If you ask an Essendon supporter how many premierships their club has won then the answer you’d most likely get is 16. 

Since 1897, the first year of the Victorian Football League competition (renamed AFL in 1990), Essendon has indeed won 16 premierships. The club’s first was in that inaugural season, 1897, and its most recent was in the all-conquering 2000 season. But this is only part of the story.

In 1877, 20 years before the formation of the VFL, the Victorian Football Association (VFA) formed and immediately became the ruling body for football in Victoria. In the 20 seasons between 1877 until 1896 many of today’s AFL clubs including Melbourne, Geelong, Carlton, Collingwood, Richmond, St Kilda, North Melbourne, Footscray and of course Essendon, played in the VFA and most won premierships. In fact Richmond, North Melbourne and Footscray remained in the VFA long after the VFL formed (Hawthorn joined the VFA in 1914 and the VFL in 1925).

The status of these VFA premierships was recently the subject of a review undertaken by the AFL after Geelong argued that the AFL should lump together premierships and player statistics for the VFA years in with stats for the League years.

Geelong’s interest in having its seven VFA premierships recognised and added to its nine VFL/AFL premierships - giving it a total 16 - was first raised in a speech by Cats’ president Colin Carter in June 2011.

After seeking the advice of football historians the AFL concluded that while it had no objection to Geelong, or any other club, tallying up all its premierships it argued that a distinction needs to be made between the competitions in which they were won. 

While the League clearly is focused on its own history from 1897, it is the clubs themselves that have the major role in educating their supporters to their own rich histories prior to their arrival in the League. 

So, based on Geelong’s proposed aggregate model how many premierships has Essendon won? 

Adding our four VFA premierships – 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894 - to our 16 League premierships gives Essendon 20 premierships in total, two more than Carlton and four more than Collingwood and Geelong.   

So for the record here are the total premiership won by clubs in both the VFA and VFL/AFL:

Club              VFA Flags        VFL/AFL Flags         Total

Essendon       4                      16                              20

Carlton           2                       16                             18

Collingwood   1                       15                             16

Geelong         7                       9                               16

Hawthorn       0                       13                             13

Richmond      2                        10                             12

Melbourne     0                        12                             12

Footscray      9                         1                               10

North Melb    6                         4                                10

Sth Melb/Syd 5                         5                               10

Fitzroy           1                         8                               9

St Kilda          0                        1                               1