The 1908 Victorian Football Association season was the 32nd season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Footscray Football Club, after it defeated Brunswick in the final by 24 points. It was the fourth premiership won by the club.
The season was preceded by a tumultuous off-season, in which the Richmond Football Club left the Association in favour of the rival Victorian Football League, and both and West Melbourne were banished from the Association for attempting to do likewise.
Association membership
League expansion
On 4 October 1907, shortly after the end of the season, the University Football Club – which had won the Metropolitan Junior Football Association premiership that season – was admitted to the Victorian Football League as a senior club. This brought the size of the League to nine clubs, and the League delegates resolved at the same meeting to admit a tenth team, citing the desire to have an even number of teams to avoid the need for byes in the fixture, as well as some other strategic goals. The League resolved to reconvene on 18 October 1907 to select its tenth team from applications received in the interim. Within the next week, three Association clubs had announced their intention to apply for entry to the League: , and an amalgamation between and West Melbourne – as well as the Brighton Football Club, runners-up to University in the 1907 MJFA season.
Candidates
West Melbourne and North Melbourne were considered to be a stronger chance of gaining admission to the League as an amalgamated entity than as separate clubs, but in reality there were other drivers which would likely have seen the clubs merged for 1908 even without the opportunity to join the League. North Melbourne was struggling on the field, and West Melbourne was struggling financially. Furthermore, after years of sharing the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve as a home ground, West Melbourne had brokered a deal to play at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground, sharing it with the Essendon (League) Football Club in 1907; but, this deal was cancelled when University entered the League and assumed the co-tenancy of the ground, leaving West Melbourne homeless once again. North Melbourne and West Melbourne did share a strong history of collaboration as a result of proximity and sharing the same ground, and were seen as a natural fit for an amalgamation.
Richmond had been one of the Association's strongest and most consistent clubs on and off the field since the turn of the century, and was considered a very strong candidate for the tenth position in the League on those merits. Additionally, there were VFL delegates who sought for the League to strategically dominate Melbourne's inner-city locations, leaving the outer or suburban locations for the Association, and Richmond's location fit well with this vision.
Another club strongly rumoured to have been considering applying to join the League was the defending premiers Williamstown. Commentators thought Williamstown to be a strong candidate on its footballing merits, but that its remote location compared with the other inner-city teams was likely to limit its chances. Williamstown did not submit an application to the League, although whether it considered doing so is unknown.
Outcome
On 18 October 1907, the League formally accepted Richmond into its senior ranks from the 1908 season, and rejected the joint North Melbourne/West Melbourne application.
Association response
The Association reacted angrily to the League's actions, and to the clubs which attempted to defect. There was a feeling amongst many Association delegates that the League, by enticing its best senior clubs to defect and leaving a two-week opportunity for clubs to publicly fight for that position, was deliberately attempting to weaken and destabilise the Association just as it was building strength and popularity, to control a larger part of the money available in the game; and indeed, the popularity of the Association had been building in the previous few years, and in 1907 was the highest it had been since the original breakaway of the League in 1897.
Because of this, clubs which attempted to defect were seen by many in the Association as deeply disloyal – particularly and , who had themselves been through the suffering caused by the breakaway of the League in 1897. The Association discussed and ultimately carried a motion that any clubs which attempted to defect to the League would not be welcomed back to the Association. This left the unsuccessful applicants, and West Melbourne, without a senior competition for 1908.