It was the 59th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1956 VFL season.

The match was won by Melbourne by 73 points, marking that club's eighth premiership victory.

It was the second successive year in which the two teams met in a premiership decider, with Melbourne having won the 1955 VFL Grand Final.

The capacity of the ground had recently been expanded with a new grandstand for the upcoming 1956 Summer Olympics, but the ground was still not large enough to comfortably or safely accommodate such a large crowd; stairwells and aisles were full of people, meaning that many people were unable to leave their positions to use restrooms during the game; and many people had restricted views of the game due to the crowding, resulting in some spectators climbing onto the roofs or back walls of the grandstand and other structures for a better view.

A scene from the game is captured in Jamie Cooper's painting The Game That Made Australia, commissioned by the AFL in 2008 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the sport:[3] Collingwood's Neil Mann and Melbourne's Ian Ridley fighting amongst the spectators who were sitting on the arena (but behind the boundary line).