Grand Final
Encyclopedia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
term
Terminology
Terminology is the study of terms and their use. Terms are words and compound words that in specific contexts are given specific meanings, meanings that may deviate from the meaning the same words have in other contexts and in everyday language. The discipline Terminology studies among other...
used to describe a match that decides a league
Sports league
League is a term commonly used to describe a group of sports teams or individual athletes that compete against each other in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among themselves and compete on weekends; at its most complex, it can be an...
champion.
It originated in Victoria and South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
and has become specifically significant Australian culture. Notable competitions which play a Grand Final include the Australian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
(AFL Grand Final
AFL Grand Final
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
), the National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
(NRL Grand Final), Europe's Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
, the A-League
A-League
The A-League is the top Australasian professional football league. Run by Australian governing body Football Federation Australia , it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League and staged its inaugural season in 2005–06. It is sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company...
, the Women's National Basketball League
Women's National Basketball League
The Women's National Basketball League is the pre-eminent women's professional basketball league in Australia. It currently is composed of ten teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Basketball League...
, the ANZ Netball Championship
ANZ Championship
The ANZ Championship is the pre-eminent netball league in the world. The competition is held annually between April and July, comprising 69 matches played over 17 weeks. It is contested by ten teams, five from Australia and five from New Zealand...
.
Championship Game
Championship
Championship is a term used in sport to refer to various forms of competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.- Title match system :...
are more frequently used in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Etymology
The use of the Anglo-NormanAnglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
term "grand" to describe a sporting event in Australia dates back to the 1850s. Its use may have been borrowed from the term "Grand Finale" which was used in Europe for centuries to describe the last and most exciting part of a play, opera, or other entertainment.
Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, located in South Yarra and Caulfield, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and Scotch College
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
on August 7, 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne
Yarra Park, Melbourne
Yarra Park is part of the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct - the premier sporting precinct of Victoria, Australia. Located in Yarra Park is the Melbourne Cricket Ground and numerous sporting fields and ovals, including the associated sporting complexes of Melbourne & Olympic Parks...
(formerly Richmond Park). The game was advertised as the "grand football match" in the Melbourne Morning Herald and several other local newspapers.
In 1859, a "grand football match" was advertised in Richmond, Tasmania
Richmond, Tasmania
Richmond is a town in Tasmania about 25 km north-east of Hobart, in the Coal River region, between the Midland Highway and Tasman Highway. At the 2006 census, Richmond had a population of 880....
for St Patrick's Day on Friday 18 March.
Mentioned in The Argus
The Argus (Australia)
The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
of 1861, the Royal Caledonian Society of Melbourne invited clubs to compete in a "grand football-match" which was to be football's first ever trophy, the Caledonian Challenge Cup, however the match did not proceed until the following year.
The earliest known event described as "grand" in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
was a cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
match in 1862.
When the two top teams of the 1871 South Yarra Challenge Cup were on even wins, a "grand match" (advertised in The Argus) was announced to decide the championship.
Initially, a football premiership final appeared to be called a "grand final" only when the losers of a final were the minor premiers and they exercised the "right to challenge" the winners to a second premiership decider.
Australian Rugby League
The New South Wales Rugby LeagueNew South Wales Rugby League
The New South Wales Rugby League is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and is a member of the Australian Rugby League. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was known as the New South Wales Rugby Football League until 1984 when forward thinking marketing managers decided...
experimented with a finals system in 1908, its inaugural year, but abandoned it the following season. Finals were reintroduced in 1926, and the premiership decider appeared to only be called a "grand final" if it involved the minor premiers.
By the 1930s, the NSWRL adopted the term "grand final" to describe the premiership decider.
The NSWRL's adoption of the VFL's Page-McIntyre system in 1954 engrained term Grand Final to describe any premiership decider.
The tradition is maintained by the present day NRL National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
.
SANFL
Possibly the first Grand Finals of any kind occurred in the sport of Australian rules footballAustralian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
in the South Australian Football Association (SAFA, now SANFL), on October 7, 1889. At that time, premierships were decided simply upon end-of-season ladder placings, but the game was necessitated when Norwood
Norwood Football Club
Norwood Football Club, nicknamed, Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club belonging to the South Australian National Football League in the state of South Australia...
and Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide Magpies
The Port Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which competes in the South Australian National Football League...
finished equal on wins and goals. In promoting the decider match, local press dubbed the match a "grand final". Norwood won the game 7.4 (46) to 5.9 (39).
The following years saw two more Grand Finals necessitated by ties at the top of the ladder. In 1894, Norwood
Norwood Football Club
Norwood Football Club, nicknamed, Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club belonging to the South Australian National Football League in the state of South Australia...
played South Adelaide
South Adelaide Football Club
South Adelaide Football Club competes in the South Australian National Football League . Known as the Panthers, their home ground is Hickinbotham Oval , located in Noarlunga Downs in the southern suburbs of Adelaide....
; the game was drawn 4.8 (32) apiece, leading to the first of only five Grand Final Replay
Grand Final Replay
A Grand Final Replay is a method of deciding the winner of a competition when a Grand Final is drawn. It is commonly used in football codes, particularly in Australian rules football, and most notably in the Australian Football League, where it has been used three times, most recently in...
s in senior Australian football history. Norwood won the replay 4.7 (31) to South Adelaide 3.5 (23).
VFA
Then, in 1896, in the (then) Victorian Football AssociationVictorian Football League
The Victorian Football League which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association , taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria The Victorian Football League (VFL) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association...
teams Collingwood
Collingwood Football Club
The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
and South Melbourne
Sydney Swans
The Sydney Swans Football Club is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club, founded in 1874, was known as the South Melbourne Football Club until it relocated to Sydney in 1982 to become the Sydney...
Football Clubs gave Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
its first "Grand Final". In 1896 two teams were ranked equal on each of the stipulated premiership criteria; and, so, in the last year of their participation in the VFA competition, Collingwood
Collingwood Football Club
The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League...
and South Melbourne
Sydney Swans
The Sydney Swans Football Club is an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club, founded in 1874, was known as the South Melbourne Football Club until it relocated to Sydney in 1982 to become the Sydney...
played a hastily arranged, previously unscheduled elimination match in order to determine the premiership. The match was tied until the last moments, with Collingwood winning by 6 goals to South Melbourne's 5 goals.
VFL
In 1897, when eight teams broke away from the VFAVictorian Football League
The Victorian Football League which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association , taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria The Victorian Football League (VFL) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association...
to form the VFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
, the concept of finals football was high on the agenda, with teams buoyed by the success and attendances of the 1896 Grand Final. Over the following ten years, all top-level Australian football leagues had adopted a finals structure.
In 1931 the VFL
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
adopted a system, the Page-McIntyre system, which ensured a Grand Final, and the concept became entrenched.
Spread to Europe
The term "Grand Final" was introduced to Europe in 1995 in a completely different sport—golfGolf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
. In that year, the Challenge Tour
Challenge Tour
The Challenge Tour is the second tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and as with on the main European Tour and the European Seniors Tour, some of the events are played outside of Europe...
, the official developmental tour for the European Tour
PGA European Tour
The PGA European Tour is an organization which operates the three leading men's professional golf tours in Europe: the elite European Tour, the European Seniors Tour and the developmental Challenge Tour. Its headquarters are at Wentworth Club in Virginia Water, Surrey, England...
, launched its season-ending Challenge Tour Grand Final
Challenge Tour Grand Final
The Challenge Tour Grand Final is the season ending tour championship on the Challenge Tour. It has been played annually since 1995 at various courses. Usually it takes place in Southern Europe, but in 1999 and 2000 it was played in Cuba. The tournament has had several sponsored names. The field...
. British rugby league would adopt the term in 1998, two years after the start of Super League
Super League
Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from...
. The Super League Grand Final
Super League Grand Final
The Super League Grand Final is the championship-deciding game of the Super League rugby league football competition...
has now become an accepted part of the British scene, and the term 'grand final' is used to describe the final of leagues below Super League as well, such as the Championship, Championship 1
Championship 1
Championship 1, known as The Co-operative Championship 1 due to sponsorship by The Co-operative Group, is a rugby league competition based in the United Kingdom. It acts as the country's third-tier competition behind the Championship, with which it has a system of promotion and relegation. It is...
and the Conference
Rugby League Conference
The Rugby League Conference , was a series of regionally based divisions of amateur rugby league teams spread throughout England, Scotland and Wales.The RLC was founded as the 10-team Southern Conference League in 1997, with teams from the southern midlands and the...
. Prior to this, a Championship Final was introduced to determine the winner of the British Rugby Football League Championship in 1904, though it only became a regular fixture from 1906 onwards. In 1973, the competition format was changed so that the championship was won by the team finishing top of the league table, with an end of season knock-out competition for the top teams that became known as the Premiership
Rugby League Premiership
The Rugby League Premiership was a competition for British rugby league clubs that operated between 1973 and 1995. As the Super League Premiership the competition continued to operate until 1997....
being created.
The Celtic League
Celtic League (rugby union)
The Celtic League is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales....
(currently the RaboDirect Pro12 for sponsorship reasons), a top-level rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
competition involving teams from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and since 2010–11 Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, introduced a playoff system to determine its champion for the 2009–10 season. (Although the league conducted a knockout competition in its early years, it was a parallel cup competition instead of a championship tournament.) The final match of the new playoff is branded as a Grand Final.
Sport
| League (Region) | Sport | Event | Year first used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super League Super League Super League is the top-level professional rugby league football club competition in Europe. As a result of sponsorship from engage Mutual Assurance the competition is currently officially known as the engage Super League. The League features fourteen teams: thirteen from England and one from... (Europe) |
Rugby League Rugby league Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players... |
Super League Grand Final Super League Grand Final The Super League Grand Final is the championship-deciding game of the Super League rugby league football competition... |
1998 |
| National Rugby League National Rugby League The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand... (Australia) |
Rugby League Rugby league Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players... |
NRL Grand Final | 1931 (Australian Rugby League) (1908 if Minor Premiers were challenged) |
| Australian Football League Australian Football League The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football... (Australia) |
Australian rules football Australian rules football Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either... |
AFL Grand Final AFL Grand Final The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year... |
1898 |
| A-League A-League The A-League is the top Australasian professional football league. Run by Australian governing body Football Federation Australia , it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League and staged its inaugural season in 2005–06. It is sponsored by Hyundai Motor Company... (Australia) |
Association Football | 2004 | |
| South Australian National Football League South Australian National Football League The South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia.... (Australia) |
Australian rules football Australian rules football Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either... |
SANFL Grand Final | 1889 |
| Victorian Football League Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association , taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria The Victorian Football League (VFL) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association... (Australia) |
Australian rules football Australian rules football Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either... |
VFL Grand Final | 1896 |
| RaboDirect Pro12 Celtic League (rugby union) The Celtic League is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales.... (Europe) |
Rugby Union Rugby union Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand... |
RaboDirect Pro12 Grand Final | 2010 |
| Women's National Basketball League Women's National Basketball League The Women's National Basketball League is the pre-eminent women's professional basketball league in Australia. It currently is composed of ten teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Basketball League... (Australia) |
Basketball Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules... |
WNBL Grand Final | 2006 |
| Commonwealth Bank Trophy Commonwealth Bank Trophy The Commonwealth Bank Trophy was the pre-eminent national netball competition in Australia from 1997 to 2007.It was established in 1997 as a true national league to replace the ailing, state club-based Mobil League. Designed from the beginning to be more marketable to the general public, it saw... (Australia) |
Netball Netball Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ... |
1997 | |
| Challenge Tour Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour is the second tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and as with on the main European Tour and the European Seniors Tour, some of the events are played outside of Europe... (Europe) |
Golf Golf Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes.... |
Challenge Tour Grand Final Challenge Tour Grand Final The Challenge Tour Grand Final is the season ending tour championship on the Challenge Tour. It has been played annually since 1995 at various courses. Usually it takes place in Southern Europe, but in 1999 and 2000 it was played in Cuba. The tournament has had several sponsored names. The field... |
1995 |
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