 1935 had got so close to winning with less than half as many scoring shots as North Melbourne did.
• In Round 10, Collingwood trailed St Kilda by over ten goals late in the second quarter but come back to win by seven points. Their 52-point deficit is the greatest at half-time by a winning side.
• In round 22, Carlton's Alex Jesaulenko kicked five goals to bring up his "century". The 1970 VFL season was the first in which three full-forwards (Alex Jesaulenko, Peter McKenna, and Peter Hudson) kicked at least 100 goals in a home-and-away season.
• South Melbourne ended the second longest finals drought in league history (twenty-four seasons) by finishing fourth, making the finals for the first time since 1945.
• In round 5, Ted Whitten plays his 321st senior VFL game, breaking the record set by Dick Reynolds. Whitten retired after this match.
• On Monday 31 August HSV-7 broadcasts the first "live" Brownlow Medal count.
• In the 1970 Second Semi-Final, Carlton's Syd Jackson was reported for striking Collingwood defender Lee Adamson. The wily Carlton President, George Harris, eager to have Jackson in his Grand Final team, devised the strategy of having the club's advocate to assert to the tribunal (on Jackson's behalf) that Jackson had been provoked by an extended series of racial taunts from Adamson, including repeatedly calling him "Sambo" and, furthermore, stating that Jackson would respond in the same way to any future vilification. The tribunal took the stance that the VFL had to be seen to protect its (in 1970) only top-level Aboriginal footballer, and they immediately exonerated him, without bothering to hear Adamson's side of the story, stating that Jackson had no case to answer.
  • Jackson revealed much later that it had all been a set-up by George Harris.