The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's top professional competition. Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Carlton quickly became a dominant club in early Australian rules football competitions, and was a foundation member of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), winning the inaugural premiership in 1877. In 1896, Carlton joined the breakaway Victorian Football League (since renamed the AFL), and alongside rivals Collingwood, Richmond and Essendon, is regarded as one of the league's historical "Big Four" clubs, having won sixteen VFL/AFL premierships, equal with Essendon as the most of any AFL club.