1899 VFL premiership season
Fitzroy 1899 VFL premiership team
Date	13 May – 16 September 1899
Teams	8
Premiers	Fitzroy 2nd premiership
Minor premiers	Fitzroy 1st minor premiership
Leading goalkicker medallist	Eddy James (Geelong) 31 goals
Matches played	69
← 1898 1900 →

The1899 VFL season was the third season of theVictorian Football League (VFL), the highest-level seniorAustralian rules football competition in Victoria. The season featured eight clubs and ran from 13 May to 16 September, comprising a 14-round home-and-away season followed by a finals series featuring all eight clubs.

Fitzroy won thepremiership, defeatingSouth Melbourne by one point in the1899 VFL grand final; it was Fitzroy's second (consecutive and overall) VFL premiership. Fitzroy also won theminor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with an 11–3 win–loss record.Geelong'sEddy James won his secondleading goalkicker medal as the league's leading goalkicker.

In 1899, 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 1899 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: 37.5
Source:AFL Tables

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

Starting time islocal 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.

Source:AFL Tables

• The VFL reduced the size of its teams from 20 to 18 on-the-field players, with no "reserves". In doing this, the number of followers was reduced from five (four rucks and a rover) to three (two rucks and a rover).^[1]
• The first seven kicks of the round 14 game between Carlton and Fitzroy were free kicks awarded by the umpire.^[2]
• In the third sectional round,Geelong set records for the highest score in a game, scoring 23.24 (162), and the highest winning margin of 161 points, againstSt Kilda. These records both stood fortwelve years andtwenty years respectively.
• St Kilda's score of 0.1 (1) in the same match set the record for the lowest score in aVFL/AFL game, which has neither been matched nor broken since. Notably, St Kilda's solitary behind was actually the first score of the match.
• Geelong'sJim McShane kicked 11 goals in the same match against St Kilda, a VFL record that was not equalled untilCollingwood'sDick Lee's 11 goals in 1914 and not broken until 1922.
• At the end of the 1899 season, in the process of naming his own "champion player", the football correspondent forThe Argus ("Old Boy"), selected a team of the best players of the 1899 VFL competition:
  Backs:Maurie Collins (Essendon),Bill Proudfoot (Collingwood),Peter Burns (Geelong); Halfbacks:Pat Hickey (Fitzroy),George Davidson (South Melbourne),Alf Wood (Melbourne); Centres:Fred Leach (Collingwood),Firth McCallum (Geelong),Harry Wright (Essendon); Wings:Charlie Pannam (Collingwood),Eddie Drohan (Fitzroy),Herb Howson (South Melbourne); Forwards:Bill Jackson (Essendon),Eddy James (Geelong),Charlie Colgan (South Melbourne); Ruck:Mick Pleass (South Melbourne),Frank Hailwood (Collingwood),Joe McShane (Geelong); Rovers:Dick Condon (Collingwood),Bill McSpeerin (Fitzroy),Teddy Rankin (Geelong).
  From those he considered to be the three best players — that is, Condon, Hickey, and Pleass — he selected Pat Hickey as his "champion player" of the season. ('Old Boy', "Football: A Review of the Season", (Monday, 18 September 1899), p.6).

• The 1899 VFL Premiership team wasFitzroy.
• TheVFL's leading goalkicker wasEddy James ofGeelong with 31 goals.
• The Argus newspaper's "Player of the Year" wasFitzroy'sPat Hickey.

• 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

• 1899 VFL season at AFL Tables
• 1899 VFL season at Australian Football

• Australian Football League seasons
• 1899 in Australian rules football

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