The 1953 Victorian Football Association season was the 72nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, after it defeated Yarraville by 60 points in the Grand Final on 3 October. It was Port Melbourne's seventh VFA premiership, and it was the only premiership that the club won during a sequence of eight consecutive Grand Finals played from 1950 until 1957, and five consecutive minor premierships won from 1951 until 1955.
Premiership
The home-and-home season was played over twenty matches, before the top four clubs contested a finals series under the Page–McIntyre system to determine the premiers for the season.
Yarraville won the seconds premiership. Yarraville 10.13 (73) defeated Moorabbin 8.11 (59) in the Grand Final, played as a curtain raiser to the firsts Grand Final on 3 October.[5]
Early in the VFA Sub-Districts season, the Port Melbourne Thirds team lost its first match since 1946, ending a 127-game winning streak. The team lost its first match in its inaugural season of 1946, before embarking on the record-breaking winning streak, which incorporated seven consecutive premierships.[13][14][15]
On 16 May, a premiership match between 1952 Grand Finalists Oakleigh and Port Melbourne was played at Bolton Park, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. The match was arranged by the Australian National Football Council to help spread the game to the New South Wales riverina district.[16] Port Melbourne 11.13 (79) defeated Oakleigh 8.13 (61) before a crowd of 4,000 people.[17]
On Tuesday 2 June (Coronation Day holiday), a representative match was played at the St Kilda Cricket Ground between teams representing the six North-of-the-Yarra clubs (Brunswick, Coburg, Northcote, Preston, Williamstown, Yarraville) and the eight South-of-the-Yarra clubs (Box Hill, Brighton, Camberwell, Moorabbin, Oakleigh, Port Melbourne, Prahran, Sandringham).[18] North 11.20 (86) defeated South 10.9 (69), after overcoming an eighteen-point three-quarter time deficit.[19] The North vs South game did not become a regular fixture in the VFA Senior competition, but later became the chief representative fixture in the VFL Thirds competition.
In July, the Association was granted full voting rights within the Australian National Football Council for the first time. When the Association first affiliated with the ANFC in 1950, it had all rights of a full delegate except that it could not vote on motions.[20]
Several Association clubs encountered financial difficulties during the 1953 season. By July, Brighton, Camberwell and Northcote were all operating on an amateur basis, having lost the financial capacity to pay their players.[21]
In September, Ray Gibb (Box Hill) died in a motorcycle accident.[22] A benefit game to raise money for his family was played on Show Day at Box Hill City Oval between a combined team of his two former VFL clubs, Richmond and Hawthorn, and a Box Hill team augmented with other VFL and VFA star players, including John Coleman and Bill Hutchison.[23] Including the gate and donations, £400 was raised from a crowd of 6,000 people; Box Hill 17.11 (113) defeated Hawthorn–Richmond 12.8 (80).[24]
