1944 VFL season

1944 VFL Premiership season
Teams	12
Premiers	Fitzroy (8th premiership)
Minor premiers	Richmond (5th minor premiership)
Matches played	112
Highest attendance	43,000
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	Fred Fanning (Melbourne)
Brownlow Medallist	Not awarded
← 1943 1945 →

The 1944 Victorian Football League season was the 48th season of the elite Australian rules football competition.

The wartime travel restrictions that had forced Geelong into recess the previous two years were relaxed, and Geelong rejoined the competition.

In 1944, with Geelong competing again, the VFL competition once again consisted of twelve teams of 18 on-the-field players each, plus one substitute player, known as the 19th 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; and, as had been the case in 1926 and 1927, matches 12 to 18 were "irregular", with 12 to 17 being the "home-and-way reverse" of matches 1 to 6, and match 18 the "home-and-way reverse" of match 11.

The determination of the 1944 season's fixtures were greatly complicated by the fact that, although the Western Oval and the Junction Oval were now available to the VFL, the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Lake Oval were still appropriated for military use and, because of this, Melbourne was sharing the Punt Road Oval with Richmond as its home ground, and South Melbourne was sharing the Junction Oval with St Kilda as its home ground.

Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1944 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the Page-McIntyre System.

Fitzroy defeated Richmond 9.12 (66) to 7.9 (51), in front of a crowd of 43,000 people. (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

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