The Brownlow Medal

Monday Sept. 26th

Drove to Melbourne to stay in the Quality Hotel. $115 for the night with a free shuttle bus to Airport and able to leave my car there for four days for only $20. Good value when it would have cost me $99 in the Long Term Car Park. Have an early start so intended to go to bed very early. Unfortunately started watching the voting for the Brownlow Medal.

Each round, and there were 22 of them, the umpires vote on the three best players each match. The best on ground gets 3 and the others 2 and 1. The voting is like the Eurovision or like it used to be when somebody gave a toss. This was riveting viewing, the voting being interspersed with great moments in footy this year and in years gone by. At the halfway stage the favourite, Dane Swan (Collingwood) was way down the list, as was Gary Ablet (Geelong) the second favourite. Chris Judd (Carlton) took the early lead which was amazing considering he was suspended for the first three games. The players and their girlfriends/wives/partners were all sitting around dinner tables like it was the GAA Allstars. Setanta got one vote and Tadhg got two.
Jim Stynes was especially honoured. They showed clips of his career for five full minutes. They even had clips of him as a teenager playing for the Dubs. He had won the Brownlow in 1991 but he has done such great work for charity (The Reach Foundation) since then. He holds the record of the most unbroken competitive games over ten years. He has had cancer recently and continues to inspire those around him. He was elected Melbourne Person of the Year recently. “Many sports people inspires greatness but Jimmy fosters it.” He appeared at the ceremony to accept a special award and got a standing ovation which went on and on, from everyone in the hall. He still has the Dublin accent and he spoke very well. You could hear a pin drop in the hall everyone hung on every word. Twenty minutes all about Jim. He was given nine months to live fourteen months ago. Scary. Huge moment. I shed a little tear. His mantra: Do whatever it takes! WOW!
Some of the commentators there said that his story is the greatest story in the history of football.
Dane Swan was two votes behind with four rounds to go, Chris Judd was still leading. He is a class player who has already won the medal in 2004. He eventually won with 30 votes, Gary Ablet was second with 26 and the favourite Dale Swan was third with 24 votes. Chris mentioned Jim Stynes and his achievements as being greater than what any footballer does. Great excitement. Who needs the Eurovision?!