| 1884 VFA season | |
|---|---|
 Geelong – 1884 VFA premiers | |
| Overview | |
| Date | 3 May – 27 September 1884[1] |
| Teams | 8 |
| Premiers | Geelong 6th premiership |
The1884 VFA season was the eighth season of theVictorian Football Association (VFA), the highest-level seniorAustralian rules football competition in thecolony of Victoria.
Geelong won thepremiership for the fifth time, making it the club's sixth VFA premiership in just seven seasons, and the third in a sequence of three consecutive premierships won from1882 to 1884.[2][3]
The senior metropolitan membership of the Association (including Geelong) increased from six to eight clubs in 1884. The two new clubs were theWilliamstown Football Club, which was elevated from junior status after merging withBattery United, and the newly establishedFitzroy Football Club.[4]
At this time, three other provincial senior clubs were full Association members represented on the Board of Management:Ballarat,South Ballarat (formerly known as Albion Imperial) and Horsham Unions.[5] Due to distance, these clubs played too few matches against the rest of the VFA to be considered relevant in the premiership.
The 1884 premiership was won by theGeelong Football Club, which won twenty-two and drew one of its twenty-five matches.Essendon finished second with sixteen wins and two draws from twenty-four matches;Hotham finished third.
The below table details the playing records of the eight clubs in all matches during the 1884 season. Two sets of results are given:
The clubs are listed in the order in which they were ranked inthe Sportsman newspaper. The VFA had no formal process by which the clubs were ranked, so the below order should be considered indicative only, particularly since the fixturing of matches was not standardised; however, the top three placings were later acknowledged in publications including theFootball Record and are considered official.[6]
| Pos | Team | Senior results | Total results | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pld | W | L | D | GF | GA | Pld | W | L | D | GF | GA | ||
| 1 | Geelong(P) | 14 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 67 | 27 | 25 | 22 | 2 | 1 | 141 | 52 |
| 2 | Essendon | 17 | 10 | 5 | 2 | 57 | 44 | 24 | 16 | 6 | 2 | 99 | 59 |
| 3 | Hotham | 18 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 47 | 47 | 22 | 12 | 7 | 3 | 65 | 48 |
| Fitzroy | 16 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 27 | 29 | 22 | 9 | 10 | 3 | 34 | 42 | |
| South Melbourne | 19 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 42 | 42 | 23 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 54 | 48 | |
| Carlton | 17 | 6 | 9 | 2 | 39 | 53 | 24 | 11 | 9 | 4 | 64 | 67 | |
| Melbourne | 18 | 6 | 11 | 1 | 38 | 54 | 26 | 10 | 13 | 3 | 64 | 74 | |
| Williamstown | 13 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 20 | 41 | 21 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 41 | 46 |
Source:[1][7][8][9]
(P) Premiers
By the amalgamation of the Battery United, then a promising junior club, the Williamstown were enabled to enter the senior ranks.