The 1889
Victorian Football Association
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...
season was the 13th season of the
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 oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
competition.
The premiership was won by the
South Melbourne Football Club. It was the fourth premiership in the club's history, and the second out of a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1888 to 1890.
Association membership
The number of teams contesting the Association premiership reduced from 16 senior teams to 12 in 1889.
The three Ballarat-based clubs –
Ballarat
Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...
,
South Ballarat and
Ballarat Imperial remained senior clubs, represented on the Association Board of Management and contested the Ballarat premiership, but matches played against them by metropolitan clubs (which often occurred during bye weeks) no longer qualified for the premiership.
University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, after a winless 1888 season, dropped out of the Association and went into recess.
1889 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 21-match season – ''e.g.'', South Melbourne played 19 matches, so its tally of premiership points was increased by a factor of 21/19. After this adjustment, there was no formal process for breaking a tie.
Notable events
* Amendments to the rules prior to the season included:
**Changes the rules related to the end of a quarter, allowing a ball in transit at the sound of the bell to score, and allowing a player who had marked prior to the bell to take a
set shot after the bell which would still count.
Prior to this, the ball was declared dead for no score as soon as the bell sounded in either instance.
**A new requirement that a team kicking off from the centre (to start a quarter or after a goal) kick a distance of at least twenty yards, preventing them from dribble-kicking and immediately recovering the ball.
* Footscray defeated Melbourne 5–2 in its sixth premiership fixture for the season, but the win was awarded to Melbourne on protest because Footscray fielded a player without the proper clearance.
See also
*
Victorian Football Association/Victorian Football League History (1877-2008)
*
List of VFA/VFL Premiers (1877-2007)
*
History of Australian rules football in Victoria (1853-1900)
Australian rules football began its evolution in Melbourne, Australia about 1858. The origins of Australian football before 1858 are still the subject of much debate, as there were a multitude of football games in Britain, Europe, Ireland and ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:1889 Vfa Season
Victorian Football League seasons
Vfa Season, 1889