1949 VFA season
| 1949 VFA premiership season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 12 |
| Premiers |
Williamstown (5th premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Williamstown (4th minor premiership) |
|
← 1948
1950 →
|
|
The 1949 Victorian Football Association season was the 68th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Williamstown Football Club, which defeated Oakleigh by three points in the Grand Final on 1 October. It was the fifth premiership won by the club.
During the season, the Association agreed to join the Australian National Football Council, effective from the 1950 season, ending a decade of division in Victorian football. Consequently, it was the final season in which the throw-pass was legal in the Association.
During the 1940s, unity of football control within Victoria had been a topic of regular discussion. The two football bodies in Victoria had been divided since 1938, when the Association broke away from Australian National Football Council. In the following decade, the Association had introduced a number of rule changes, most notably legalising throwing of the football in general play, while the ANFC-affiliated Victorian Football League was bound by the national rules; and, there was no player transfer agreement between the two bodies, allowing players to switch codes without a clearance.
By standing alone, the Association's throw-pass innovation and aggressive recruiting of League stars substantially boosted its attendances during the 1940s. However, the schism was problematic for Australian rules football as a whole: the poaching of players from one body by the other was undermining public opinion, giving other sports the opportunity to attract disenchanted fans; and, the lack of a consistent code of rules made it more difficult to spread the game to other parts of the country. The VFL, VFA and ANFC all believed that the sport would benefit from unified control in Victoria, and there were regular discussions between the VFA and VFL during the early 1940s seeking amalgamation; none were successful. In the late 1940s, the VFA began looking at obtaining a seat on the ANFC as a means of unifying football control while maintaining its independence.
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