For over 80 years, the Brownlow Medal has been the pinnacle of individual achievement in the AFL. However, the prestige gained by winning the award, and the media coverage applied to the presentation have changed enormously over time. Andrew Bellairs, Nick Henderson and Chris Jackson report.

The Brownlow Medal.Once upon a time, the AFL was called the VFL. The competition was made up of 12 teams from the suburbs of Melbourne, and each team had its own ground. There was little to no money involved, except enough to provide a jumper, some boots and some oranges at half time.

That competition bears little resemblance to the current nation wide 'business' that the AFL has become. And neither does the medal for the best and fairest player of the competition. The award is named after a much respected and successful administrator of the game, Charles Brownlow, whose death in January 1924 prompted the league to strike a medal in his honour.

When the Brownlow Medal was first awarded in 1924, to Geelong's Edward "Carjii" Greeves, there was no fanfare or gala presentation ceremonies, just a passage in the minutes of a meeting of the VFL board on October 17, 1924:

"It was reported that, on an examination of voting papers of field umpires of matches of the first round for the best and fairest player, resulted in Greeves of the Geelong club scoring the highest number of votes and is therefore entitled to the Brownlow Medal."

From such modest beginnings, the Brownlow has moved forward both in terms of spectacle and importance. In 1956, Footscray's Peter Box was told of his victory by a neighbour who had heard the result on the radio. Compare this with the press coverage of the latest Brownlow in 2003, where Adam Goodes of Sydney, Collingwood's Nathan Buckley and Mark Ricciuto of Adelaide were lauded in all newspapers, radio and television news programs for days afterwards.

The first Brownlow count broadcast live on television was in 1970 by HSV 7. However, it still had a long way to go to match the media coverage of the present day. The winner that year, Peter Bedford of South Melbourne recalls that the presentation;

"... was an all male affair, no females, conducted in the Dallas Brooks Hall in East Melbourne."

1977 saw the Brownlow make news for something other than the result, when eventual winner, Graham Teasdale of South Melbourne wore a brown velvet tuxedo to the count. Since then, the fashion element of the Brownlow has become almost as important as the result itself. However, it usually isn't the player fashion as in '77, but that of the partners.

The Brownlow Medal as a media spectacle has just increased in importance as the years have gone on. While the 1924 medal was reported sparingly if at all, the Herald Sun on the Tuesday after the 2003 Brownlow dedicated 4 pages to just the dresses worn by the female guests.

There is also the problem of 'post-Brownlow blues' where the constant media attention placed on winners has affected their playing performance in the following season. In recent years, this has, by their own admissions, affected Hawthorn's Hank Crawford who won in 1999, and Melbourne's Shane Woewodin winner in 2000.

You just wonder how "Carjii" Greeves would have dealt with the media intrusion into his life if he was standing on the podium 80 years on from his win in 1924.

Researched by Andrew Bellairs, Nick Henderson and Chris Jackson, students of the undergraduate program in Journalism at RMIT in 2004
fifthestate.rmit.edu.au