Victorian Football Association

The Victorian Football Association is a major league which was formed in 1877.

Before the Split
The first competition was held in 1877 with 11 teams; Albert Park, Carlton, Hotham, Melbourne and St Kilda, Geelong, Barwon, Ballarat, Beechworth, Castlemaine, Rochester and Inglewood. During the early season, the schedule was hectic with teams playing against junior teams. During those early years many teams joined and folded. That would be until 1889 with twelve clubs competing in the first stable season of the VFA. Carlton, Essendon, Fitzroy, Footscray, Geelong, Melbourne, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, South Melbourne and Williamstown. In 1892, Collingwood joined the league and struggld, finishing bottom of the league in the first two seasons. In 1896, Essendon won the title as the split between the strong clubs and weak clubs came the next season. This then formed the Victorian Football League.

Split doesn't do any damage to the competition
After 1896, six teams split to join the Victorian Football League with Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzory, Geelong, Melbourne and South Melbourne. Only two of the premierships that didn't win by the clubs that joined the league with Carlton (1887) and Williamstown (1888) being the clubs. Depsite the split into two competitions, the VFA stayed strong and soon the VFL struggled to get the crowd to support the competition as it folded in 1904 with only four clubs surviving the end with Essendon and Geelong heading back to the VFA in 1900 and 1902 respectively. While the split was happening, two clubs joined in 1899 with Prahran and West Melbourne making the league go up to 10. Essendon returned with a title in 1900 and 1901. Geelong then returned in 1902 with a title which put the league count up to 12. With Preston joining in 1903 and the other four teams of Collingwood, Fitzory, Melbourne and South Melbourne rejoining in 1905. Talks started on possibly splitting the competition into two divisions.

Beginning
With the VFA spiting into two divisions, the nine teams that were in Division one were Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzory, Geelong, Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda and South Melbourne. The format was for one team to drop down while the winner of Division two would go up to the top division. In the first season, Melbourne took home their first title after they defeated Fitzory in the final. While for Port Melbourne they would replace Carlton in the top division after winning Division two.

In 1908, their was an expansion in the top division with Footscray and Brunswick joining the top division while relegated team, Geelong dropped to the second division. Division One teams stayed strong all the way until World War I when the league was cancelled for four years with all of the top men heading to war.

Decline
With the war over, top football came back in 1919 with Footscray becoming the first team to win the top division from a lower division as they defeated Collingwood in the final by 15 points. But teams in the lower division were starting to suffer. This was as Preston withdrew in 1920 with North Melbourne and University the year after. This gave the VFA a problem they didn't want with the dwindling numbers of Division Two and in 1922 it ended with Melbourne and Hawthorn taking the final two spots in the twelve team league. Brunswick would have been the last team to be relegated in the two division system but they would fold after the season was over.

Steady at 10
When Hawthorn not being able to field a team for the 1923 season, the number of teams that played stayed at 10. This would be the number until 1960 where Coburg and Williamstown would join the competition. In the first season, Essendon took their 12th VFA title when they defeated Port Melbourne by 21 points. They defended the title before falling to even the make the finals in 1925. Port Melbourne then caused a massive upset in 1926 when they defeated Essendon in the final. This though was the start of a four title-winning streak which involved only losing six matches for the whole four years with Collingwood being the unlucky one on three of those occasions.

Heading into the 1930 season, everyone was predicting a Port Melbourne/Collingwood final. For Port Melbourne though they didn't make the grand final after a shock upset in the elimination semi-final against Geelong before going on to lose to Collingwood in the final. Richmond then took home their first division one premiership when they defeated Collingwood in the final by over 52 points which at the time was the biggest margin in history. Before the second world war, the premiership was won by Collingwood (three times), South Melbourne (three times) and Melbourne (winning their first division one trophy since 1905).

After the Second World War which stopped play in Victoria for six years, the competition returned with ten teams. During the war, Port Melbourne folded from the league and replacing them would be Hawthorn who competed in the regional league. The Hawks would struggle in the first season of the VFA while on the other end of the scale, it was Essendon would win the league after they defeated Melbourne in the final by seventy points which at the time was the biggest grand final margin. The next season saw Fitzroy make an appearance in the Grand Final for the first time in twenty-five years but they would fall short against the mighty Essendon who would take out the title. After Melbourne took out the title in 1948, Essendon regained the title in 1949 after coming in fourth by only 2.43% over fifth place Richmond.

The 1950s started out like how the 1940s ended with Essendon taking out the title after they defeated Geelong in the final. In 1952, the league had a National Day round which had games from areas that didn't have a major-league but that would be only for one season with Geelong retaking the title that they won the previous year while Essendon fell down to 7th from a grand final position the previous season. After thirty-four years, Footscray broke their duck by taking out the 1953 season after they defeated Collingwood in the Grand Final by 23 points.

The mid-50s saw the start of the Melbourne domination with the 1954 season seeing Melbourne make the finals and almost going the whole way before losing to Footscray in the final. In the following two years, Melbourne would not only take out the minor premiership but would go on to take the grand final, defeating Geelong and Collingwood in those years. During that period, Hawthorn made their first final series before losing to Essendon in the first semi-final.