OCTOBER GRAND FINALS
The replayed Collingwood-St Kilda grand final will be the 25th premiership-deciding match to be played in the month of October.
The first was on October 2, 1909, when South Melbourne defeated Carlton by a mere two points.
The others played on the second day of the 10th month have been in 1920, when Richmond finished in front of Collingwood to claim its first league premiership, and 1948 when Melbourne easily outscored Essendon after a tied result a week earlier.
The latest ever league match occurred in 1923 when Essendon was too good for Fitzroy in the grand final, which was played on October 25, which was also Caulfield Cup day.
The match was scheduled for seven days earlier, but had to be postponed due to torrential rain. Remarkably in that match, Dons follower George Rawle made his senior debut aged 33.
THE ORIGIN OF FINALS MATCHES
For two decades, from 1877 until late in the 19th century, the Victorian Football Association was the state's elite competition. The premiership winner was always the team finishing on top of the ladder after a series of home and away matches.
That system operated smoothly until 1896, when both Collingwood and South Melbourne ended the season absolutely equal, with the same number of wins, ties, and goals for and against. Behinds tallies were not included as scores at that time.
The VFA administrators decided to organise a playoff match to decide the flag winner. It generated huge interest and a very large crowd attended the East Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch Collingwood outscore its opponent.
Coincidentally, a group of the strongest VFA clubs decided to form a rebel competition, which began as the Victorian Football League in 1897. A decision was made to have a series of playoff matches at the end of each season to decide the premiership. Those games were to be called finals. Australian football became the first team sport in the world to have such a system.
TONGUE-TIED
The tied 2010 Collingwood-St Kilda grand final became the 146th drawn match in 13,767 contests since the competition began in 1897.
The only other Magpies-Saints tie occurred in round four, 1991 at Moorabbin.
Eight of the 582 finals matches have been tied (1.4 per cent of all finals). Collingwood has been involved in five of the eight.
Twenty-three of the 2437 contests at the MCG, including six finals encounters, have been tied.
There have been 417 finals matches played at the MCG. Six of them have resulted in ties.
A total of 112 seasons have required grand finals. Three of them have needed a replayed match - 1948, 1977 and 2010.
TIED GRAND FINALS
1948: Nine players from the two grand finals are still alive - Essendon's Jack Jones, Les Gardiner, George Hassell, Harold Lanbert, Ted Leehane and Wally May, and Melbourne's Noel McMahen, Gordon Bowman and Max Spittle.
The teams made the following changes from the tied match to the replayed one; Essendon - In: Harry Equid, Les Gardiner and Ron McEwin. Out: Doug Bigelow, Wally Buttsworth and Harold Lambert. Melbourne - In: Bob McKenzie. Out: Doug Heywood.
Two sets of brothers played in at least one of the grand finals: Denis and Don Cordner (Melbourne) and Harold and Chris Lambert (Essendon).
1977: Two Collingwood players from both grand finals have since died: Wayne Gordon and Len Thompson. The teams made the following changes from the tied match to the replayed one: Collingwood - In: Chris Perry. Out: Doug Gott. North Melb- No changes.
One set of brothers played in both matches: Wayne and Max Richardson (Collingwood). Magpie rover Ray Shaw participated in both encounters. His son, Heath played for the same club in the 2010 tied grand final.
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