1884 VFA season

1884 VFA season
Geelong – 1884 VFA premiers
Overview
Date	3 May – 27 September 1884 [1]
Teams	8
Premiers	Geelong 6th premiership
←  1883 1885  →

The 1884 VFA season was the eighth season of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in the colony of Victoria.

Geelong won the premiership for the fifth time, making it the club's sixth VFA premiership in just seven seasons, and the third in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from 1882 to 1884. ^{[2] [3]}

Association membership

Poster showing star players of the 1884 season. Two players from each club surround the central portrait of Carlton's George Coulthard, the former champion who had died in 1883.

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 after merging with Battery United, and the newly established Fitzroy Football Club. ^[4]

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. ^[5] Due to distance, these clubs played too few matches against the rest of the VFA to be considered relevant in the premiership.

1884 VFA 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.

Club records

The below table details the playing records of the eight clubs in all matches during the 1884 season. Two sets of results are given:

• Senior results: based only upon games played against other VFA senior clubs
• Total results: including senior games, and games against intercolonial, up-country and junior clubs.

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. ^[6]

Pos	Team	Senior results	Total results
Pld	W	L	D	GF	GA	Pld	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

Source: ^{[1] [7] [8] [9]}
(P) Premiers

See also

• 1884 Victorian football season

References

1. Pennings, Mark (28 May 2014). "A Golden Era Begins: Football in 'Marvellous Melbourne', 1877 to 1885" (PDF). QUT. Origins of Australian Football (Volume II). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 May 2025. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
2. Collings, Tom (15 July 2019). "Geelong's Premiership History". Geelong Football Club. Archived from the original on 6 December 2024. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
3. Riley, Michael (11 August 2019). "The Evolution of 'the Premiership' 1870−1888". Hidden Footy Histories. Archived from the original on 3 June 2025. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
4. Q. B. (9 October 1886). "Review of the Season". Williamstown Advertiser. p. 3. Retrieved 7 June 2025. By the amalgamation of the Battery United, then a promising junior club, the Williamstown were enabled to enter the senior ranks.
5. "Victorian Football Association". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 26 April 1884. p. 5.
6. Wilson, Caroline (20 June 2014). "History of the AFL could be turned on its head". The Age. Archived from the original on 29 September 2023. Retrieved 12 April 2025.
7. Goal Post (1 October 1884). "FOOTBALL GOSSIP". Sportsman. p. 2. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
8. "TABLE OF SENIOR FOOTBALL MATCHES". Sportsman. 1 October 1884. p. 2. Retrieved 5 June 2025.
9. Pindar, Peter (4 October 1884). "The football season of 1884". The Australasian. p. 22. Retrieved 5 June 2025.