Talk:Champion of the Colony

Deletion
Instead of deleting the page wouldn't it make more sense just to remove the winners from the list prior to say 1900? Surely some of the later winners have reliable references? Crickettragic (talk) 11:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think a deletion is premature. The proposed deletion tag reason given was "This article should be removed as there is no evidence that such an award ever really existed. The printed reference works often cited in support of the list are proving ever more unreliable." There are sources,, and  which I admit aren't the strongest, but which at least indicate the existence of the award. I find it very hard to believe that these are a figment of several peoples imaginations. The alternative is that there's been a significant hoax. I'm removing the tag accordingly and hope that some discussion can take place before a decision is made. &mdash;Moondyne click! 12:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A quick google of the award makes it pretty clear it's legit. On player's profiles in official club websites they mentioned that so and so won Champion of the Colony. Crickettragic (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's legit. Page 486 of the AFL 2005 Guide to Season (ISBN 0-9580300-6-5) has the list and describes it thus: The Champion of the Colony was awarded to Tom Willis (cricket) for allround sporting excellence in 1856 and 1857. From 1858 the award transferred to Australian Football with the captains gathering at the end of the season to decide who was the best player of the year. Years later, leading writers and critics kept up the custom but, after the introduction of the Brownlow Medal in 1924, the naming of the Champion of the Colony was eventually abolished.  They list up to Dyer in 1940, rather than the extra few years in the FullPointsFooty site (who I trust implicitly). The 100 years of Football book (ISBN 0-14-026969-X) lists CotC only for 1896 to 1899, then calls them Champions of the Season from then on until the Brownlow. The-Pope (talk) 16:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

A pity you list the vicnet site, and the funtrivia site as sources in support of the Champion of the Colony award. The vicnet site has other ground-breaking research on it: the VFL was formed on 17 May 1889 - there was I believing all that guff about 1897 being the first year. The same site states that the 1886 Grand Final was played in "Sydney at the South Melbourne Cricket Ground." Oh, and "Bob Pritt" kicked his 500th goal in 1936. The history sections of the AFL Guide to the Season (various years) are also riddled with error so again don't claim them as a credible source.

I agree Full Points Footy is an excellent site and normally would accept much of what is posted on there. In this case, however, I've alerted the site owner to my concerns, and will like you await further news on this issue. The announcement dates of Brownlow winners has been documented, quotes from the players giving their reactions to the news has been widely distributed - indeed there is at least one history of the Brownlow published which quotes contemporary newspapers in fulsome detail.

Where was Fred McGinis when he heard the news of his 1897 Champion win, what did Roy Cazaly say at the presentation of his 1920 award (by the way what was it - medal or a trophy ?). I don't think we'll ever know because I don't think the award ever existed. RossRSmith (talk) 12:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

"Champion of the Colony"
I offer the following information in the hope that this historically valuable article will not be deleted.
 * (1) In the times before the Federation of Australia in 1901, given that New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, etc. were "Colonies" and not States, how else might one have spoken of an individual that we would now describe as "The State Champion" or "The State Title Holder", other than as the "Champion of the Colony"?
 * For example, a search in Google Books for champion-of-the-colony will reveal a reference to such an individual, in track and field athletic in the Sydney Morning Herald of 1888.
 * Thus, there is nothing strange, unusual, or extraordinary in such a title.
 * (2) Given that the first award was presented in 1858 — 19 years before the formation of the VFA — it is not astonishing that those upon whom this award was bestowed, besides the fact that they were in what we might, from a 2008 perspective, consider to be the VFL/AFL "pantheon", would have been overall a rather strange lot, indulging in what might well have been considered child-like pursuits at the time. I can't remember precise sources, but there was historically an enormous problem in the USA with adult sport (even in the 20th century), due to the fact that many religious groups thought that once one became an adult one should put away childish things. Also, in those times, none of the sports we now recognize as net-ball, track-and-field, swimming, tennis, soccer, rugby union, cricket, etc. etc. had not yet been established (the implication here is that the rudimentary forms of AFL/VFL not only could not be "understood" in their own right, there was nothing except children's games from which they could be "understood" by analogy.
 * Thus, it is not surprising that there is very little mention of any individual so awarded in any wide range of sources.
 * (3) Given that the award was presented in every year of the VFA competion, and was only bestowed upon individuals that played in the VFA give a further strong indication that this award was Melbourne-centred; and, on the basis that the VFA was the elite competition in the Colony of Victoria in 1877, it is not at all unreasonable that one would automatically assume that the the individual that was undoubtedly best player in the Colony would, in fact, be playing in the VFA.
 * Thus, it is not astonishing that we now have a second division in the passage of time: the first being "Champion of the Colony (pre-VFA), and the second, depending upon your VFA/VFL allegance, either "Champion of the Colony (pre-VFL) or "Champion of the Colony (VFA).
 * (4) Given that, immediately the eight breakaway teams created the VFL, in every year of the Award's existence from 1897 to 1945, the award was only given to VFL players, give further strength to the argument that the "Champion of the Colony" was in fact given to the best player in the VFL.
 * Thus, given that there was no longer a "Colony of Victoria" after Federation, it is not astonishing that we now have four divisions in the passage of time:
 * (1) the "Champion of the Colony (pre-VFA) from 1858 to 1876,
 * (2) "Champion of the Colony (pre-VFL) from 1877 to 1896,
 * (3) "Champion of the Colony" (VFL) from 1897 to 1901, and
 * (4) "Champion of the Season" (VFL) from 1902 to 1945 — with one common factor: the best player in the best competition.
 * (5) Right throughout the article, and the discussion above, it seems that most are unaware that the title "Champion of the Colony/Season" was the name given by Melbourne's ever-so-strong-advocate-of-Aussie-Rules newspaper, The Argus (founded in 1846), to whomsoever The Argus determined was, in its opinion, the "Player of the Year".
 * Thus, it is not surprising that the "Player of the Year" was decided amongst players in the Melbourne-centred elite competition of the day. Furthermore, this explains the significant absence of references to such an award in other sources that might be derived from other contemporary newspapers and magazines, etc. that were owned by other publishers.
 * (6) A further problem is with the statement in the article to the effect that "it was awarded based on votes from Melbourne's leading football journalists". There is a serious problem with this assertion. Whilst the award was certainly centred on the The Argus newspaper and, therefore, on "football journalists", and whilst it certainly would have been administered by journalists, it was not the results of votes cast by those journalists, it was the results of a Logies-type popular public vote.
 * This is strongly supported by the evidence of a photograph taken in 1909 -- it appears on page 72 of Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996: The Complete Story of the AFL, All the Big Stories, All the Great Pictures, All the Champions, Every AFL Season Reported, Viking, (Ringwood), 1996. ISBN 0-670-86814-0 -- dealing with the manner in which Essendon's Bill Busbridge was "named by the Argus as the Champion Footballer of Victoria this year". The photograph shows seven men around a table, with the top of the table and the surrounding floor covered in voting slips. The photographs caption reads: "The men from the "Argus" count the 105,000 votes for the champion player.". Thus, assuming the softest option in interpreting this equivocal caption (viz., that the total votes cast numbered 105,000, rather than 105,000 votes being cast for Busbridge alone) we can only conclude that, given the entire season, from beginning to end, was comprised of 94 matches, if there was a 3-2-1 voting system, the three votes per match would have required 374 different journalists -- and, moreover, each of those journalists would have had to attend six matches simultaneously each Saturday afternoon.
 * (7) Why did it continue after the Brownlow Medal began in 1924? Why did it cease after 1945? The answer to these questions is simple. Many were dis-satisfied that "their" champions were not being recognized by an award that firstly only considered the "fairest" players and then selected the "best" from that group. Meaning that, whilst triple Brownlow winner Dick Reynolds won the "Champion of the Season" twice, Jack Dyer, with no Brownlows, won the "Champion of the Season" three times. It ceased after 1945 because (a) it had outlived it usefulness, (b) the costs involved in its administration were no longer matched by benefits to The Argus, and (c) given that the Brownlow, having been suspended in 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945, was reinstated in 1946, 1946 was a good time to stop.
 * (8) I am also somewhat concerned with the lack of historical understanding displayed in the "cheap shot" that an absence of knowledge of the 1897 geographical location of Fred McGinis and nature of the the utterances of Roy Cazaly proves that there was no such thing. Firstly it is axiomatic that an absence of evidence is never evidence of absence. Second, the intemperate "cheap shot" shows an entirely anachronistic demand that, in 1897, the notification of bestowal of such an award would have met with the circus attending, say, the declaration of the 1967 Brownlow Medal winner, with all sorts of people, fans, journalists, photographers, and many other sorts of Harry Beitzel-type opportunists invading one's privacy. If any notification was actually performed, other than simply publishing it in the newspaper, in the absence of the internet, television, radio, telephone, etc. it would have been through a telegram. Third, in 1927, players were far too busy working in their day jobs to attend 2007 Brownlow Medal-type presentation ceremonies.
 * (9) I would suggest, therefore, that this article is retained, and the lead section be re-written to read something like this:
 * The Champion of the Colony (1858-1901) — or the Champion of the Season (1902-1945) once the "Colony of Victoria" had become the "State of Victoria" upon the Federation of Australia on January 1, 1901 — was the title given by Melbourne newspaper The Argus to the winner of its annual "Player of the Year".
 * It was determined by a Logie-style popular public vote, it was administered by Argus staff, and it was last awarded at the end of the 1945 VFL season.
 * Prior to the Brownlow Medal's introduction in 1924, the title of Champion of the Colony (or Champion of the Season) was most prestigious individual award in the elite Victorian Australian rules football competition that was centred on the city of Melbourne.
 * The Argus "Player of the Year" competition, which ended in 1945 (the Brownlow Medal was suspended during the war years 1942 to 1945), continued for some time after the introduction of the Brownlow Medal, because many thought that the Brownlow's award criteria of "fairest and best" had excluded many of the best players (viz., the Brownlow did not chose the best amongst all the competition's players, it only chose the best of a far smaller set, the competition's "fairest players").

Anyway, that's the way I see things. Please fix up the article; and if you want to use any of the above, please feel free to do so. Lindsay658 (talk) 01:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

1) I never disputed that the term "Champion of the Colony had been used for some reason or another. My specific reference was to the alleged football 'best player' award in Victoria.

2-9) Yes, I agree, in some years - for example, at the end of the 1800s - The Argus newspaper did list a "Player of the Season."

However, the player named in the paper is not always the same as the one shown as "Champion" for a particular year, thus disproving your claim that it is an Argus "Player of the Season" list.

The 1909 photo you correctly identify could have related to an entirely separate event. Perhaps the public vote and the journalist's views just happened to coincide that year. The 'Player of the Season" decision released by the paper in the 1890s was certainly not a "Logie-style popular public vote."

Until I see evidence proving it existed, I will continue to dispute that there was ever an award made to individual Victorian footballers under the title "Champion of the Colony/Season." RossRSmith (talk) 13:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

As an update to available information more has been relaesed on the Sport & History site at: http://au.geocities.com/sportandhistory/football/awards/argus.html

The Champion of the Colony award never existed. It is time for the mythical list of winners and all other references to it to be removed from WP. RossRSmith (talk) 14:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Further to what is listed at the Sport and History site: At “Old Boy” refers to Cameron being “the champion of the season” in 1912.Lindsay658 (talk) 07:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Old Boy does not refer to Cameron being Champion Of The Season. C C Mullen (who created the award himself and published it in his 1951 book) discusses the 1912 season in this 1922 article and HE states that. You need to find an article from 1912 that shows Cameron was Champion Of The Season. Any reference to C C Mullen is dubiousArminrichter (talk) 01:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

No WP:OR - you need an WP:RS
Ross, I admire your enthusiasm on this topic, but I have in front of me two reliable secondary sources, and a primary source that disagree with your assertion. The Annual AFL Record guide to the season lists this award (on p.486 in the 2005 edition). The 100 years of Australian Football also lists the winner of the award in each year's summary. The primary source is the Argus it self - see here. It refers to Cameron being the Champion of the Season for the last time Ess vs Carl at the G, which was 1912, which matches the list in this article. The national library is digitising them, but they only have a few years at the moment, and the character recognition for text searching is very poor. I know that very old records are often wrong - Dave Clement fought the WAFL for year to change the pre-1900 premiership winners table, recently Austin Robertson Jr "lost" 60 goals from his official tally, but you can't publish or refer to original research on wikipedia - you need an reliable source - so you need to convince the AFL that their table is wrong and get them to publish the "correct" list or remove it completely (with a comment) and then we can review this article. For now, the sources are sound. The-Pope (talk) 16:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The Argus article is dated 1922, not 1912. Perhaps that paper did name Cameron "Player of the Year" in 1912, but that would make him winner of The Argus award, not the Champion one. By the way, The Argus is available on that National Library site for the years 1915-25 and 1945, all years alleged to have had a Champion award given. No such reference in those years is found by searching the Nat Lib site. Yet the 1924 and 1925 Brownlow Medal announcements are easily located - and very contemporary - counted in the evening, published in the press the next day.


 * The AFL Guide doesn't include the table until after 2000. The 100 Years of Australian Football was published in about 1997. General football history books by Donnelly (pub. 1947) and Buggy (pub. 1951) include tables of winners for various state Best & Fairest awards - neither includes a single reference to the "Champion" award, let alone a list.

RossRSmith (talk) 14:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Update
As I expected, not a single piece of evidence dated between 1858 and 1945 has been cited in support of this list of winners having ever existed. And the list itself carries errors within it !

The Champion of the Colony award is a hoax.

RossRSmith (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I find it an odd hoax. I have the biography of Laurie Nash at home which refers to him winning the CotC in '34 & '35. IIRC, Nash considered awards like CotC higher than the Brownlow because they were not judged by umpires (who he considered too busy umpiring to notice who was the best player on the ground). I'll look through it when I get a chance to see where the author gained his information from. --Roisterer (talk) 02:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a copy of "The Great Laurie Nash" by EA 'Ned' Wallish. If that is the book you refer to, then the relevant pages seem to be 126, 140, and 360. None of them state that Nash won the CoC, but do indicate in one form or another that he appears to have won the Sporting Globe best player (VFL) in 1935 & 1936, and the Herald award in 1936, and the Austral[as]ian award in 1936. Unfortunately, the author does not cite specific dates for each publication, and also appears to mis-spell the title of the last paper referred to here.

RossRSmith (talk) 12:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Champion Of The Colony was never an actual award. It was created by football historian C.C. (Cecil Clarence) Mullen for his private publication "Mullen's Footballers' Australian Almanac 1951" (p62-64). He chose the names based on opinions registered in various newspapers who had voting or awards on popular players. On the many occasions that this was not done it appears he used his own research to make an informed opinion. There is absolutely no historical reference anywhere that has ever been located that makes any mention for even one individual season for a Champion Of The Colony award prior to 1951, let alone a complete list for 95 years.


 * In his 1951 Almanac he actually listed names up to 1950 (W H Hutchinson) and stated "In the early days of the game, it was the custom of captains to get together at the end of the season and declare who was best footballer of the year. The honoured one was styled "Champion Of The Colony." Years after, leading writers and critics kept up the custom...". This was later re-quoted in other publications but there is no evidence to date that captains ever got together for any such meetings but best players were often discussed in newspapers. These "best players" were just awards or mentions by individual newspapers and did not carry the actual title of Champion Of The Colony in any known article. Perhaps such a phrase was used once and Mullen drew on that.


 * Mullen went on to state "MULLEN'S ALMANAC has been able to give a complete list of the champions from year to year. Although Victoria changed in name from a Colony to a State when the Commonwealth was established in 1901, we have decided, for traditional reasons, to retain the original title of "Champion of the Colony" in honour of those grand old-timers who helped make this game, and we give a complete list of Victoria's champion footballers as follows:-". That clearly states that there was, at the very least, no Champion Of The Colony award from 1901 onwards as Mullen admits that he has provided that title himself to the player he and/or the newspapers of the day deemed to be the best for that season. It suggests that there was another award that Mullen has decided to alter the name of, again no such awards can be found in the historical records.


 * When Mullen put out his second private publication - History Of Australian Rules Football 1858-1958 - he actually cut the list back to 1940 (J R Dyer) (p144-145) and stated "Since World War II newspapers have made their own selections". That very statement not only invalidates 10 selections he had previously listed but casts obvious doubt on the list in general.


 * C C Mullen also provided a lot of historical information to the VFL, so much so that the VFL publication, Football Life, included many historical articles on old football stories based on that. The Football Life issue for April 1969 even had a special feature on Mullen and his devotion to football history. At the time he was 74 and had been closely following football since 1905 when he was aged about 10, so his knowledge and opinions were certainly valid, it was just that his over riding love of the history caused him to decide to create the Champion Of The Colony award.


 * Every recorded mention of Champion Of The Colony, that has ever been recorded, has appeared after 1951 and clearly draws from Mullen's list rather than any other factual historical document. This has occurred predominantly in football history articles over the last 30 years. It extends to the AFL and their clubs who still refer to people named on Mullen's list as actual winners of that award.


 * The only arguments I have seen here against the likes of Ross Smith's doubts on Champion Of The Colony ever having existed at the time show no evidence at all but rather provide links to other sources which have also quoted from the same original Mullen material. Not one single piece of evidence has been provided showing where the award was originally presented. Amazing that no evidence exists for an award which ran for 95 years.

Arminrichter (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Possible solution to the mystery
I have recently spoken with an old bloke who, at the time of the closing of The Argus in 1957, had worked at The Argus for some 10 years. It was his very strong memory that there had been two entirely different awards that had emanated from The Argus newspaper over the years in support of its strong advocacy of what we now call Australian Rules Football.

Furthermore, according to the way that he remembers things -- and, it must be said that his "remembering" involved both his own personal memories of The Argus newspaper, as a reader, as an Aussie Rules fan, and as a member of the Melbourne community, prior to 1945, and his "recollections" of the conversations that he had had, once he was part of the staff of the organization, with "old-timers" who had worked at a much earlier time -- it was highly likely (in fact he was almost certain of it) that both awards ran concurrently at certain periods of time.

His recollection was that there was:
 * (a) one award that was determined by a panel of sporting journalists -- he wasn't certain at all whether the journalists were exclusively from The Argus alone, or from a wide range of publications, and
 * (b) a second award that was determined by the votes of the public.

His recollection was that the second was a consequence of an accumulation of popular votes cast by the public per medium of a coupon that appeared in the pages of the The Argus; however, he could not recall whether the public cast their votes round-by-round, or whether they cast their votes on a single occasion at the end of the home-and-away season.

This claim -- that there was (a) an "experts" poll, and (b) a "spectators" poll -- would begin to make a lot of the otherwise muddied waters a little clearer. For example, it would make sense of:
 * (1) The photograph taken in 1909, appearing on page 72 of Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996, etc., dealing with the manner in which Essendon's Bill Busbridge was "named by the Argus as the Champion Footballer of Victoria this year". The photograph -- for which Ross (p.370), once again, displays his continuous and irritating error of identifying the "owner" of the photograph (in this case "State Library of Victoria"), rather than its original source (which would include the date it was taken, the newspaper in which it was published, etc.) -- shows seven men around a table, with the top of the table and the surrounding floor covered in voting slips, and its caption reads: "The men from the "Argus" count the 105,000 votes for the champion player." This would, most obviously, refer what I have referred to as the "spectators" poll.
 * (2) The two photographs appearing on page 161 of Ross, J. (ed), 100 Years of Australian Football 1897-1996, etc. amongst his two-page spread on the 1939 VFL season . ..
 * The first of which shows Jack Dyer, with some sort of cup in his hand, being congratulated by an unidentified, somewhat shorter individual, with its caption reading "Richmond's powerful ruckman Jack Dyer has something to smile about, as the recipient of the Argus Trophy for the newspaper's best player of 1939. Dyer, who is known for his tough play, has been with the Tigers for nine years" -- N.B. There must be some sort of compound error here as (a) Ross states 1939, which is wrong on all counts, and (b) Ross cites "The Age", rather than "The Argus" as his source (p.370). Given my description above, this would most likely be referring to an "experts" poll.
 * The second is a coloured picture which appears to be either a cigarette card or a giveaway cereal card or something similar (with the irritating Ross once again not identifying "the source', but identifying only "the owner", in this case "Private Collection") showing Hawthorn's Bert Mills taking an overhead mark. The caption reads "There may be bigger names from the glamour teams, but Hawthorn's Bert Mills is the spectator's favourite, according to an 'Argus' readers' poll". Although the ever-slack Ross provides no date, it is reasonable, given that Mills won Hawthorn's best and fairest -- not the  Peter Crimmins Medal as his article anachronistically, misleadingly, and irritatingly states -- in 1939, that Ross is referring to the 1939 season, and is clearly referring to a "spectators" poll.

However, regardless of Ross's slackness, it is certain that an enormous expanse of ancient records, artifacts, and memories were made available to him and, ignoring his imprecision and deplorable failure to correctly identify the true source of each piece of information that he proffers (having had the ability to do so), it seems that he is very certain that there were two different Argus polls; one by the press and one by the public.

This would, then, account for the apparent confusion in the names of the recipient in a particular year -- one being the reporters' choice, the other the fans' -- which might be the same player in some years and different players in others, and it would certainly tally with the recollections of the old bloke I met recently --whose memories, unfortunately, regardless of their truth (i.e., assuming that they are veridical), unpublished as they are, are 100% inadmissible according to standard Wikipedia house rules.

Anyway, following my conversation with the old bloke, I am now totally certain that there was such a thing as the Champion of the Colony and, later Champion of the Season. Moreover, it now seems to me that the above dispute is simply based on an endeavour to answer the following question: "Given the label Champion of the Colony/Season, what is its correct referent (i.e., the real-world "actual object") that is uniquely identified by that label)?" -- and it seems that, quite outside of all previous expectations, there may be two answers (thus, in a certain sense, making the term precisely equivocal, rather than ambiguous, as is currently being asserted). Anyway, I thought that this might somewhat illuminate the current discussion.129.94.78.159 (talk) 02:30, 20 February 2009 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to log inLindsay658 (talk) 03:00, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, Lindsay. The gentleman had some interesting comments which you have relayed to us. You are correct in assuming that the Busbridge ref in 1909 relates to a spectators poll. However, the 105,000 votes lodged were the overall total sent in by the public...not just for VFL popular player, but also for VFA popular player. There was no 'best player' award voted on by Argus journalists that year. See The Argus 27 September 1909. The public had voted for about a fortnight from 11 September onwards, winners being W Busbridge (Essendon) for VFL, and J McKenzie (Brunswick) for VFA.


 * Now for 1939. See The Argus 4 September that year for VFL award by journalists - Jack Dyer (Richmond) and Dick Reynolds (Essendon) tied with 16 votes each. See also The Argus 4 October 1939 for details about the public voting - throughout the season the public were invited to vote for a “most popular player” in both VFL and VFA. When the seasons were over it was announced that more than 750, 000 votes were received. The two winners were, VFL - Bert Mills (Hawthorn) and VFA - W Johnson (Prahran).


 * The players mentioned simply won Argus 'champion/best player' awards.


 * I don't accept that they won the Champion of the Colony/Season because in my opinion the award ever existed.

RossRSmith (talk) 12:59, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Richmond Cricketers
I note that there is a dispute on the grounds of the existence of a "Richmond Cricketers" football club in 1858.

The Richmond Cricket Club was formed in 1854. While there may not be records for it, the first football clubs weren't formed until later than this, so one can assume that "Richmond Cricketers" referred to the Richmond Cricket Club, with their players occasionally dabbling in football but without yet enough numbers to warrant the formation of a football club. This is, afterall, how the Melbourne Football Club formed (by Melbourne Cricket Club members). Given that the Punt Road Oval, where the cricket club was based since 1856 is just a stones throw from the paddocks where football was first played and that RCC and MCC regularly played cricket against each other gives more than a little credence to this theory. In fact, the RCC website specifically acknowledges Tom Wills direct involvement in the early days of the club as a matter of fact.

Intercolonial cricket also commenced in 1856 and in the period up to 1892 Richmond sent 37 men to represent the Colony including two players in George Marshall and the well known sportsman Tom Wills who in 1859 was the person most responsible for forming the framework and rules of Australian Football as captains.

Greg de Moore's book on Tom Wills notes that he was a paid member and player for the Corio, Melbourne, Geelong and also Richmond Cricket Clubs. That he is listed as Champion of the Colony for Corio, Melbourne and Geelong but that someone else won the award for Richmond given his greater involvement with Melbourne seems to make sense to me.

And it didn't/doesn't have to be a formal club to make the Champion of the Colony award valid as the Champion of the Colony, afterall, is not a club award it is simply an individual award for sportsmen. --Rulesfan (talk) 05:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I have never disputed that there was a Richmond Cricket Club. I do dispute that there was a football club called "Richmond Cricketers" in 1858. However, looks like there was a Richmond Football Club formed on Wednesday, 25 April 1860 [see The Herald 28 April 1860] and Wills is listed as Honorary Secretary.


 * I don't recall Greg de Moore's book on Wills making any reference to Wills winning the Champion of the Colony award. Nor does he mention anyone else winning such an award during Tom's lifetime. RossRSmith (talk) 10:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Great investigation work, but...
You still can't publish original research here. The article as it is, is a very poor assessment of the topic. It is focused too much on the doubts, rather than the FACT that the AFL for the past 15 years has treated it as a real award. My advice to the "amateur historians" is to get a reliable source to publish your analysis - and the most obvious outlets would be the AFL Record or a major Melbourne paper. Until then, the reliable sources are the AFL publications, which still (AFAIK, I haven't seen AFL 2010/11 yet) publish it as fact. I'm going to rewrite the intro to give a more balanced view of it, rather than just degrading it as a hoax, which it obviously isn't.The-Pope (talk) 03:33, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Another Item
The Fitzroy City Press, when reporting the proceedings of a special celebration on Wednesday 19 October 1898, states that Mick Grace had been presented with a gold medallion by the Fitzroy Football Club,in recognition of Grace "attaining the grand position of champion footballer of Victoria". Note (a) "champion footballer of Victoria", and (b) "1898".Lindsay658 (talk) 06:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, another award to Grace in 1900 season..Lindsay658 (talk) 06:43, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Explanation of the point being made the above -- This means that, unlike the article, which asserts the following — 1898, Dick Condon; 1899, Mick Grace; and 1900, Fred Leach — these contemporary newspaper reports have Mick Grace winning in 1898 and 1900, but not in 1899. Also, in support of 1898: .Lindsay658 (talk) 23:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

From the horse's mouth...
Just came across this talkpage, and the comments above do make for interesting reading. Considering this award is supposed to have been made by the Argus for some period, I thought I'd have a look on Trove (a wonderful source, if anyone hasn't heard of it). Lo and behold, four separate articles from the Argus in 1909 regarding an award for the "Champion of the Season" or "Football Champion". here and here. This was apparently a public competition, with readers required to send in a clipping with their choice for the winners of the award for both the VFL and VFA. Over 100,000 different votes were cast, though I can't imagine there being a way to stop people casting more than one vote. These articles do appear to confirm that Busbridge won the 1909 VFL award, and a John McKenzie of Brunswick won the VFA award (Results), and more importantly, that such an award did, in fact, exist. I'd be interested to hear people's responses to this, and I'll try and dig some more up on other years. IgnorantArmies?! 13:25, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * And there are apparently no other references of any sort to this award on Trove. How weird. The only explanation I can think of is that this was a once-off. I'm now leaning back the other way on this... IgnorantArmies?! 13:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The latest editions of the AFL 2010/11 season guides has changed the intro to match the idea that it was created in the 1950s by Mullen.The-Pope (talk) 13:55, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The verdict is in..."
From Dr Mark Pennings' exhaustive 12-year research and subsequent book on the first two decades of Australia football:

'''"I did not find any official reference to a ‘Champion of the Colony’ because this award did not exist…in later years, journalists for newspapers like The Age, Australasian, and The Sportsman offered different opinions (often differing) about who was the best player during the year, or by reputation, but there never was an official award." '''

‘The Origins of Australian Football: Victoria’s Early History: Amateur Heroes and the Rise of Clubs, 1858 to 1876’, pp xix, 32. Ref here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.106.161 (talk) 09:09, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Update
I think it is time for this list to be removed, indeed I'd prefer the whole article to be deleted. However, if others want the text retained simply to tell the tale of this "hoax" of recent years then so be it. Further discussion about the non-existent Champion award has been published here: http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/the-champions-that-never-were/

RossRSmith (talk) 00:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your work on this. I have to say I was sceptical of your claims at first but the research you and others have done on this leads me to the (sad) conclusion that "Champion of the Colony" was a relatively recent invention. And does anyone know of a reaction by a then-still-living player at the publication of this list? Laurie Nash got the gong twice but of course never won even a B&F for South Melbourne so I wonder what his response to an announcement that he had been awarded "Champion of the Colony" twice, although he had apparently never heard of it at the time. --Roisterer (talk) 01:17, 12 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I maintain that this list has notability, even if it was never a contemporary award. Almost everything we know about players from the early era of football is based on the opinions of sportswriters of the time; and Mullens' list (despite its acknowledged errors) is still the best consolidated list from a reliable source that we have which summarises the views of those contemporary sportswriters. By way of example, if Mullens' research led him to conclude that H.C.A. Harrison and George Coulthard were the best players in the colony in multiple years during the 1860s and 1870s, that is still a strong verifiable endorsement of their prowess as leading footballers of their time. I'm happy to amend any reference to CotC to ensure it is not described as a contemporary award; but I'm strongly opposed to eliminating all references to CotC on the basis that it was not an award. Aspirex (talk) 01:06, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. Not sure that you should even call them errors, or just discrepancies. The-Pope (talk) 03:50, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Looking more closely at the discrepancies, I agree. The one about G. S. Bruce in particular – he was definitely a member of the Richmond Cricket Club in 1858 Richmond cricket&searchLimits=l-decade=185|||l-year=1858, and since football was largely played by members of cricket clubs at the time, I would argue that it is not a "factual error" to state that he was a footballer from the Richmond Cricketers. Aspirex (talk) 22:10, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * And likewise, it is clear that Wills played cricket for Corio (but not, it seems Corio Bay) in 1857 corio cricket&searchLimits=l-decade=185|||l-year=1857. Given the fact that no independent football club of any name is known to have existed in the pivot at the time, I'd argue that the "factual error" should really be viewed to Mullens' credit – acknowledging Wills as being part of the Geelong Football Club only after that club existed, and being forced to come up with some other term for the pre-club era. Aspirex (talk) 22:32, 25 October 2014 (UTC)