There was worse to follow, with various Essendon players publicly blaming each other for the poor performance against Richmond, and then, with dissension still rife in the ranks, the side plummeted to an embarrassing 28 point loss to VFA premiers Footscray Football Club in a special charity match played a week later in front of 46, 100 people, in aid of Dame Nellie Melba's Disabled Soldiers ' Fund, purportedly ( but not officially ) for the championship of Victoria.

Games between representative teams of players in the several competitions – VFL ( VFA before 1996 ), SANFL, WAFL, AFL Queensland, AFL Canberra and AFL Sydney – still occur, with most leagues usually playing one interstate game each year.

Richmond's performances did not immediately improve in the emaciated VFA until the turn of the century.

At first Essendon was regarded as a junior club, and even after the formation of the VFA in 1877 the side was sometimes allowed ' odds ' of, for example, twenty-five players as against twenty, when confronted by the leading teams of the time.

North caused a sensation in 1907 after announcing an amalgamation with fellow VFA football club West Melbourne, which at the time had lost its home ground.

The club won one more VFA premiership, in 1887, but after that, particularly during the 1890s, the club went from one of the strongest clubs in the Association to one of the weaker, both on-field and off-field.

Dyer walked out on the club and threatened to play in the VFA after his father, a committeeman who was involved with the anti-Bentley faction, lost his position at the board elections.

The VFA was formed in 1877, immediately after the foundation of a similar body in South Australia and is the second-oldest Australian rules football league, replacing the loose affiliation of clubs that had been the hallmark of the early years of a game which was first played as early as 1850s.

( The VFL changed from 20 to 18 two years after the VFA and has had 18 players on the ground ever since.

The first regular radio broadcasts of VFA games were made by 3XY, a little after the station commenced operations in 1935.

The second-longest drought was that of the St Kilda Football Club, who did not win its first, and to date only, senior premiership until 1966, after 68 seasons in the VFL, an additional 13 seasons in the VFA prior to the VFL's inception, and 93 years after the club's foundation in 1873.

He resumed playing in the VFA after World War II, as the captain-coach at Brighton, where he played his last game in 1946 ( kicking 11 goals ).

The VFA continued to be an independent body, with only five of its original clubs – Footscray, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Richmond and Williamstown – but within five years it had expanded to ten clubs, a size it maintained until the 1920s.

The Essendon VFL club returned to Essendon, and the Essendon VFA club disbanded, with most of its players moving over to ( then VFA club ) North Melbourne.

through the VFA and V / AFLFootball took a giant step forward in 1877, with the formation of the first colonial football league, the VFA.

In 1897, Collingwood, along with fellow VFA clubs Fitzroy, Melbourne, St Kilda, Carlton, Essendon, South Melbourne and Geelong split from the VFA and formed the Victorian Football League ( VFL ).

The city was besotted with football and many clubs clamoured for admission to the VFA.

Richmond were now openly at odds with the VFA and matters failed to improve in the next few years.

This was usually the club with the most wins, but there were some seasons where the VFA judged the leading team had had too many wins against junior clubs, and awarded the Premiership to the club with the second-highest number of wins.

Although its size was constant, its membership was not, with many new clubs lasting only a few years before leaving, and four clubs switching to the VFL: Richmond in 1908, and North Melbourne, Footscray and ( who joined the VFA in 1914 ) in 1925.

In 1963, he joined VFA club Prahran, and spent a year with the thirds.

The VFA refused to endorse his clearance due to a disagreement with the VFL.

The club won five premierships with the VFA up to 1890 and four more in the VFL in the first half of the 20th Century.

In the case of Todd, it led to him moving to the VFA because he was dissatisfied with the pay he could legally get with Collingwood, whilst Coleman and Gleeson could not afford surgery to continue their careers, that they would have been able to have on higher wages.

Coulthard commenced with the Carlton club in the ( then ) Victorian Football Association ( VFA ) in 1876.

He retired from VFL football at the end of 1978 but continued to play in the lower-level VFA in 1980 and 1981 with Sandringham.

In 1897, when eight teams broke away from the VFA to form the VFL, the concept of finals football was high on the agenda, with teams buoyed by the success and attendances of the 1896 Grand Final.

The Victorian Football League ( VFL ) which evolved from the former Victorian Football Association ( VFA ), taking its new name as from the 1996 season, is the premier Australian rules football league in Victoria ( not counting the Australian Football League.

In 1896, delegates from the stronger and wealthier VFA clubs — Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Fitzroy, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda and South Melbourne — met to form a breakaway competition and in 1897, the Victorian Football League ( VFL ), was born as an eight-team competition.

Essendon were known as the " Same Olds " ( as in " the same old Essendon ") in order to distinguish the Essendon VFL side ( that played at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground ) to which this article refers, from the separate and unconnected Essendon VFA side ( that played at what was then the Essendon Cricket Ground ), which existed from 1900 to 1921.

Having played at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground from 1882 to 1921, and having won four VFA premierships ( 1891 – 1894 ) and four VFL premierships ( 1897, 1901, 1911, ( 1912 ) whilst there, Essendon were looking for a new home, and were offered grounds at the current Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, at Victoria Park, at Arden St, North Melbourne, and the Essendon Cricket Ground.

The club participated in the first football competition in Australia, winning the second season in 1863, was a foundation Victorian Football Association ( VFA ) and the Victorian Football League ( VFL ) in 1897.

The Geelong Football Club was among the most powerful in the VFA ( Victorian Football Association ), winning seven VFA premierships up to the birth of the VFL ( Victorian Football League ) in 1897.

Despite dominating in the VFA, Geelong found the premiership harder to win in the VFL.

Led by Geelong and Essendon, the largest clubs of the VFA formed their own break away league, the Victorian Football League ( VFL ), in 1896.

Founded in 1873, the Club won nine premierships in the Victorian Football Association ( VFA ) between 1898 and 1924, and one premiership in 1954 since joining the then-Victorian Football League ( VFL ), the predecessor to the AFL, in 1925.

Following the famed break away of 1896, during which the stronger VFA clubs formed the VFL, the tricolours ( as they were known during this period ) became a force in the VFA.

Footscray adapted relatively quickly to the standard of VFL football despite losing some of their VFA stars, and by 1928 were already a contender for the finals, missing only on percentage in 1931.

After struggling to find a permanent home venue during its time in the VFA, Carlton established Princes Park as its home venue when it joined the VFL in 1897.

St Kilda were a foundation team of the Victorian Football Association ( VFA ) in 1877 and later, in 1897, became a foundation team in the Victorian Football League ( VFL ), which was renamed the Australian Football League ( AFL ) prior to the start of the 1990 season.

In 1862 it competed in what may be the earliest challenge trophy competition, was a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association ( VFA ) ( 1877 ), one of two associations and governing bodies formed in the same year and in 1897 it became a foundation member of the Victorian Football League ( VFL ) competition which later became the national Australian Football League ( AFL ).

Having missed a potential bonanza from a premiership play-off, the VFA decided to emulate the VFL and introduce a finals series in 1903, a fateful decision for the Tigers.

The club was campaigning against violence ( both on-field and among the crowd ), ungentlemanly conduct and poor sportsmanship, issues that plagued the VFA to a far greater extent than the rival VFL.

For historical purposes, the present VFL is sometimes referred to as the VFA / VFL.