The 1887 South Australian Football Association season was the 11th season of the top-level Australian rules football competition in South Australia. The Norwood Football Club won their 7th premiership, by winning 2 premiership points (2 draws) more than Port Adelaide due to the clubs not playing an equal number of games.
Admission of New Clubs
On 15 March 1887 the West Torrens Football Club held a meeting at the Foundry Hotel, Hindley Street in Adelaide where it decided to change the name of the club to West Adelaide and apply for inclusion in the upcoming 1887 SAFA season. The Club has previously applied to join in 1879.
1887 saw the competition expand from 4 to 7 clubs when Gawler Albions, Hotham and West Adelaide were admitted to the SAFA with the last of those bearing no relation to the modern day Bloods.
Programme of Fixtures
The Committee of the Association met on the 15th April, and adopted the programme which had been agreed upon by the Secretaries beforehand. This programme was rather unfair to the new clubs. The old clubs having so arranged matters that the Hothams will only have the benefit of playing on the Adelaide Oval four times during the season, while the West Adelaides and Gawlers only play there once each during the season.
A sub committee was formed to endeavour to arrange with the Traffic Manager to run a special train to Gawler after 1 o'clock on each of the six Saturdays when city teams have to play the Gawlers. It is to be hoped that some satisfactory arrangement will be made. If a special is not run it will be useless to expect the men to get away from business to catch the 12.15 train.
It was reported that The Ports will not be in the city very often during the coming season. At their own request two-thirds of their seventeen matches will be played on the Alberton Oval. They are making several improvements there, one which will be much appreciated being a scoring-board.
As the programme was arranged by the individual clubs hence the uneven number of games played. At the end of the season Port Adelaide requested to play an additional game against Hotham (as they had only played them twice compared to Norwood) but it was rejected by the Association. They also requested to play Norwood in a premiership playoff. Norwood and Port Adelaide had played each other 4 times during the season with the result being 2 wins and 2 draws in favour of Norwood. The premiership hence was awarded to Norwood.
The programme of football fixtures for the season was published on Saturday 14th May 1887.
Premiership season
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4 (Queen's Birthday Holiday)
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Round 10
Round 11
Round 12
Round 13
Round 14
Round 15
Round 16
Round 17
Round 18
Round 19
Round 20
Round 21
Ladder 1887 SAFA Ladder TEAM P W L D GF BF GA BA Pts Adj Pts 1 Norwood (P) 18 12 2 411925740732828.002Port Adelaide171232110220461032627.533Adelaide1694367195431092123.634South Adelaide17854102221721012021.185Hotham15310237987722789.6061119113487219734.917West Adelaide161132185211428844.50 Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, GF = Goals For, BF = Behinds For, GA = Goals Against, BA = Behinds Against, Pts = Points, Adj Pts = Points adjusted for match ratio, (P) = Premiers
Intercolonial Matches During May, Adelaide the SAFA 1886 premiers visited Melbourne and played a series of six matches. Results: Adelaide defeated St Kilda and South Ballarat, but lost to Carlton, Fitzroy, Geelong and Tasmania.
During July, Carlton the Victorian 1887 premiers visited Adelaide and played a series of five matches against SAFA Clubs. Results: Carlton defeated Hotham, Norwood and Port Adelaide, Drew with South Adelaide but lost to Adelaide.
References