1938 VFA season

1938 VFA premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Brunswick (3rd premiership)
Minor premiers	Brunswick (4th minor premiership)
← 1937 1939 →

The 1938 Victorian Football Association season was the 60th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Brunswick Football Club, after it defeated Brighton by 33 points in the Grand Final on 20 August. It was the club's third VFA premiership, and the last top division premiership it ever won.

The season saw the Association introduce some innovative new rules – most notably allowing the football to be thrown in general play.

The Association and football in general had been declining in popularity over the previous few years. The Association decided to introduce a series of rule changes in an attempt to make the game more spectacular and reverse this trend. The Association made four key rule changes:

The most dramatic change was that Association players were now permitted to throw the ball in general play, provided the throw was with two hands and the player's hands were kept below shoulder height. The decision to legalise the throw-pass, as it became known, was a bold one, as throwing had been illegal in the code for the whole of its nearly 80-year history. The Association's decision had two key justifications based on perceived problems with the style of play during the 1930s:

Altogether, the change was intended to make the game more attractive for the spectator, and to consequently improve public interest in the game.

The effect that the throw-pass had on speeding up the game was immediately praised by football writers, and the rule became quite popular. The Bendigo Association, Sale District Football Association and Tasmania's North Western Football Association all elected to adopt the same rule into their competitions during 1938, and other country leagues, such as the Wimmera District League, considered doing likewise.

In addition to allowing the throw-pass, the Association modified the rules relating to holding-the-ball to prevent scrimmages. Under the rule, a player would be penalised if he held or dropped the ball after being tackled, but not if he kicked, handpassed or threw the ball away.

The out of bounds rule was modified such that the boundary umpire would throw the ball back into play after the ball went out of bounds – unless the umpire deemed that the ball had been forced out deliberately, in which case a free kick was paid.

This change was, in fact, a return to a more popular set of rules which had prevailed in Victoria prior to 1925. Since 1925, all ANFC-affiliated leagues had been required to play rules under which a free kick was awarded against the last team to play the ball before it went out of bounds under any circumstances; this followed a decision which was passed by a large majority at the ANFC in 1924, but which was opposed by Victoria (represented in the ANFC by the Victorian Football League). The ANFC rules never gained wide popularity in Victoria, and many were glad to see a return to the old rules.

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