The Victorian Football League's 1897 finals series determined the top four final positions of the 1897 VFL season. It began on the weekend of August 21, 1897, and ended on the weekend of September 3, 1897. Essendon was crowned the 1897 VFL premiers, finishing the finals series on top of the mini-ladder. Final ladder Finals system Abandoned systems When the VFL was initially established at the end of 1896, it immediately announced that a finals series would be played. However, there were two other announcements of different finals formats, before the system used was ultimately decided upon late in the season. The format that was originally announced in October 1896 was that after fourteen weeks of home-and-away matches, a finals series would be played as a simple four-team knock out tournament amongst the top four clubs, and the gate takings from the semi-finals would be donated to charity. By February 1897, the knock-out tournament had been abandoned in favour of a system that bore some similarities to the Page–McIntyre system which would ultimately come into use in 1931. In it, matches were to be played as follows: Week One: Two matches played: one between 1st vs 2nd, and one between 3rd vs 4th. As originally intended, the takings from these matches would go to charity. Week Two: Two matches played: one between the winners from Week One and another between the losers from Week One. Week Three: The two winners from Week Two would play against each other in a Final for the premiership. Drawn matches would be decided by twenty minutes of extra time, or if still drawn after extra time, by a replay the following week. It was realized during the season that this finals system was not entirely fair, particularly since the results of the first week of finals were somewhat meaningless; nevertheless, the league was prepared to proceed with the system right up to its scheduled commencement on 14 August. However, when inclement weather on that weekend forced the postponement of the charity round, the league used this opportunity to abandon this finals system and develop a new one. 1897 finals system On 17 August 1897, a new system was decided upon. The new system comprised a round-robin amongst the top four, with the provision for a play-off match for the premiership depending on the results of that round-robin. The finals system was as follows: The