Senior teams 4 Challenge Cup Carlton | Premiers Carlton | |
The 1871 Victorian football season was an Australian rules football competition played during the winter of 1871. The season consisted of matches between football clubs in the colony of Victoria. The Carlton Football Club was the premier club for the season.
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1871 season
Four clubs participated in senior football during the 1870 season: Albert-park, Carlton, Melbourne and South Yarra.
The formal practice of senior clubs playing matches at odds against junior clubs was established during the season. In matches played at odds, the senior team fielded fifteen players and the junior team fielded twenty players. Matches played at odds were quite competitive: the premier club Carlton was unbeaten at even strength against senior clubs, but lost two of five matches played at odds. Three metropolitan junior clubs – Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton United – played against the senior clubs during the year. Senior clubs also played matches against provincial clubs Ballarat (at odds) and Geelong (even strength) during the year.
During the 1871 season, the senior clubs competed in specific matches for the Challenge Cup; and, separately, a premier team was selected based on all matches during the season, including Challenge Cup matches.
Challenge Cup
The Challenge Cup which South Yarra had put up for contest at the start of the 1870 season was returned by Albert-park to South Yarra at the end of the year, following the dispute over whether or not Albert-park had formally won it.
South Yarra opted to put the trophy up for contest again in 1871, but Albert-park declined to contest the Cup in 1871 (it still played regular non-Cup senior games against the other clubs), so the remaining three senior clubs – Carlton, Melbourne and South Yarra – decided that each would play the others three times during the year; then, the two clubs with the most wins would play off against each other in one match for the Cup. Not all of the preliminary matches were played, but South Yarra failed to win a game against Carlton or Melbourne, so those two clubs played off in the final without dispute. Carlton won the final by two goals, and claimed permanent ownership of the cup.
Premiership
In addition to winning the Challenge Cup, Carlton was adjudged the premier club for the season; Melbourne placed second. The two clubs were the dominant senior clubs in the colony, and the premiership was mostly determined based on the win-loss record in matches between the two: their four matches, including the Challenge Cup final, yielded one win for Carlton, two draws, and one disputed match claimed as a win by Melbourne and as a draw by Carlton. Albert-park was third, having failed to defeat Carlton or Melbourne, but having beaten South Yarra during the year.
Carlton's and Melbourne's records, as reported at each club's annual meeting in 1872 (and therefore reporting different results for the disputed match between the teams), are given below.