1897 VFL season

1897 VFL Premiership season
The Essendon FC won its first premiership
Teams	8
Premiers	Essendon (1st premiership)
Minor premiers	Geelong (1st minor premiership)
Matches played	62
Highest attendance	8,000
Leading Goalkicker Medallist	Eddy James (Geelong) Jack Leith (Melbourne)
← 1896 (VFA) 1898 →

The 1897 Victorian Football League season was the inaugural season of the VFL Australian rules football competition.

Premiership season[edit]

In 1897, the VFL competition consisted of eight teams of 20 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves" (although any of the 20 players who had left the playing field for any reason could later resume their place on the field at any time during the match).^[1]

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 1897 VFL Premiers were determined according to the conditions dictated by the specific format and conventions of the 1897 Finals System, which was used in this season only. A round-robin finals series would not be used again until 1924, and has not been used since then.

Round 1[edit]

Round 2[edit]

Round 3[edit]

Round 4[edit]

Round 5[edit]

Round 6[edit]

Round 7[edit]

Round 8[edit]

Round 9[edit]

Round 10[edit]

Round 11[edit]

Round 12[edit]

Round 13[edit]

Round 14[edit]

Win/Loss table[edit]

Bold – Home game
Opponent for round listed above margin

Ladder[edit]

Ladder progression[edit]

• Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top 4.
• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished first on the ladder in that round.
• Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place on the ladder in that round.

Finals[edit]

Week 1[edit]

Week 2[edit]

Week 3[edit]

Finals Ladder[edit]

Grand final[edit]

Essendon won the premiership for finishing on top of the round robin finals ladder and no Grand Final was played.

See List of Australian Football League premiers for a complete list.

Awards[edit]

• The 1897 VFL Premiership team was Essendon.
• The VFL's leading goalkickers were Eddy James of Geelong and Jack Leith of Melbourne with 22 goals.
• The Argus newspaper's "Player of the Year" was Melbourne's Fred McGinis.
• The 1897 Wooden Spoon went to St Kilda.

Notable events[edit]

• The game between Essendon and Melbourne in the third round of the round robin tournament holds the record for the lowest combined score in a match in VFL/AFL history: 1.16 (22).
• George Stuckey, the captain of the Essendon Football Club team that won the VFL's inaugural premiership, also won the 130-yard Stawell Gift in 1897 in 12.2 seconds off a handicap of 12 yards.
• In the first round of 1897, the VFL revoked the VFA's (then prevailing) push-in-the-back rule. The rule was reinstated before the second round's matches on the following Saturday due to complaints from fans, players and officials.
• On 12 June, a League representative team played against a Ballarat Football League representative team at the Brunswick Street Oval. Ballarat 13.11 (89) defeated the League 8.6 (54).^[2]
• On 3 July 1897, Fitzroy rover Bill McSpeerin weaved his way and bounced the ball the length of the Brunswick Street Oval to score a goal against St Kilda.
• Carlton's first six matches were all away games due to renovations at Princes Park.
• The first round finals match between Geelong and Essendon was the only finals match to be played in Geelong until 2013.

Footnotes[edit]

References[edit]

• Maplestone, M., Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996. ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
• Rogers, S. & Brown, A., Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998. ISBN 0-670-90809-6
• 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. ISBN 0-670-86814-0

External links[edit]

• 1897 Season – AFL Tables