1898 VFL premiership season
Fitzroy 1898 VFL premiership team
Date	14 May – 24 September 1898
Teams	8
Premiers	Fitzroy 1st premiership
Minor premiers	Essendon 1st minor premiership
Leading goalkicker medallist	Archie Smith (Collingwood) 31 goals
Matches played	70
← 1897 1899 →

The1898 VFL season was the second season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured eight clubs and ran from 14 May to 24 September, comprising a 14-round home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring all eight clubs.

Fitzroy won thepremiership, defeatingEssendon by 15 points in the1898 VFL grand final; it was Fitzroy's first VFL premiership. Essendon won theminor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with an 11–3 win–loss record.Collingwood'sArchie Smith won theleading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

In 1898, the VFL competition consisted of eight teams of 20 on-the-field players each, with no "reserves" (although any of the 20 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 1898 VFLPremiers were determined by the specific format and conventions of the1898 VFL finals system.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Average score: 38.9
Source:AFL Tables

The VFL introduced a new system of finals for the 1898 season. Thenew system, which was used from 1898–1900, allowed all clubs to compete for the major premiership, with theminor premiers having the right to challenge for the premiership.

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Source:AFL Tables

Rules for classification: 1. premiership points; 2. percentage; 3. points for
Source:AFL Tables

All starting times arelocal time. Source:AFL Tables

The following table can be sorted from biggest winning margin to biggest losing margin for each round. If two or more matches in a round are decided by the same margin, these margins are sorted by percentage (i.e. the lowest-scoring winning team is ranked highest and the lowest-scoring losing team is ranked lowest). Opponents are listed above the margins and home matches are in bold.

By winning theminor premiership and accruing at least eight premiership points from its three sectional matches, Essendon won the right to challenge the semi-final winner for thepremiership.^[1]

Source:AFL Tables

• On 21 May 1898, playing againstSt Kilda Football Club,Geelong'sFirth McCallum eluded 12 opponents to score a goal.
• In round 3,Carlton andEssendon kicked a combined 0.4 (4) in the second half. This stands as the lowest-scoring half in VFL/AFL history.
• On 12 August 1898, the League issues a directive that all field umpires are banned from playing, after umpire Samuel Hood plays for Footscray against North Melbourne in a VFA match on the 6th of August.
• A VFL representative team played two matches against a combinedBallarat Football League team. The VFL won their home match, and lost their away match.
• Essendon playerCorrie Gardner, who also played forMelbourne Football Club from 1900 to 1903 and in 1905, and who represented Australia in the hurdles and the long jump at the1904 Summer Olympics atSt. Louis, Missouri in the USA, won the Australian Amateur Athletics hurdle championship in 1898.
• At the end of the home-and away season, Essendon had a VFL record percentage of 202.2%.
• 1898 was the first VFL season that the premiership had been decided in a "challenge" match.
• A set of brothers played forFitzroy in the 1898 "Grand Final Match":Jim Grace andMick Grace.

• The 1898 VFL Premiership team wasFitzroy.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasArchie Smith ofCollingwood with 31 goals.
• Thewooden spoon went toSt Kilda.

• Maplestone, M.,Flying Higher: History of the Essendon Football Club 1872–1996, Essendon Football Club, (Melbourne), 1996.ISBN 0-9591740-2-8
• Rogers, S. & Brown, A.,Every Game Ever Played: VFL/AFL Results 1897–1997 (Sixth Edition), Viking Books, (Ringwood), 1998.ISBN 0-670-90809-6
• Ross, J. (ed),100 Years of Australian Football 1897–1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996.ISBN 0-670-86814-0
• Atkinson, G.,The Complete Book of AFL Finals (2002 Edition), The Five Mile Press, (Scoresby), 2002.ISBN 978-1-86503-892-6

• 1898 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1898 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1898 in Australian rules football

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