| 1884 VFA premiership season | |
|---|---|
 Geelong FC, premiers | |
| Teams | 8 |
| Premiers | Geelong 6th premiership |
The 1884 Victorian Football Association season was the eighth season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's sixth VFA premiership in just seven seasons, and was the third in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1882 to 1884.
The senior metropolitan membership of the Association (including Geelong) increased from six to eight clubs in 1884. The two new clubs were the Williamstown Football Club, which was elevated from junior status; and the newly established Fitzroy Football Club.
At this time, three other provincial senior clubs were full Association members represented on the Board of Management: Ballarat, South Ballarat (formerly known as Albion Imperial) and Horsham Unions. [1] Due to distance, these clubs played too few matches against the rest of the VFA to be considered relevant in the premiership.
The 1884 premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club, which won twenty-two and drew one of its twenty-five matches. Essendon finished second with sixteen wins and two draws from twenty-four matches; Hotham finished third.
The below table details the playing records of the eight clubs in all matches during the 1884 season. Two sets of results are given:
The clubs are listed in the order in which they were ranked in the Sportsman newspaper. The VFA had no formal process by which the clubs were ranked, so the below order should be considered indicative only, particularly since the fixturing of matches was not standardised; however, the top three placings were later acknowledged in publications including the Football Record and are considered official. [2]
| ||||||||||||||||
| Senior Results | Total Results | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TEAM | P | W | L | D | GF | GA | P | W | L | D | GF | GA | ||||
| 1 | Geelong (P) | 14 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 67 | 27 | 25 | 22 | 2 | 1 | 141 | 52 | |||
| 2 | Essendon | 17 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 57 | 44 | 24 | 16 | 6 | 2 | 99 | 59 | |||
| 3 | Hotham | 18 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 47 | 47 | 22 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 65 | 48 | |||
| Fitzroy | 16 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 27 | 29 | 22 | 9 | 10 | 3 | 34 | 42 | ||||
| South Melbourne | 19 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 42 | 42 | 23 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 54 | 48 | ||||
| Carlton | 17 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 39 | 53 | 24 | 11 | 9 | 4 | 64 | 67 | ||||
| Melbourne | 18 | 6 | 11 | 1 | 38 | 54 | 26 | 10 | 13 | 3 | 64 | 74 | ||||
| Williamstown | 13 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 20 | 41 | 21 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 41 | 46 | ||||
| Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, (P) = Premiers | Source: [3] | |||||||||||||||
The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in eastern states of Australia: Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, including reserves teams for the eastern state AFL clubs. It succeeded and continues the competition of the former Victorian Football Association (VFA) which began in 1877. The name of the competition was changed to the Victorian Football League in 1996. Under its VFL brand, the AFL also operates a women's football competition known as VFL Women's, which was established in 2016.
The 1907 VFL season was the eleventh season of the Victorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured eight clubs and ran from 27 April to 21 September, comprising a 17-match home-and-away season followed by a three-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.
The 1877 Victorian Football Association season was the first in which the Australian rules football competition in Victoria was run under a properly constituted administrative body. The Association was formed with the view to governing the sport via a collective body, made up of delegates representing the clubs. It was the second such body to have been formed, the South Australian Football Association having been formed 17 days prior to the VFA.
The 1878 Victorian Football Association season was the second season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club, after it defeated Melbourne in a playoff match on 5 October. It was the club's first VFA premiership, and the first in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1878 to 1880. Geelong was unbeaten during the year.
The 1879 Victorian Football Association season was the third season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's second VFA premiership, and the second in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1878 to 1880; for the second consecutive season, Geelong was unbeaten during the year.
The 1880 Victorian Football Association season was the fourth season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's third VFA premiership, and the last in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1878 to 1880; Geelong lost two matches for the season, its first losses since 1877, having been unbeaten through the previous two years.
The 1881 Victorian Football Association season was the fifth season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the South Melbourne Football Club. It was the club's first VFA premiership.
The 1882 Victorian Football Association season was the sixth season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's fourth VFA premiership in just five seasons, and was the first in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1882 to 1884.
The 1883 Victorian Football Association season was the seventh season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's fifth VFA premiership in just six seasons, and was the second in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1882 to 1884.
The 1885 Victorian Football Association season was the 9th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the South Melbourne Football Club. It was the club's second VFA premiership.
The 1886 Victorian Football Association season was the 10th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Geelong Football Club. It was the club's seventh VFA premiership, and the last won by its senior team.
The 1887 Victorian Football Association season was the 11th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1888 Victorian Football Association season was the 12th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1889 Victorian Football Association season was the 13th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1892 Victorian Football Association season was the 16th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1897 Victorian Football Association season was the 21st season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Port Melbourne Football Club, the first premiership in its history.
The Geelong West St Peters Football Club, nicknamed the Roosters, was an Australian rules football club that last competed in the Geelong Football League (GFL) from 1989 until the end of the 2016 season.
The Ballarat Imperial Football Club was an Australian rules football club which formerly competed in the Ballarat Football League. The club was one of the most successful teams in the league, winning 17 premierships before it was dissolved in 1955.
The Victorian Junior Football Association (VJFA) was an open age Australian rules football competition and administrative body. It was the first successful junior football competition in Melbourne, and was in existence from 1883 until 1932.
On 4 September 1886, an Australian rules football match was played between the South Melbourne Football Club and the Geelong Football Club at the South Melbourne Cricket Ground. The match was part of the 1886 season of the Victorian Football Association. It was considered the sport's most important match of the 19th century, and is sometimes referred to in modern times as the Match of the Century.