1899_VFA_season
The 1899 Victorian Football Association season was the 23rd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club; it was the second premiership in the club's history, and the second in a sequence of three premierships won consecutively from 1898 to 1900.
The size of the association increased from six teams to eight in 1899, with two senior clubs joining the association: Prahran and West Melbourne. West Melbourne was invited to join the association as a senior club after having previously competed in the Victorian Junior Football Association;[1] it accepted the invitation,[2] but with no ground of suitable standard available in its district, West Melbourne shared tenancy of the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve as a venue for home matches.[3] Prahran was newly formed as a senior club in 1899;[4] it was the second time that Prahran had been represented by a senior club in the VFA, after a previous unrelated Prahran club had competed from 1886 to 1887 before merging with neighbouring St Kilda.[5] The new club played its matches at the Hawksburn Cricket Ground (Toorak Park) in Armadale.[6]
The premiership was decided on the basis of the best record across twenty-one rostered matches, with each club playing the others three times. For the first time, each team had a calculated 'average' (known today as 'percentage'), calculated as the ratio of points scored to points conceded; this was used to break ties in the final placings.
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| TEAM | P | W | L | D | PF | PA | Avg | PTS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Footscray (P) | 21 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 1078 | 448 | 2.31 | 72 | |||
| 2 | North Melbourne | 21 | 17 | 4 | 0 | 1140 | 664 | 1.71 | 68 | |||
| 3 | Port Melbourne | 21 | 13 | 8 | 0 | 869 | 780 | 1.11 | 52 | |||
| 4 | Williamstown | 21 | 11 | 10 | 0 | 694 | 647 | 1.07 | 44 | |||
| 5 | Prahran | 21 | 8 | 13 | 0 | 678 | 897 | 0.75 | 32 | |||
| 6 | Richmond | 21 | 8 | 13 | 0 | 655 | 909 | 0.71 | 32 | |||
| 7 | West Melbourne | 21 | 6 | 15 | 0 | 759 | 861 | 0.88 | 24 | |||
| 8 | Brunswick | 21 | 3 | 18 | 0 | 507 | 1174 | 0.43 | 12 | |||
| Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Avg = Average, (P) = Premiers, PTS = Premiership points | Source[7] | |||||||||||
- "News and Notes – West Melbourne Football Club". North Melbourne Gazette. North Melbourne. 2 December 1898. p. 2.
- "West Melbourne Football Club – Special Meeting". North Melbourne Gazette. North Melbourne. 3 February 1899. p. 3.
- Half-Forward (15 April 1899). "Football Notes". The Independent. Footscray, VIC. p. 3.
- "A senior club at Prahran". The Argus. Melbourne. 16 March 1899. p. 7.
- Rover (7 April 1888). "Football". The Telegraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian. p. 7.
- Markwell (13 May 1899). "Football notes". The Australasian. p. 1028.
- Old Boy (18 September 1899). "Victorian Football Association – Final Results". The Argus. Melbourne. p. 6.