1985 VFA season
| 1985 VFA Premiership Season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 22 |
| Division 1 | |
| Teams | 12 |
| Premiers |
Sandringham (3rd premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Sandringham (2nd minor premiership) |
| Division 2 | |
| Teams | 10 |
| Premiers |
Brunswick (3rd D2 premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Oakleigh (3rd D2 minor premiership) |
|
← 1984
1986 →
|
|
The 1985 Victorian Football Association season was the 104th season of the top division of the Australian rules football competition, and the 25th season of second division competition. The Division 1 premiership was won by the Sandringham Football Club, after it defeated Williamstown in the Grand Final on 22 September by six points; it was Sandringham's third Division 1 premiership, and its first since 1962. The Division 2 premiership was won by Brunswick; it was the club's third Division 2 premiership, and the last premiership in either division ever won by the club.
During the off-season, the Association's second division contracted from eleven to ten clubs, with Kilsyth leaving the Association. Northcote also temporarily left the Association, but returned prior to the start of the season.
On 28 November 1984, the Northcote Football Club, one of the Association's longest-serving clubs, announced that it was withdrawing from the Association due to financial pressures. Northcote estimated its annual expenses to compete in Division 2 had increased to $85,000, including $16,000 affiliation costs. The club saw that increasing administrative costs, and upward pressure on player payments which had flowed on from a similar trend in the increasingly professional Victorian Football League had increased its expenses, but that the small and increasingly apathetic population of Northcote was no longer able to finance the club. Despite its departure, the club described its financial position as no worse than many other Association clubs, and predicted that other clubs would soon leave the Association for the same reason. Two weeks later, the club joined the Diamond Valley Football League, which it estimated had half of the operating costs of the Association.
Over the following two months, five past players keen to keep the club in the Association – Arthur Dearing, Ken Harvey, Chris Kozaris, Tom Martin and Dennis Viney – were voted to the Northcote executive committee. The new committee secured readmission to the Association on 12 February 1985. The new committee worked to cover the club's $18,000 debt by seeking new sponsors and attempting to form a coterie group. Additionally, the club gained some revenue from the League's Fitzroy Football Club, which had arranged a deal to train at Northcote Park (while playing home games at Victoria Park, Abbotsford), after having been evicted from the Junction Oval during the summer.
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