1900 VFL season

Updated on Oct 04, 2024

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Highest attendance 20,181 Premier Melbourne Football Club Matches played 70		Start date 1900 Teams 8
Premiers Melbourne (1st premiership) Minor premiers Fitzroy (2nd minor premiership) Leading Goalkicker Medallist Albert Thurgood (Essendon) Teddy Lockwood (Geelong) Similar 1904 VFL season, 1923 VFL season, 1911 VFL season, 1912 VFL season

The 1900 Victorian Football League season was the fourth season of the Australian rules football competition.

Premiership season

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 Premiership System.

Round 3 (rescheduled)

The postponed games from Round 3 were played on 18 August 1900 - results are included under Round 3 (above).

Grand final

Melbourne defeated Fitzroy 4.10 (34) to 3.12 (30). (For an explanation of scoring see Australian rules football).

Awards

The 1900 VFL Premiership team was Melbourne.

The VFL's leading goalkicker was Albert Thurgood of Essendon with 25 goals.

Notable events

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 the 1896 VFA season (after 51 losses), and was the first of only two occasions that the score of a game has been changed on protest (the second, the 2006 AFL siren controversy, also involved St Kilda).

St Kilda footballer Dave Strickland (the father of Shirley Strickland) won the 1900 Stawell Gift in 12 seconds, off a handicap of 10 yards.

Collingwood's highly talented "loose cannon" Dick Condon 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.

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

1900 VFL season Wikipedia

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