Numbering of Grand Finals
The AFL officially gives its Grand Finals the same ordinal number as the season: e.g. the 1996 Grand Final was regarded as the 100th Grand Final, due to it being the 100th season. This is anachronistic to some extent:
- There was no Grand Final match in two seasons, 1897 and 1924; the finals systems in use in those seasons allowed the premiership to be awarded after a round-robin finals tournament, without the need for a deciding match.
- Under the Argus finals systems in use from 1902 to 1930, the "Grand Final" was a term given to a challenge match between the minor premiers and whichever team won the knock-out section of the finals. In the eight seasons where the minor premiers also won the knock-out phase, that club was awarded the premiership without need for a true Grand Final; in these cases, the last knock-out match is retrospectively considered to be the Grand Final.
- There have been three Grand Final Replays played after drawn Grand Finals, in 1948, 1977 and 2010.
Read more about this topic: AFL Grand Final
Famous quotes containing the words numbering and/or grand:
“The task he undertakes
Is numbering sands and drinking oceans dry.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating. To the average man, doomed to some banal drudgery all his life long, they offer the only grand hazard that he ever encounters. Take them away, and his existence would be as flat and secure as that of a moo-cow.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)