The 1890
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 14th 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 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.
Notable events
* On 9 August, 4.13 defeated
Port Melbourne
Port Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Melbourne and Port Phillip local government areas. Port Melbourne recorded a populatio ...
3.7 at the
Port Melbourne Cricket Ground. Port Melbourne raised a protest, on the grounds that the mark from which
Jack Worrall
John Worrall (20 June 1861 – 17 November 1937) was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Fitzroy Football Club in the VFA, and a Test cricketer. He was also a prominent coach in both sports and a journalist.
A small, nugge ...
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. "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; his newspapers maintained this position in subsequent years.
Later publications, including the ''
Football Record
The ''AFL Record'' is the official program available at Australian Football League (AFL) matches. The publication began as the ''Football Record'' in Melbourne, Australia in 1912, making it one of the oldest magazines in Australia.
The public ...
'', 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.
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
*
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:1890 Vfa Season
Victorian Football League seasons
Vfa Season, 1890