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Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final is a game that decides a
sports league A sports league is a group of individual athletes, sports teams or clubs who form a league to compete against each other and gain points in a specific sport. At its simplest, it may be a local group of amateur athletes who form teams among them ...
's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Synonymous with a championship game in North American sports, grand finals have become a significant part of Australian culture. The earliest leagues to feature a grand final were in
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
, followed soon after by
rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...
. Currently the largest grand finals are in the
Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
(AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL). Their popularity influenced other competitions such as
soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
's A-League Men and A-League Women, the National Basketball League, Suncorp Super Netball and European rugby league's
Super League Super League (also known as the Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, and legally Super League Europe Ltd.) is a professional rugby league competition, and the highest level of the British rugby league system, which consists of twelve t ...
to adopt grand finals as well. Most grand finals involve a prestigious award for the player voted best on field.


History

The Anglo-Norman term "grand" to describe a sporting event, documented in England as "grand match" in 1836,Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed, grand (9A) was used in Australia from the 1850s. A steeplechase in England has been called the "
Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Aintree, Merseyside, England. First run in 1839, it ...
Steeple Chase" ("Grand National" alone for short) since at least 1839. Use of the term in Australian Football dates back to the first organised and widely publicised match between
Melbourne Grammar School Melbourne Grammar School is an Australian private school, private Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Day school, day and boarding school. It comprises a co-educational preparatory school from Prep to Year 6 and a middle school and senior s ...
and Scotch College on 7 August 1858 at Yarra Park, Melbourne (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 for St Patrick's Day on Friday 18 March. In '' The Argus'' 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 was a
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match in 1862. In the 1871 South Yarra Challenge Cup, Carlton and Melbourne drew their three matches, but both clubs had won their remaining matches against the other clubs, Albert Park and South Yarra, meaning the Challenge Cup's only tiebreaker, head-to-head record, was unable to separate them. Both teams' captains and the Cup organisers subsequently arranged a "grand match" (as advertised in ''The Argus'') at the Lake Oval to decide the premiership on October 7, a week after the season had finished: Carlton won the match by two goals to nil. 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.


Victorian Football Association

In the Victorian Football Association, which was Victoria's top level of senior football from 1877 until 1896, the premiership was typically awarded solely on the basis of the rostered premiership matches (known today as the home-and-away season). However, the VFA's rules stipulated that where two or more teams finished equal on premiership points, a playoff match or matches would be scheduled amongst those teams to decide the premiership. This was required in 1896, when and finished level on top of the ladder with records of 14 wins and one draw. The playoff match between them, which is retrospectively treated as Victoria's first Grand Final (it was actually the first match referred to as such), saw Collingwood defeat South Melbourne by 6.9 – 5.10 to win the club's first ever premiership. While there had been one previous premiership playoff match during this time in the VFA, between and in 1878, this match did not break a tie at the top of the ladder, as Geelong had a superior win–loss record to Melbourne: the match was organised to resolve a dispute between the two clubs.


Victorian Football League and Australian Football League

In 1897, when eight teams broke away from the VFA to form the VFL, the concept of finals football was high on the agenda, with teams buoyed by the success and attendance from the 1896 Grand Final. Over the following ten years, all top-level Australian football leagues adopted a finals structure. In 1931, the VFL adopted a system, the Page–McIntyre system, which ensured a Grand Final, and the concept became entrenched.


South Australian Football Association

Prior to 1889, the South Australian Football Association (SAFA, now SANFL) was awarded to the team that finished top of the end-of-season ladder placings. In 1889, Norwood and Port Adelaide finished equal first with 14 wins and one draw, meaning a play-off was required to determine the premiership. In promoting the play-off, the local press referred to it as a "premiership match". This was played on October 5, and Norwood won the match 7.4 to 5.9. In 1894, Norwood and South Adelaide finished with a 13–5 record from their 18 matches. The play-off match was fixed for October 6, and despite a provision for 20 minute periods of extra time in the event of a draw at full time, the match was abandoned due to darkness with the scores level at 4.8 apiece. The SAFA fixed a replay for October 10, Labor Day: this was the first of seven grand final replays in elite Australian football history. Norwood won the replay 4.7 to South Adelaide 3.5, with Anthony "Bos" Daly kicking the winning goal as the final bell rang.


New South Wales Rugby Football League

The New South Wales Rugby Football League (NSWRFL) 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 NSWRFL adopted the term "grand final" to describe the premiership decider. Up until 1954 a 'grand final' match was only held if the minor premiers were beaten. The adoption of the VFL's Page–McIntyre system for the 1954 NSWRFL season meant for the first time grand finals would become necessary every season, so the term grand final has become used to describe all premiership deciders. The tradition is maintained by the present-day NRL National Rugby League.


Europe

The term "Grand Final" was introduced to Europe in 1995 in a completely different sport—golf. In that year, the Challenge Tour, the official developmental tour for the European Tour, launched its season-ending Challenge Tour Grand Final. British rugby league would adopt the term in 1998, two years after the start of
Super League Super League (also known as the Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, and legally Super League Europe Ltd.) is a professional rugby league competition, and the highest level of the British rugby league system, which consists of twelve t ...
. The Super League Grand Final 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 and the Conference. Prior to this, a ''Championship Final'' was introduced to determine the winner of the British
Rugby Football League Championship The Rugby Football League Championship First Division was the top division of rugby league in Great Britain between 1895 and 1996, when it was replaced by the Super League. History 1895–1904: Foundations The first season of rugby leagu ...
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'' being created. Starting in 2009–10, the
rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...
competition historically known as the Celtic League, at the time involving teams from Ireland,
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and
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, introduced a playoff system to determine its champion. (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 was branded as a grand final. This usage continued for the 2010–11 season, the first that included teams from Italy. Starting with the 2011–12 season, the league's first as Pro12, the "Grand Final" terminology was scrapped; the final match of the competition now known as the United Rugby Championship is simply called the "Final".


Philippines

In the Philippines, the term "grand finals" (pluralized) usually refer to a final of TV series competition. Notable series that had a "grand finals" are '' The Voice of the Philippines'' and '' Idol Philippines''. It was used as early as 1994 for the '' Battle of the Brains'' quiz show.


List of current notable competitions with grand finals


Sport


Grand Finals in television

The Grand Finals are also adopted in numerous
reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...
and even
game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...
s. In reality television, a number of selected finalists after surviving a pre-determined number of elimination rounds moved on to compete in the finals. Some shows, such as the earlier seasons of '' The Voice'' (notably the first two American seasons) and '' Project SuperStar'', adopted a group-type format with an equal number of finalists from each group eliminated and advancing each show until one such finalist remain, at this point these finalists compete head-to-head for the champion. Taiwanese show '' One Million Star'' (and its sequel successor '' Chinese Million Star'') uses a cumulative point system and the scores are progressively added until at one point the contestant with a lower score is eliminated; in the final round, these scores are converted as a percent weightage and the champion is decided based on the weighed scores. In game shows, notably ''
Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...
'' (such as ''Tournament of Champions'' and '' The Greatest of All Time''), these finalists compete in a two-legged round, based on the combined scores from both games, to determine the winner. From 1996 to 1998, '' Wheel of Fortune'' have a ''Friday Finals'' system where the three top-scoring contestants from the first four episodes that week returned again on a Friday for one more game; the winner in that episode will play for an extra prize package (in addition to the current prize the contestant chose) during the bonus round.


Grand final replays

A grand final replay is a method of deciding the winner of a competition when a grand final is drawn by replaying the entire match the following week, rather than playing overtime or extra time on the same day. It is commonly used in
Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
and most notably in the
Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...
, where it has been used three times, most recently in
2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...
, however the AFL decided that replays will no longer decide grand finals that end as a draw, rather replacing it with extra time.


Grand final breakfast

Most sports leagues in Australia have a grand final breakfast to mark the beginning to grand final day. It is a social highlight on the Australian sporting calendar. Watching the event is a ritual for many footy fans and the function plays a huge role in the pre-match build-up for the grand final. The North Melbourne Football Club host the North Melbourne Grand Final Breakfast, while the National Rugby League typically host the NRL Grand Final Breakfast at Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre in
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.


See also

* Argus finals system * McIntyre system * Final


Footnotes

* Ross, J. (ed), ''100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported'', Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.


References


External links

*
rl1908 The "Grand Final"
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060511185304/http://www.rl1908.com/clubcomps/grand-final.htm , date=11 May 2006 Australian rules football Rugby league terminology Sports terminology *