1990 AFL season

Essendon defeated North Melbourne 17.10 (112) to 10.16 (76) in the final.

All teams played 22 games during the home and away season, for a total of 154. An additional 7 games were played during the finals series.

Total match attendance for the home-and-away season was 3,587,595 people. Total attendance for the finals series was 475,790 people.

• The Brownlow Medal was awarded to Tony Liberatore of Footscray.
• The Coleman Medal was awarded to John Longmire of North Melbourne.
• The Norm Smith Medal was awarded to Tony Shaw of Collingwood
• The Leigh Matthews Trophy was awarded to Darren Millane of Collingwood
• The Wooden Spoon was "awarded" to Brisbane
• The Under 19's Grand Final was won by North Melbourne against Melbourne
• The Reserves Grand Final was won by Carlton against Melbourne
• The Seniors Grand Final was won by Collingwood against Essendon

• The Victorian Football League (VFL) was renamed and re-badged (with a new logo) as the Australian Football League in 1990.
• VFL Park was re-designated as Waverley Park (although it took about two or three years for football commentators and sporting editors to relinquish the usage of the old name for the ground).
• Prior to the season, Fitzroy and Footscray – both in serious financial difficulty – announced that they would be merging to form a single club known as the Fitzroy Bulldogs, which was to have taken its place in the AFL from 1990. Less than three weeks after the announcement, a successful grass-roots campaign by Footscray supporters restored their club to a position of financial viability, and the merger was called off.[4]
• Five minutes into the third quarter of the Round 1 game between Geelong and Hawthorn, the Cats lead the Hawks 10.6.(66) to 9.11.(65). Hawthorn then outscored Geelong 19.13.(127) to 1.5.(11) in the rest of the game to win by 115 points.[5]
• By the AFL rules at the time, the drawn qualifying final between Collingwood and West Coast was replayed on the following weekend. This meant that minor premier Essendon was given a second consecutive bye week, giving them three weeks between games; Essendon ultimately reached the grand final through the preliminary final, but they were soundly beaten in both the second semi-final and grand final, to which many laid partial blame upon the extended layoff. Additionally, the delay caused scheduling chaos for venues and hotels as a large number of league and corporate events related to the finals, and particularly to grand final week, had to be rescheduled: the extent of this was unprecedented, as the number and scale of such events had increased significantly since the last drawn early weeks finals match in 1972.[6] The AFL went on to introduce the provision to play extra time in tied finals matches (except the grand final) in future years to prevent a repeat of these problems. In 2016, a resolution in extra time was implemented for the grand final as well.
• The Port Adelaide Football Club from the South Australian National Football League made a bid to join the new AFL competition; the application was rejected, in response, a composite South Australian National Football League team, christened the "Adelaide Crows" was admitted to the AFL competition in the 1991 season.
• The Brisbane-Melbourne game in round 5 was the 10,000th VFL/AFL match.
• North Melbourne won the Under 19's premiership. North Melbourne 16.12 (108) defeated Melbourne 5.14. (44) in the grand final, held as a curtain-raiser to the reserves grand final on 6 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
• Carlton won the reserves premiership. [Carlton Football Club|Carlton]] 14.14 (98) defeated Melbourne 11.15 (81) in the grand final, held as a curtain-raiser to the seniors grand final on 6 October at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.[7]

• Stephen Rodgers: Every Game Ever Played VFL/AFL Results 1897–1991 3rd Edition 1992. Penguin Books Australia ISBN 0-670-90526-7.