1890 VFA season

1890 premiership season
South Melbourne, Premiers
Teams12
PremiersSouth Melbourne
5th premiership
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The 1890 Victorian Football Association season was the 14th season of the Australian rules football competition.

The premiership was won by the South Melbourne Football Club. It was the fifth premiership in the club's history, and the third out of a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1888 to 1890.

1890 VFA ladder

Teams did not play a uniform number of premiership matches during the season. As such, in the final standings, each team's premiership points were adjusted upwards proportionally to represent a 20-match season – e.g., South Melbourne played 19 matches, so its tally of premiership points was increased by a factor of 20/19. After this adjustment, there was no formal process for breaking a tie.

1890 VFA ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D GF GA Pts Adj Pts
1 South Melbourne (P) 19 16 2 1 103 42 66 69.47
2 Carlton 19 13 4 2 114 58 56 58.95
3 Essendon 19 10 4 5 92 59 50 52.63
4 Fitzroy 18 11 6 1 111 51 46 51.11
5 North Melbourne 19 9 6 4 75 60 44 46.32
6 St Kilda 18 8 7 3 74 70 38 42.22
7 Geelong 19 9 8 2 68 91 40 42.11
8 Melbourne 19 6 9 4 69 89 32 33.68
9 Port Melbourne 20 6 10 4 69 91 32 32.00
10 Footscray 18 4 13 1 45 75 18 20.00
11 Richmond 18 3 14 1 43 113 14 15.56
12 Williamstown 18 2 14 2 43 107 12 13.33
Source: [1]
(P) Premiers

Notable events

  • On 9 August, Fitzroy 4.13 defeated Port Melbourne 3.7 at the Port Melbourne Cricket Ground.[2] Port Melbourne raised a protest, on the grounds that the mark from which Jack Worrall scored Fitzroy's first goal was taken after the half time bell was rung, although neither the field umpire nor the goal umpire had heard the bell; the Association upheld the appeal, and amended the result to a 3.13 vs 3.7 draw. This decision resulted in Fitzroy dropping from third to fourth place on the premiership list, with Essendon rising to third place.[3] "Follower", the influential football writer in the Leader and the Age newspapers, refused to recognise the Association's decision, describing it as ultra vires, and published a premiership list with the win standing and with Fitzroy in third place;[4] his newspapers maintained this position in subsequent years.[5] Later publications, including the Football Record, have listed Fitzroy as the third-placed club in 1890, but it is unclear whether this is the result of the Association reversing its decision or of the Record using the Age as its reference.[6] The premiership list given in this article recognises the match in question as a draw, consistent with the official position of the Association at the time the season was closed, and as published in the Argus.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Close of the football season". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 29 September 1890. p. 10. Note that the final ladder as presented in the source contains multiple errors, as the total goals for does not equal total goals against: the totals presented here are correct.
  2. ^ "Fitzroy v. Port Melbourne". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 11 August 1890. p. 10.
  3. ^ "Football". The Daily Telegraph. Launceston, TAS. 2 October 1890. p. 3.
  4. ^ Follower (29 September 1890). "The close of the football season". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. p. 7.
  5. ^ "The Premiership Matches". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. 26 September 1892. p. 7.
  6. ^ Caroline Wilson (20 June 2014). "History of the AFL could be turned on its head". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. Retrieved 18 October 2014.