1941 WANFL season

1941 WAFL season
Teams8
PremiersWest Perth
8th premiership
Minor premiersEast Fremantle
24th minor premiership
Sandover MedallistHaydn Bunton, Sr. (Subiaco)
Bernie Naylor MedallistGeorge Doig (East Fremantle)
Matches played84
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1942 (Wartime Under-Age)
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The 1941 WANFL season was the 57th season of the various incarnations of the Western Australian National Football League. Owing to the drain of players to military service in World War II, the league was forced to suspend the reserves competition until 1946,[1] and ultimately this was to be the last season of senior football in Perth until 1945 as the supply of available players became smaller and smaller and the Japanese military threatened northern Western Australia.[2]

On the field, 1941 saw West Perth, boosted by veteran goal machine Ted Tyson's comeback from appendicitis and planned retirement,[3] achieve a premiership barely two years after having lost 27 consecutive matches as a young nucleus that would make them a power after the war, including such players as Stan Heal and Bill Baker, defeated perennial powerhouse East Fremantle twice during the finals. In a thrilling struggle for the fourth position, East Perth lost out despite an impressive final-round win over the eventual premiers and missed the finals for the first time since 1930; they were despite a perfect season in the 1944 under-age competition not to return to open-age finals until 1952.

  1. ^ See “Football: Interchange of Players – Special Rules Recommended’; The West Australian, 29 March 1941, p. 11
  2. ^ See Spillman, Ken; Diehards: The Story of the Subiaco Football Club 1896-1945, pp. 165-166. ISBN 0646358340
  3. ^ ‘Tyson Retires’; in The Daily News, 14 March 1941, p. 17