1891 VFA season
15th season of the Victorian Football Association
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1891 VFA season was the 15th season of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), the highest-level senior Australian rules football competition in Victoria.
Essendon won the premiership for the first time, beginning a sequence of four consecutive premierships won from 1891 to 1894.[2][3]
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 22-match season; e.g., Essendon played 20 matches, so its tally of premiership points was increased by a factor of 22/20. After this adjustment, there was no formal process for breaking a tie.
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | L | D | GF | GA | Pts | Adj pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Essendon (P) | 20 | 17 | 1 | 2 | 125 | 66 | 72 | 79.20 |
| 2 | Carlton | 21 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 113 | 55 | 62 | 64.95 |
| 3 | Fitzroy | 19 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 110 | 70 | 52 | 60.21 |
| 4 | South Melbourne | 22 | 14 | 7 | 1 | 120 | 74 | 58 | 58.00 |
| 5 | Geelong | 19 | 12 | 7 | 0 | 90 | 74 | 48 | 55.58 |
| 6 | Melbourne | 19 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 88 | 84 | 42 | 48.63 |
| 7 | St Kilda | 20 | 8 | 11 | 1 | 92 | 97 | 34 | 37.40 |
| 8 | North Melbourne | 20 | 3 | 9 | 8 | 55 | 86 | 28 | 30.80 |
| 9 | Williamstown | 18 | 4 | 11 | 3 | 51 | 78 | 22 | 26.89 |
| 10 | Footscray | 18 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 58 | 95 | 18 | 22.00 |
| 11 | Port Melbourne | 19 | 3 | 13 | 3 | 61 | 103 | 18 | 20.84 |
| 12 | Richmond | 19 | 2 | 14 | 3 | 62 | 143 | 14 | 16.21 |
Notable events
- Prior to the season, the distance between each goalpost and its adjacent kick-off post (behind post) was reduced from ten yards to seven yards, making each behind face the same width as the goal face,[5] and establishing the modern measurements for the scoring area which have remained since.
- On 11 July, a torrential downpour from 3:00am saw the VFA grounds in Melbourne left at least partially underwater and made the conditions almost unplayable:
- The match between Williamstown and North Melbourne was drawn by mutual agreement without taking the field due to torrential rain and the ground being completely flooded.
- The match between St Kilda and Footscray at the Junction Oval saw only twelve Footscray players appear, with the ground covered in pools of water. Despite both teams' players, captains and officials objections to playing, the umpire overruled them and the match proceeded, with St Kilda (who had a full team of 20 players) winning by 10.5 to nil.[6][7]