In 1919, the VFL competition consisted of nine teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match. Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 18 rounds. Once the 18 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1919 VFL Premiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the amended "Argus system".
All of the 1919 finals were played at the MCG so the home team in the semi-finals and Preliminary Final is purely the higher ranked team from the ladder but in the Grand Final the home team was the team that won the Preliminary Final.
Semi finals
Preliminary Final
Grand final
defeated Richmond 11.12 to 7.11, in front of a crowd of 45,413 people..
Melbourne returned to the VFL competition, and changed its constitution so that direct payments could be made to players, effectively making the team professional, eight years after the VFL had done so.
Since the nine-team competition required one bye each week, the VFL sought expressions of interest from clubs wishing to join the VFL. Whilst there was talk of an Ex-Servicemen's Club and a Public Servants' Club, an application was actually lodged on behalf of a combined Ballarat Football League team, as well as on behalf of the VFA clubs Brunswick, Footscray, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, and Prahran.
The VFL introduced a Second Eighteen competition between its constituent clubs.
At the start of the 1919 season, the VFL had already donated £9,436-0-0 to the Patriotic Fund since the start of the war.
In its Round 12 match against St Kilda, South Melbourne set the record for highest score in a quarter, kicking 17.4 in the last quarter of the match. This remains two goals better than any other team has managed as of 2013. South's record score was helped by St Kilda being down to 15 fit players at the start of the quarter, followed up by several Saints players walking off in the course of the quarter.
Other records which have since been broken were set in that same match: South Melbourne full-forward Harold Robertson kicked 14 goals in the match ; South Melbourne kicked a match score of 29.15 , and a winning margin of 171 points.
In Round 16, Collingwood defeated Carlton 17.11 to 5.16. No team had scored 100 points against Carlton since Round 1, 1904, a streak of 292 consecutive matches, which remains a VFL/AFL record as of 2017.
St Kilda's win at Collingwood in Round 2 was its first ever win over Collingwood on the road after a winless streak of 24 matches at Victoria Park.
