| 1887 VFA premiership season | |
|---|---|
 Carlton FC, premiers | |
| Teams | 18 |
| Premiers | Carlton 2nd premiership |
The 1887 Victorian Football Association season was the 11th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The premiership was won by the Carlton Football Club. It was the second and last VFA premiership in the club's history.
The metropolitan membership of the Association (including Geelong) remained unchanged from the fifteen clubs which contested the premiership in 1886. The three Ballarat-based clubs (Ballarat, Ballarat Imperial and South Ballarat) also remained senior clubs; however, unlike in previous years, they were included in the premiership lists by all of the major sportswriters.[ citation needed ]
The premiership was won by the Carlton Football Club, which played eighteen matches for the season for fifteen wins, two draws and a loss. The runner-up was Geelong, which played twenty-one matches for sixteen wins, three draws and two losses. South Melbourne was ranked third. No official system for deciding the premiership existed, but it was conventional for the club which suffered the fewest defeats during the season to be named premier. [1]
On Saturday 2 July, a weakened Geelong, which was missing eight of its best twenty due to unavailability, suffered one of its two losses for the season when Ballarat Imperial beat them 3.4 to 0.2 at the Eastern Oval in Ballarat. [2] As the season progressed, questions were raised by the Geelong club and many spectators over whether or not this match should be counted towards the premiership. Reasons why Geelong supporters believed it should have been excluded were:
Since the premiership was still an unofficial title conferred largely by press consensus, there was nothing within laws of the Association to deal specifically with the matter of the premiership; and, therefore there was no formal avenue through which to protest its inclusion. The Sportsman newspaper published a lengthy opinion on the matter in late July, favouring the inclusion of the match in the premiership. It referred in particular to Association Rule 3 which stated:
and concluded that since the match wasn't specifically excluded by Rule 3a that it should be included. The Sportsman also noted that while Rule 18 related to the appointment of the umpires was contravened, that this should have been resolved by penalising the clubs, not by invalidating the match. [3]
The matter was discussed at the Association's general meeting on 12 August. Although there was no formal protest and the Association had no rules governing the premiership, delegates noted that "it was desirable, for the sake of the public, to answer the question of whether or not the match counted." Following discussion, a motion was carried that the match should be counted. [4]
Had Geelong been successful in having the match excluded from the premiership, ceteris paribus, it and Carlton would each have finished with only one defeat for the season, and a playoff match would likely have been arranged to decide the premiership. [5] The 1887 season was the last premiership decided in this informal manner, and a formal Association-endorsed method for determining the premiership was introduced from 1888. [1]
The below table details the records of the eighteen clubs in senior matches during the 1887 season. Saturday matches and matches played on Queen's Birthday were counted towards the premiership, but matches played on the celebration the Golden Jubilee were not counted. [6]
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. [7]
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | D | GF | GA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carlton (P) | 18 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 94 | 43 |
| 2 | Geelong | 21 | 16 | 2 | 3 | 110 | 57 |
| 3 | South Melbourne | 20 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 103 | 53 |
| 4 | Fitzroy | 20 | 11 | 4 | 5 | 71 | 56 |
| 5 | Port Melbourne | 20 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 97 | 50 |
| 6 | Williamstown | 19 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 64 | 73 |
| 7 | Richmond | 19 | 8 | 8 | 3 | 63 | 70 |
| 8 | Hotham | 18 | 6 | 8 | 4 | 73 | 79 |
| 9 | Essendon | 16 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 49 | 67 |
| 10 | Melbourne | 18 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 64 | 80 |
| 11 | Prahran | 18 | 5 | 11 | 2 | 42 | 75 |
| 12 | University | 17 | 4 | 13 | 0 | 45 | 94 |
| 13 | Ballarat Imperial | 13 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 52 | 44 |
| 14 | Ballarat | 13 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 49 | 43 |
| 15 | St Kilda | 18 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 48 | 95 |
| 16 | South Williamstown | 18 | 3 | 13 | 2 | 35 | 78 |
| 17 | South Ballarat | 10 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 50 | 40 |
| 18 | Footscray | 14 | 2 | 10 | 2 | 25 | 47 |
The 1906 VFL season was the tenth 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 5 May to 22 September, comprising a 17-match home-and-away season followed by a two-week finals series featuring the top four clubs.
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.
Australian rules football was first organised in Victoria in 1859 when its rules were codified by the Melbourne Football Club.
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 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 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 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 1893 Victorian Football Association season was the 17th season of the Australian rules football competition.
The 1896 Victorian Football Association season was the 20th season of the Australian rules football competition. It was the final season in which the Association was the highest level of senior football competition in Victoria, with eight of its strongest members leaving the league and establishing the rival Victorian Football League from 1897.
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 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.
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.