1899 VFA season

1899 premiership season
Footscray Football Club, 1899 premiers
Teams8
PremiersFootscray
2nd premiership
Wooden spoonersBrunswick
← 1898
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The 1899 VFA season was the 23rd season of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), an Australian rules football competition played in the state of Victoria.

The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club for the second time in the club's history, and the second in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1898 to 1900.

Association membership

The size of the association increased from six teams to eight in 1899, with two senior clubs joining the association: Prahran and West Melbourne. West Melbourne was invited to join the association as a senior club after having previously competed in the Victorian Junior Football Association;[1] it accepted the invitation,[2] but with no ground of suitable standard available in its district, West Melbourne shared tenancy of the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve as a venue for home matches.[3] Prahran was newly formed as a senior club in 1899;[4] it was the second time that Prahran had been represented by a senior club in the VFA, after a previous unrelated Prahran club had competed from 1886 to 1887 before merging with neighbouring St Kilda.[5] The new club played its matches at the Hawksburn Cricket Ground (Toorak Park) in Armadale.[6]

Ladder

The premiership was decided on the basis of the best record across twenty-one rostered matches, with each club playing the others three times. For the first time, each team had a calculated 'average' (known today as 'percentage'), calculated as the ratio of points scored to points conceded; this was used to break ties in the final placings.

1899 VFA ladder
Pos Team Pld W L D PF PA PR Pts
1 Footscray (P) 21 18 3 0 1078 448 2.406 72
2 North Melbourne 21 17 4 0 1140 664 1.717 68
3 Port Melbourne 21 13 8 0 869 780 1.114 52
4 Williamstown 21 11 10 0 694 647 1.073 44
5 Prahran 21 8 13 0 678 897 0.756 32
6 Richmond 21 8 13 0 655 909 0.721 32
7 West Melbourne 21 6 15 0 759 861 0.882 24
8 Brunswick 21 3 18 0 507 1174 0.432 12
Source: [7]
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) percentage; 3) number of points for.
(P) Premiers

Notable events

  • The leading goalkicker for the season was Daily of Footscray (39 goals).[7]

References

  1. ^ "News and Notes – West Melbourne Football Club". North Melbourne Gazette. North Melbourne. 2 December 1898. p. 2.
  2. ^ "West Melbourne Football Club – Special Meeting". North Melbourne Gazette. North Melbourne. 3 February 1899. p. 3.
  3. ^ Half-Forward (15 April 1899). "Football Notes". The Independent. Footscray, VIC. p. 3.
  4. ^ "A senior club at Prahran". The Argus. Melbourne. 16 March 1899. p. 7.
  5. ^ Rover (7 April 1888). "Football". The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian. p. 7.
  6. ^ Markwell (13 May 1899). "Football notes". The Australasian. p. 1028.
  7. ^ a b Old Boy (18 September 1899). "Victorian Football Association – Final Results". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.