1873 Victorian football season
| 1873 Victorian football premiership season | |
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| Premiers | Carlton |
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← 1872
1874 →
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The 1873 Victorian football season was an Australian rules football competition played during the winter of 1873. The season consisted of matches between metropolitan and provincial football clubs in the colony of Victoria. The premier club was Carlton.
Four metropolitan clubs participated in senior football during the 1873 season: Albert-park, Carlton, Melbourne and University, but since University played very few games, its record is not shown below.
Notable for its absence was the South Yarra Football Club; after being a powerhouse of the 1860s, the club folded in January 1873. Many of its players went to the nearly and newly established junior St Kilda Football Club, which was elevated to senior ranks in 1874.
Carlton and Melbourne were considered the dominant clubs in the city, so the premier club was decided based entirely on the head-to-head record between the clubs; in their four meetings, Carlton won two and two were drawn, so Carlton was recognised as the premier club for the season.
The below table is set of results for senior clubs during the 1873 season. The list shows the record across all matches (senior, junior and intercolonial) excluding unfinished matches played by Carlton against Albert-park and University.
Geelong was the strongest provincial team, being undefeated in provincial matches and suffering its only loss of the season against Melbourne. According to the official tables published in the Argus in the 1890s and in the Football Record from 1912-1923, Geelong was the third-placed team in the Victorian premiership in 1873.
Of the long list of junior clubs to compete at relatively even standard – Carlton Imperial, Collingwood, East Melbourne, Essendon, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Richmond, St Kilda, Southern, South-park, Studley-park and Williamstown – there was no clear premier club, with none managing an unbeaten record in matches against the other juniors. The numbers advantage to juniors clubs in matches at odds against senior clubs was reduced in 1873, with the junior club usually fielding eighteen men to the senior club's twenty.
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