The 1900 VFL season was the fourth season of the

Victorian Football League 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 east ...

(VFL), the highest-level senior

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

competition in Victoria. The season featured eight clubs and ran from 5 May to 22 September, comprising a 14-round home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring all eight clubs. won the premiership, defeating by four points in the 1900 VFL grand final; it was Melbourne's first VFL premiership. Fitzroy won its second consecutive

minor premiership A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues. Origins The etymolo ...

by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with an 11–3 win–loss record. 's

Teddy Lockwood Edward Lockwood (6 December 1872 – 25 June 1953) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Geelong and Collingwood during the years following the formation of the Victorian Football League (VFL). He was originally from the Geelong ar ...

and 's Albert Thurgood tied for the leading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkickers.

Background

In 1900, the VFL competition consisted of eight teams of 18 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves", although any of the 18 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match. Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away season of 14 rounds. Once the 14 round home-and-away season had finished, the 1900 VFL ''Premiers'' were determined by the specific format and conventions of the 1898 VFL finals system.

Home-and-away season

Round 1

Round 2

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Round 7

Round 8

Round 9

Round 10

Round 11

Round 12

Round 13

Round 14

Round 3 (postponed)

Ladder

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Average score: 41.0
Source
AFL Tables
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Progression by round

Finals series

Sectional rounds

Sectional round 1

Sectional round 2

Sectional round 3

Section A ladder

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Source

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Section B ladder

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Source

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Finals

All starting times are local time. Source
AFL Tables

Semi-final

Grand final

Win–loss table

The following table can be sorted from biggest winning margin to biggest losing margin for each round. If two or more matches in a round are decided by the same margin, these margins are sorted by percentage (i.e. the lowest-scoring winning team is ranked highest and the lowest-scoring losing team is ranked lowest). Opponents are listed above the margins and home matches are in bold. The rescheduling of round 3 until after round 14, which occurred following the cancellation of the originally scheduled matches due to heavy rain, is also reflected in this table. By winning the

and accruing at least eight premiership points from its three sectional matches, Fitzroy won the right to challenge the semi-final winner for the premiership. Source
AFL Tables

Season notes

*The Round 1 match between St Kilda and Melbourne ended in a draw, but the result was changed to a St Kilda victory on protest after it was noted that the umpire did not signal the end of the third quarter in the correct fashion after hearing the bell. This was St Kilda's first-ever VFL win (after 48 losses), their first win since 1896 in the VFA (after 51 losses), and was the first of only two occasions that the score of a game has been changed on protest (the second was the 2006 AFL siren controversy between St Kilda and ). * St Kilda footballer Dave Strickland, the father of

Shirley Strickland Shirley Barbara de la Hunty AO, MBE (née Strickland; 18 July 1925 – 11 February 2004), known as Shirley Strickland during her early career, was an Australian athlete. She won more Olympic medals than any other Australian in running sports. ...

, won the 1900

Stawell Gift The Stawell Gift is Australia's oldest and richest short-distance running race. It is the main event in an annual carnival held on Easter weekend by the Stawell Athletic Club, with the main race finals on the holiday Monday, at Central Park, S ...

in 12 seconds off a handicap of 10 yards. * Collingwood's highly talented "loose cannon"

Dick Condon Richard Patrick Condon (19 March 1876 – 27 December 1946) was an Australian rules footballer who played for Collingwood and Richmond in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) and the Victorian Football League (VFL) across two decades ...

was given a lifetime suspension for sustained abuse of field umpire Henry "Ivo" Crapp. * By the end of the finals round-robin matches, more than 1,000 points had been scored against St Kilda in a single season.At the end of the 1900 season, St Kilda had scored 439 points against their opponents' collective score of 1,172 points. * Melbourne won the 1900 premiership despite having a 6–8 record after the home-and-away matches and finishing sixth of the eight teams on the ladder. This unsatisfactory situation led to the formation of the ''Argus'' Final Four system for 1901, which was modified in 1902 and 1907 and used until 1930 (except for 1924).

References

* Hogan, P., ''The Tigers Of Old'', The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. * Rogers, S. & Brown, A., ''Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition)'', Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998. * Ross, J. (ed), ''100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported'', Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.

Sources

1900 VFL season
at AFL Tables
1900 VFL season
at Australian Football {{DEFAULTSORT:1900 VFL season Australian Football League seasons VFL season