Early VFL Final systems
Encyclopedia
Throughout its history, the Victorian Football League
(known since 1990 as the Australian Football League) has used a system of finals after playing a regular season to determine the winner of the premiership
.
The perceived need for a structured finals system was one of the most important reasons why eight senior clubs broke away from the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1896, and formed the Victorian Football League
(VFL) in 1897. Between 1897 and 1930, a variety of different finals systems were used by the league. It was not until the adoption of the now well-known Page-McIntyre System in 1931 that there was stability in the structure of the league's finals system.
were formed within weeks of each other: the South Australian National Football League
(SANFL), which had been formed to control the domestic competition in the Colony of South Australia
on 30 April 1877, and the Victorian Football Association (VFA), which had been formed to control the domestic competition in the Colony of Victoria
on 17 May 1877.
From the competition's inception in 1877, the VFA premiership was awarded to the senior club with the best record based on all matches throughout the VFA season. By the 1890s, the premiership (and finishing order) were formally determined by the following rules:
In 1896, with all of the preceding criteria operating, Collingwood and South Melbourne were tied in equal first position on the ladder. An elimination playoff was ordered; which served as the first finals match in VFA history. Collingwood eventually won the very close match 6 goals to 5. The scores had been tied for most of the last quarter, with Collingwood only scoring its winning goal at the very end of a hard-fought match. According to the hastily prepared VFA rules applying to a tied result at full-time, a tied score would have automatically meant an extra 20 minutes of play.
had suggested that a number of the strongest Melbourne-based clubs, along with clubs from other important regional centres such as the cities of Ballarat
and Bendigo
, form a breakaway division in the VFA, and in mid-1896, the pro-Australian Rules newspaper, The Argus
published a strong editorial to the effect that the overall poor standard of the VFA competition was resulting in a significant loss of spectator numbers to the VFA; and thus to Australian rules football. On 3 October 1896, the most powerful, and most financially secure VFA clubs (viz., Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, and South Melbourne), and two other clubs invited by other six (Carlton and St Kilda) established the new Victorian Football League
, to commence in 1897.
One of the initiatives introduced to the breakaway league was the use of finals to decide the premiership at the end of every season. The 1896 VFL finals match was necessitated only because Collingwood and South Melbourne could not be separated on a countback, but the VFL introduced the use of finals in all seasons.
The finals were played over three weeks (with a provision for a fourth week), in a round-robin
format, under the fixture:
The matches were played at six different venues, with no specific home ground advantage offered.
The premiership was then decided based on the results of this round-robin:
As it transpired, won all three round-robin matches, and was declared the Premier without the need for a separate final.
In order to offset this perceived inequity, the VFL amended its finals system significantly for the 1898 VFL season
, as follows:
The finals then took place over one or two weeks as follows:
The essence of this format is that the Minor Premier had the right to challenge for the Major Premiership, if it was either eliminated in the sectional rounds, or lost the first final. A stipulation was included to remove the Minor Premier's right to challenge if it performed poorly in the sectional rounds, to prevent the team from resting its players or refusing to take the round seriously.
The season's Minor Premier was not obliged to challenge for the premiership, but in all VFL seasons where a challenge option existed, no team entitled to issue such a challenge ever failed to do so.
. had finished only sixth out of eight teams, with a record of 6–8 after the home-and-away season. In the sectional round, (2nd), (4th) and Melbourne (6th) all finished with a 2–1 record, and Melbourne won the group with the best percentage, mostly caused by a lopsided victory against last-placed . From there, Melbourne had narrow wins in both the semi-final and the grand final, to claim the premiership.
It became clear that the system allowed a club like Melbourne to display poor form through the home-and-away season, but win the premiership with good form during the final games. This led to the abandonment of the Second Finals Format.
.
Under this format, the home-and-away season was contested as follows:
This, in effect, served as a way to extend the home-and-away season to seventeen matches (running from May to August), and to ensure that teams have a relatively equitable schedule (i.e. no team should end up playing three finalists three times, and four non-finalists only twice).
From there, only the top four teams from the final ladder qualified for the finals, which took place over two weeks:
The new system successfully overcame the issue of low-ranking teams qualifying for the Grand Final, as now only the top four could participate. However, there was no right for the Minor Premier to challenge for the premiership under Argus System, and after the minor premier, Geelong, was eliminated in the semi-final, there were immediately calls to bring back the right to challenge.
The seventeen-match home-and-away season was played as in 1901. The finals format took place over two or three weeks as follows:
It is important to note that under this variant of the Argus System, the right to challenge did not automatically go to the minor premiers. If the minor premiership had been decided by a close margin, then any losses sustained during finals could have cost the minor premier its right to challenge, or even transferred it to another team – although this did not occur during the five seasons of this format.
An example of how this could have happened occurred in 1903. Entering the 1903 Final
, Collingwood had a record of 12–2 in the home-and-away season, 3–0 in the sectional rounds, and 1–0 in the semi-final, for a total record of 16–2; Fitzroy had a record of 11–3, 3–0 and 1–0 in the same rounds, for a total record of 15–3, but had a superior percentage to Collingwood. Had Collingwood lost the final against Fitzroy, both teams would have had a record of 16–3, but Fitzroy would have been ranked above Collingwood with its superior percentage; as such, Collingwood would have lost its right to challenge. Similarly, when Collingwood won the match, it had a record of 17–2 compared with Fitzroy's 15–4, so Fitzroy also had no right to challenge.
The same scenario occurred in 1906
, when minor premiers beat Fitzroy in the final. Many Carlton players erroneously believed that they would have had the right to challenge had they lost that match, and this confusion was part of the justification for further amendments in 1907.
. This is the most widely-known variation of the Argus System.
The structure of the finals was mostly the same as the first amended Argus System, except that the right to challenge was given to the Minor Premier, as defined by the team on top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season; sectional rounds were abandoned in 1908 when the league expanded to ten teams. Also, the two semi-finals were shifted onto separate weekends, extending the duration of the finals from two or three weeks, to three or four weeks.
only, the VFL reverted to a round-robin finals format, similar to the format used in 1897, but including the Minor Premiers' right to challenge. At the end of the home-and-away season, the top four teams qualified for the finals tournament.
The finals were played over three weeks (with a provision for a fourth week), under the fixture:
The premiership was then awarded according to:
As in 1897, no Grand Final was ultimately required in this season.
To correct for these, the VFL introduced a new system, the Page-McIntyre system, in 1931, which it used in some form for almost the next seventy years. The Page-McIntyre System most notably removed the Minor Premiers' right to challenge; instead, both the Minor Premier and the second-placed team receive the advantage of a "double chance", permitting either team to lose one match (excluding the Grand Final) without being eliminated.
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
(known since 1990 as the Australian Football League) has used a system of finals after playing a regular season to determine the winner of the premiership
Premiership
Premiership may refer to:* The post of Prime Minister or Premier, who is the head of government in many parliamentary systems* Premier League, England's highest-level football league competition...
.
The perceived need for a structured finals system was one of the most important reasons why eight senior clubs broke away from the Victorian Football Association (VFA) in 1896, and formed the Victorian Football League
Victorian Football League
The Victorian Football League which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association , taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria The Victorian Football League (VFL) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association...
(VFL) in 1897. Between 1897 and 1930, a variety of different finals systems were used by the league. It was not until the adoption of the now well-known Page-McIntyre System in 1931 that there was stability in the structure of the league's finals system.
Victorian Football Association (VFA)
The two earliest controlling bodies in the history of Australian rules footballAustralian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
were formed within weeks of each other: the South Australian National Football League
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the governing body for the sport of Australian rules football in South Australia....
(SANFL), which had been formed to control the domestic competition in the Colony of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
on 30 April 1877, and the Victorian Football Association (VFA), which had been formed to control the domestic competition in the Colony of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
on 17 May 1877.
From the competition's inception in 1877, the VFA premiership was awarded to the senior club with the best record based on all matches throughout the VFA season. By the 1890s, the premiership (and finishing order) were formally determined by the following rules:
- (a) the number of matches won, and, if a distinction need to be made amongst equals,
- (b) the goals for divided by goals against, and if a further distinction was needed,
- (c) the team that had scored the most goals outright.
In 1896, with all of the preceding criteria operating, Collingwood and South Melbourne were tied in equal first position on the ladder. An elimination playoff was ordered; which served as the first finals match in VFA history. Collingwood eventually won the very close match 6 goals to 5. The scores had been tied for most of the last quarter, with Collingwood only scoring its winning goal at the very end of a hard-fought match. According to the hastily prepared VFA rules applying to a tied result at full-time, a tied score would have automatically meant an extra 20 minutes of play.
Victorian Football League (VFL)
In 1894, the Geelong Football ClubGeelong Football Club
The Geelong Football Club, nicknamed The Cats, is a professional Australian rules football club, named after and based in the city of Geelong, playing in the Australian Football League . The club has been the VFL/AFL premiers nine times, with a record equalling 3 in the AFL era. Geelong has also...
had suggested that a number of the strongest Melbourne-based clubs, along with clubs from other important regional centres such as the cities of Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
and Bendigo
Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...
, form a breakaway division in the VFA, and in mid-1896, the pro-Australian Rules newspaper, The Argus
The Argus (Australia)
The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
published a strong editorial to the effect that the overall poor standard of the VFA competition was resulting in a significant loss of spectator numbers to the VFA; and thus to Australian rules football. On 3 October 1896, the most powerful, and most financially secure VFA clubs (viz., Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, and South Melbourne), and two other clubs invited by other six (Carlton and St Kilda) established the new Victorian Football League
Australian Football League
The Australian Football League is both the governing body and the major professional competition in the sport of Australian rules football...
, to commence in 1897.
One of the initiatives introduced to the breakaway league was the use of finals to decide the premiership at the end of every season. The 1896 VFL finals match was necessitated only because Collingwood and South Melbourne could not be separated on a countback, but the VFL introduced the use of finals in all seasons.
1897 Finals System
The home-and-away season consisted of fourteen matches, with the eight teams playing each opponent twice. At the end of the season, the top four teams based on these fourteen matches qualified for the finals.The finals were played over three weeks (with a provision for a fourth week), in a round-robin
Round-robin
The term round-robin was originally used to describe a document signed by multiple parties in a circle to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing a ringleader from being identified...
format, under the fixture:
- Week one: 1st vs 2nd; 3rd vs 4th
- Week two: 1st vs 3rd; 2nd vs 4th
- Week three: 1st vs 4th; 2nd vs 3rd
The matches were played at six different venues, with no specific home ground advantage offered.
The premiership was then decided based on the results of this round-robin:
- If one team had the best win-loss record, that team would be automatically declared the Premiers.
- If two teams shared the best win-loss record, then the those teams would play off in a finals match the following week to decide the premiership. Neither percentage, nor home-and-away season form, was used as a tie-breaker if the win-loss records were identical.
As it transpired, won all three round-robin matches, and was declared the Premier without the need for a separate final.
Second Finals System (1898–1900)
Whilst nobody disputed that Essendon were worthy 1897 premiers, concern was expressed immediately after the 1897 finals over the potential injustice that seemed to be embedded in the round-robin nature of the 1897 system: the argument went that the contest, as it had been structured, could have been just as easily won by teams which finished first or fourth after the home-and-away season. It was therefore determined that team which had performed well in the home-and-away season should receive an advantage in finals, giving them a better chance of winning the premiership than the lower placed teams.In order to offset this perceived inequity, the VFL amended its finals system significantly for the 1898 VFL season
1898 VFL season
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1898.-Premiership season:In 1898, the VFL competition consisted of eight teams of 20 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves" .Each team played each other twice in...
, as follows:
- The eight teams played each other in a home-and-away season of fourteen matches, as in 1897. At the end of the season, the team on top of the ladder (based on win-loss record, with percentage as a tie-breaker), was declared the Minor PremierMinor premiershipA minor premiership is the name of 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 playoffs....
. - The eight teams were split into two groups based on their position on the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season. The groupings were:
- Group A: teams finishing at positions 1, 3, 5, and 7,
- Group B: teams finishing at positions 2, 4, 6, and 8.
- Each group played a separate three-match round-robin tournament. These were known as "sectional matches". At the end of the sectional matches, a ladder was prepared for each of the groups, based on sectional matches only.
The finals then took place over one or two weeks as follows:
- Week One: one final was played between 1st Group A vs 1st Group B.
- If the winner in Week One was the Minor Premier, or the Minor Premier had not won at least two of its sectional matches, then the winner of the match immediately became the Major Premier, and won the premiership for the season.
- If the winner in Week One was not the Minor Premier, and the Minor Premier had won at least two of its sectional matches, then the finals progressed to week two.
- Week Two: one final, known as the Grand Final was played between Minor Premier vs Winner Week one
- The winner of this match became the Major Premier for the season.
The essence of this format is that the Minor Premier had the right to challenge for the Major Premiership, if it was either eliminated in the sectional rounds, or lost the first final. A stipulation was included to remove the Minor Premier's right to challenge if it performed poorly in the sectional rounds, to prevent the team from resting its players or refusing to take the round seriously.
The season's Minor Premier was not obliged to challenge for the premiership, but in all VFL seasons where a challenge option existed, no team entitled to issue such a challenge ever failed to do so.
Minor placings
There is confusion over the allocation of the minor placings under the VFL's Second Finals System. At the end of the 1898 season, on the Monday following the Grand Final between Fitzroy and Essendon, in his summary of the 1898 season, the football correspondent of The Age made it clear that he was not entirely sure that the situation was as straightforward as the VFL supposed. His summary that the winning of the minor premiership gave the minor premier "the right to play off with the best performing team in the series of matches played for the major premiership" is exact, precise, and is an entirely correct account of the new Grand Finale:1900 Premiership
The Second Finals Format was ultimately abandoned after the unsatisfactory conclusion to the 1900 VFL season1900 VFL season
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1900.-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...
. had finished only sixth out of eight teams, with a record of 6–8 after the home-and-away season. In the sectional round, (2nd), (4th) and Melbourne (6th) all finished with a 2–1 record, and Melbourne won the group with the best percentage, mostly caused by a lopsided victory against last-placed . From there, Melbourne had narrow wins in both the semi-final and the grand final, to claim the premiership.
It became clear that the system allowed a club like Melbourne to display poor form through the home-and-away season, but win the premiership with good form during the final games. This led to the abandonment of the Second Finals Format.
The first Argus System (1901)
In 1901, the league adopted "The Argus system", which was conceived, developed, and very actively supported by the strongly pro-VFL Melbourne newspaper The ArgusThe Argus (Australia)
The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...
.
Under this format, the home-and-away season was contested as follows:
- As in previous years, the eight teams initially each played fourteen home-and-away matches, with two matches against each other club.
- After fourteen matches, three sectional rounds were played. The schedules for sectional rounds were the same as in 1898–1900, with the teams finishing 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th playing each other, and the teams finishing 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th playing each other.
- Results from the sectional rounds were added to results from the fourteen home-and-away rounds to determine a final ladder, based on each team playing seventeen matches.
This, in effect, served as a way to extend the home-and-away season to seventeen matches (running from May to August), and to ensure that teams have a relatively equitable schedule (i.e. no team should end up playing three finalists three times, and four non-finalists only twice).
From there, only the top four teams from the final ladder qualified for the finals, which took place over two weeks:
- Week One: the First Semi-Final was played between 2nd vs 4th, and the Second Semi-Final was played between 1st vs 3rd.
- Week Two: the Grand Final was played between Winner SF1 vs Winner SF2
- The winner of this match became the Major Premier for the season.
The new system successfully overcame the issue of low-ranking teams qualifying for the Grand Final, as now only the top four could participate. However, there was no right for the Minor Premier to challenge for the premiership under Argus System, and after the minor premier, Geelong, was eliminated in the semi-final, there were immediately calls to bring back the right to challenge.
The first amended Argus System (1902–1906)
The amended Argus System returned the right of the team with the best record to challenge for the major premiership.The seventeen-match home-and-away season was played as in 1901. The finals format took place over two or three weeks as follows:
- Week One: the First Semi-Final was played between 2nd vs 4th, and the Second Semi-Final was played between 1st vs 3rd.
- Week Two: a final was played between Winner SF1 vs Winner SF2
- If the winner of the Week Two final had the best record in the league across all matches, including all finals up to and including Week Two, then that team was immediately awarded the Major Premiership. The final in week two became retrospectively known as the Grand Final.
- If the winner of the Week Two final did not have the best record in the league as defined above, then the finals progress to Week Three. The final in week two became known as either the Final or the Preliminary Final.
- Week Three: the Grand Final was played between Team with the best record vs Winner Final
- The winner of this match became the Major Premier for the season.
It is important to note that under this variant of the Argus System, the right to challenge did not automatically go to the minor premiers. If the minor premiership had been decided by a close margin, then any losses sustained during finals could have cost the minor premier its right to challenge, or even transferred it to another team – although this did not occur during the five seasons of this format.
An example of how this could have happened occurred in 1903. Entering the 1903 Final
1903 VFL Grand Final
The 1903 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Collingwood Football Club and Fitzroy Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 12 September 1903. It was the 6th annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine...
, Collingwood had a record of 12–2 in the home-and-away season, 3–0 in the sectional rounds, and 1–0 in the semi-final, for a total record of 16–2; Fitzroy had a record of 11–3, 3–0 and 1–0 in the same rounds, for a total record of 15–3, but had a superior percentage to Collingwood. Had Collingwood lost the final against Fitzroy, both teams would have had a record of 16–3, but Fitzroy would have been ranked above Collingwood with its superior percentage; as such, Collingwood would have lost its right to challenge. Similarly, when Collingwood won the match, it had a record of 17–2 compared with Fitzroy's 15–4, so Fitzroy also had no right to challenge.
The same scenario occurred in 1906
1906 VFL season
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1906.-Premiership season:In 1906, 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...
, when minor premiers beat Fitzroy in the final. Many Carlton players erroneously believed that they would have had the right to challenge had they lost that match, and this confusion was part of the justification for further amendments in 1907.
The second amended Argus System (1907–1930)
The second version of the amended Argus System was used for all seasons between 1907 and 1930 except 19241924 VFL season
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1924.-Premiership season:In 1924, the VFL competition consisted of nine 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...
. This is the most widely-known variation of the Argus System.
The structure of the finals was mostly the same as the first amended Argus System, except that the right to challenge was given to the Minor Premier, as defined by the team on top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season; sectional rounds were abandoned in 1908 when the league expanded to ten teams. Also, the two semi-finals were shifted onto separate weekends, extending the duration of the finals from two or three weeks, to three or four weeks.
- Week One: the First Semi-Final was played between 2nd vs 4th.
- Week Two: the Second Semi-Final was played between 1st vs 3rd.
- Week Three: a final was played between Winner SF1 vs Winner SF2
- If Minor Premier won the Week Three final, then that team was immediately awarded the Major Premiership. The final in week three became retrospectively known as the Grand Final.
- If the winner of the Week Three final was not the Minor Premier, then the finals progress to Week Four. The final in week three became known as either the Final or the Preliminary Final.
- Week Four: the Grand Final was played between Minor Premier vs Winner Final
- The winner of this match became the Major Premier for the season.
1924 Finals System
For the 1924 season1924 VFL season
Results and statistics for the Victorian Football League season of 1924.-Premiership season:In 1924, the VFL competition consisted of nine 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...
only, the VFL reverted to a round-robin finals format, similar to the format used in 1897, but including the Minor Premiers' right to challenge. At the end of the home-and-away season, the top four teams qualified for the finals tournament.
The finals were played over three weeks (with a provision for a fourth week), under the fixture:
- Week one: 1st vs 3rd; 2nd vs 4th
- Week two: 1st vs 2nd; 3rd vs 4th
- Week three: 1st vs 4th; 2nd vs 3rd
The premiership was then awarded according to:
- If the Minor Premier had the best record based on round-robin matches alone, either on win-loss record or on percentage, then that team automatically won the Major Premiership.
- If another team won the round-robin competition, then the finals progressed to Week Four.
- Week Four: the Grand Final was played between Minor Premier vs 1st Round robin
- The winner of this match became the Major Premier for the season.
As in 1897, no Grand Final was ultimately required in this season.
The Page-McIntyre system (after 1931)
After utilising variations of the Argus System for thirty years, two clear drawbacks had emerged. One was the uncertainty regarding whether there would be three or four finals, and the other was that the minor premier was now seen to have too much benefit through its right to challenge – to the point where losing the second semi-final could be seen as a preferable route to a premiership, as the loss allowed for a week's rest, while a win would require playing the following week.To correct for these, the VFL introduced a new system, the Page-McIntyre system, in 1931, which it used in some form for almost the next seventy years. The Page-McIntyre System most notably removed the Minor Premiers' right to challenge; instead, both the Minor Premier and the second-placed team receive the advantage of a "double chance", permitting either team to lose one match (excluding the Grand Final) without being eliminated.
See also
- AFL finals systemAFL finals systemThe current AFL finals system was devised by the Australian Football League in 2000 as its end-of-season championship playoff tournament. It is a revision of the McIntyre Final Eight System, used by the AFL from 1994 to 1999, designed to address several perceived issues with that system...
- AFL Grand FinalAFL Grand FinalThe AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia to determine the Australian Football League premiership champions for that year...
- Grand finalGrand FinalGrand Final is a predominantly Australian sport term used to describe a match that decides a league champion.It originated in Victoria and South Australia and has become specifically significant Australian culture...
- McIntyre SystemMcIntyre SystemThe McIntyre System, or systems because there have been five of them, is a playoff system that gives an advantage to teams or competitors qualifying higher...
- PlayoffPlayoffThe playoffs, postseason, or finals of a sports league are a game or series of games played after the regular season by the top competitors, usually but not always with a single-elimination system, to determine the league champion or a similar accolade.In the U.S...
- Round-robin tournamentRound-robin tournamentA round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...
- History of Australian rules football in Victoria (1853-1900)History of Australian rules football in Victoria (1853-1900)Australian rules football, also known as Australian football and known colloquially as Aussie rules, was first organised in Victoria in 1859 when its first rules were written by the Melbourne Football Club...