Talk:Champion of the Colony

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[edit] 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, [1], [2] and [3] 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. —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)

[edit] "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 [4].
  • 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)