Football.

The best colonial engraved image of an AFL game between Carlton and Melbourne at Albert Park from the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher 12th June, 1875. Rare.

For the 1875 premiership seven metropolitan clubs participated in senior football during the season: Albert-park, Carlton, Carlton Imperial, East Melbourne, Melbourne, North Melbourne and St Kilda cum University, a combined team from St Kilda and Melbourne University.  As had been the case for several years, 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 three and Melbourne won one, so Carlton was recognised as the premier club for the season

 Description from publication:

“We present our readers this month with an illustration of the most popular sport, perhaps, in Victoria namely football. The scene chosen by our artist is the Melbourne football ground and we may suppose ourselves looking on at a match being played between the chosen twenties of two crack clubs, tbe Carlton and Melbourne or Albert-park, these being supposed to be the three strongest in the colony, and, indeed, the records of past matches played between them show that there is little to choose, as regards the skill and strength of the players, between the three clubs. Football vies with cricket in the popularity it has acquired and the eagerness with which it is pursued, and the number of clubs in existence. Ten thousand spectators have frequently been gathered together at a match on the Melbourne ground, at Carlton, or in the Albert-park…”