The 1900 VFL season was the fourth 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 14-round home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring all eight clubs.
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.
The Saints won their first ever VFL/AFL match after losing 48 consecutive matches; however, this was their only win of the season, and it was only realised a week later due to protest.
The St Kilda game marked the debut of Claude Clough, who, at 15 years and 209 days, is the youngest-ever VFL/AFL debutant; however, due to a historical clerical error, it wasn't until 2012 that this record was discovered.
Round 3 was scheduled to be played on Saturday, 19 May, but all matches cancelled due to heavy rain; the matches were rescheduled for the weekend after round 14.[1]
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.[1]
By winning the minor premiership 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.[2]
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 Fremantle).
Collingwood's highly talented "loose cannon" Dick Condon was given a lifetime suspension for sustained abuse of field umpire Henry "Ivo" Crapp.[3]
By the end of the finals round-robin matches, more than 1,000 points had been scored against St Kilda in a single season.[4]
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
^ abRodgers, Stephen (1992). Every Game Ever Played, VFL/AFL Results 1897–1991 (3rd ed.). Ringwood, Victoria: Viking O'Neal. pp. 17–18.
^"Victorian Football League – the premiership scheme amended". The Age. Melbourne. 30 April 1898. p. 10.
^After three appeals, Condon's suspension was lifted in 1902, and Condon resumed playing for Collingwood.
^At the end of the 1900 season, St Kilda had scored 439 points against their opponents' collective score of 1,172 points.
Hogan, P., The Tigers Of Old, The Richmond Football Club, (Richmond), 1996. ISBN0-646-18748-1
Rogers, S. & Brown, A., Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998. ISBN0-670-90809-6
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. ISBN0-670-86814-0
