1962 VFA season
| 1962 VFA Premiership season | |
|---|---|
| Division 1 | |
| Teams | 10 |
| Premiers |
Sandringham (2nd premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Moorabbin (2nd minor premiership) |
| Division 2 | |
| Teams | 8 |
| Premiers |
Dandenong (1st D2 premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Preston (1st D2 minor premiership) |
|
← 1961
1963 →
|
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The 1962 Victorian Football Association season was the 81st season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the second season of its second division. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Sandringham Football Club, after it came from behind to defeat Moorabbin in the Grand Final on 29 September by one point; it was Sandringham's second VFA premiership. The Division 2 premiership was won by Dandenong; it was the club's first premiership in either division.
On 24 October 1961, the struggling Brighton Football Club announced that, for the second time in less than a year, it would consider withdrawing from the Association. The club had won six wooden spoons in the last ten seasons, it was struggling to attract enough players to field a team, or enough administrators to run the club, and its support from locals was low – not helped by improved performances from neighbouring VFL club St Kilda, which itself was usually a cellar-dweller. At a public meeting on 2 November, voting members agreed unanimously to continue operating, but the club had encountered a new problem in the interim – on 1 November, the management of the club's home ground Elsternwick Park, either put off by Brighton's uncertain future or simply seeking greater return on the venue it had invested significant money to upgrade during 1961, called for tenders for winter occupancy of the ground. Brighton put forward its usual offers of £200 for alternate weekends or £300 for the entire winter, but on 15 December 1961 the ground management leased the ground for the full winter to the highest bidder, the Victorian Amateur Soccer Association, for £750.
Without a ground that met Association standards, Brighton faced expulsion from the Association; and, the Association and A.N.F.C. were both concerned that the high quality and recently upgraded venue had been secured by the rival code; the three bodies worked together to attempt to resecure Elsternwick Park for Brighton, including an appeal to the state Minister for Lands, but all avenues were unsuccessful. Brighton then sought to move to Brighton Beach Oval, which had been its home ground until 1926, but an appeal to the Brighton Council to erect the fence to bring it up to Association standards was rejected by the mayor's casting vote. It was now less than a month until the season began, and with no home ground, nor enough players to fill a single team, the club announced on 15 March that it would withdraw from the Association. There were no suitable senior clubs willing and able to replace Brighton, and a proposal from Sandringham that it field its seconds team in the Division 2 firsts appeared to be the only chance for a short-notice replacement to keep the Association at eighteen teams.
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