1874 Victorian football season

The 1874 Victorian football season was an Australian rules football competition played during the winter of 1874. The season consisted of matches between metropolitan and provincial football clubs in the colony of Victoria. The premier was Carlton.

1874 Victorian football premiership season
PremiersCarlton

1874 premiership

Five metropolitan clubs participated in senior football during the 1874 season: Albert-park, Carlton, Melbourne, North Melbourne and St Kilda.

North Melbourne and St Kilda were newly elevated from junior ranks to senior ranks for this season.

Carlton, who were undefeated during the season, was considered the premier club, with Melbourne placed second, mostly by virtue of Carlton winning all four matches it played against Melbourne during the year.

Melbourne was considered to have had the better record against the remaining clubs, because Carlton had recorded four draws against those other clubs, but such was Carlton and Melbourne's dominance at the time that the matches against the other clubs had little influence on the premiership.[1]

Carlton's record across all matches in 1874 was twelve wins and five draws from seventeen games; Melbourne's record was twelve wins, five losses and one draw from eighteen games.[2]

Club senior records

The below table is set of results for senior clubs during the 1874 season. The list shows the record across all matches, including those against senior, junior and intercolonial clubs.

1874 Metropolitan Clubs' Results
No.TEAMPWLDGFGA
1 Carlton (P) 17 12 0 5 33 6
2 Melbourne 18 12 5 1 35 10
3 Albert-park 19 7 6 6 17 13
North Melbourne 11 7 2 2 11 4
St Kilda 18 2 8 8 8 27
Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, (P) = Premiers Source:[3]

The Australasian and The Leader newspapers indicated Albert-park was the third best club, with North Melbourne fourth best, and St Kilda fifth: although North Melbourne's win-loss record appears superior to Albert-park's, its easier fixture (four of its 11 matches were against junior teams) was taken into account.[1][3]

Lists published in The Argus from 1889 [4] and in the Football Record in 1912-1923 recorded St Kilda as the third-placed club in 1874,[5] but sources from 1874 show this assessment to be erroneous: St Kilda's record has them ranked last, with Albert-park (across all matches) or North Melbourne (only matches against senior clubs) finishing third.

  • East Melbourne was the best performing junior club of the 1874 season, with a record of 9–5–3.[3]
  • Geelong was the best performing provincial team of the season. It was undefeated in provincial matches, and it held the newly established Western District Challenge Cup throughout the season, but it lost three matches against metropolitan clubs. Some sources from 1874 place Geelong in fourth (across all matches) or fifth (only matches against senior clubs) out of six clubs.

References
  1. Fairplay (21 November 1874). "Football – review of the season". The Australasian. Melbourne, VIC. p. 652.
  2. Fairplay (1 May 1875). "Football". The Australasian. XVIII (474). Melbourne, VIC. p. 556.
  3. Tom Jones (10 October 1874). "Football – the football season of 1874". The Leader. Melbourne, VIC. p. 11.
  4. "The Football Premiership". The Argus. Melbourne, VIC. 23 September 1889. p. 5.
  5. Caroline Wilson (20 June 2014). "History of the AFL could be turned on its head". The Age. Melbourne, VIC. Retrieved 18 October 2014.


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