1998 VFL season
| 1998 VFL Premiership Season | |
|---|---|
| Teams | 11 |
| Premiers |
Springvale (4th premiership) |
| Minor premiers |
Werribee (2nd minor premiership) |
|
← 1997
1999 →
|
|
The 1998 Victorian Football League season was the 117th season of the Australian rules football competition. The premiership was won by the Springvale Football Club, after it defeated Werribee by 38 points in the Grand Final on 20 September. It was Springvale's fourth top division premiership, and the third of four premierships it won in the five years from 1995 to 1999.
There were two changes to the membership of the VFL for the 1998 season: the Bendigo Diggers were admitted and the Traralgon Maroons departed. The Preston Knights were excluded from the league in October 1997, but were reinstated the following month. Strategically, the Victorian State Football League desired to fully align the VFL with the statewide under-18s competition (the TAC Cup), with twelve clubs in each competition and one VFL clubs aligned with each TAC Cup club, and the changes were in large part driven by these motivations.
At this time, there were two regional TAC Cup clubs with no VFL affiliate: the Bendigo Pioneers and the Murray Bushrangers. In early 1997, the VSFL granted a licence to the Bendigo Football Club to enter a team from the 1998 season and to be aligned with the Pioneers. The club was newly established, unlike the VFL's other two regional teams – North Ballarat and Traralgon – who had been strong clubs in their local competitions. The club wore blue and gold and took the nickname Diggers.
As a condition of its entry to the VFL in 1996, Traralgon had always intended to allow the members another vote on whether to stay in the VFL or return to the Latrobe Valley Football League after two seasons. In those first two seasons, Traralgon had achieved little on-field success (a win-loss record of 4–31–1); off-field, its average home crowd of 1,200 was among the best in the league, but its finances were stretched due to extra travel and difficulties attracting the necessary sponsorship. There was division within the Traralgon board, with different news reports indicating the board recommending staying or leaving. Ultimately, when the vote took place at the end of November 1997, the members voted in favour of departing, and the club returned to the LTFL.
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