Why the Collingwood Magpies should rename the Copeland Trophy after Scott Pendlebury
At Collingwood the best and fairest player in any season wins the EW Copeland Trophy.
This is a beautiful, storied trophy, originally a shield, now an engraved medal in a display box, dating back to the origins of the foundation club and bearing the names of some of the best players currently playing VFL/AFL football.
One man who is not one of the best players in the club’s or VFL/AFL history is the man for whom the award is named: EW Copeland.
The cup, which rewards the club’s best player in a season, bears the name of the manager who donated the cup.
Ernest “Bud” Copeland did much for Collingwood as a lifelong manager, a club secretary whose business acumen reportedly helped them recover from the depression of the 1890s, save Victoria Park from dilapidation and transform the Magpies into the formidable club they became.
He was the one who felt that the club should have done more to honor its best champions and donated the shield to the club’s best player. He was a working man whom the working-class club should rightly remember and respect, but not by putting his name to the award that recognizes the best and fairest player each year.
When, or at this pace, the Methuselah of football finally retires, the club should also retire the EW Copeland Trophy and rename it the Pendlebury Trophy. It’s time. Collingwood must change, Essendon must change too.
The best player award should be named after one of the club’s best players. Richmond does this with the Jack Dyer Medal. Carlton with the John Nicholls Medal. But Collingwood and Essendon continue to bear the name of a respected manager on the best and fairest medal with the WS Crichton Medal.
Honoring great rulers has a legitimate place, but not in the annual award given to the best and fairest.
Essendon have more pressing problems at the moment, such as winning games, so such a change is not at the forefront of mind. At Collingwood, Pendlebury’s playing record certainly stands out. Provides momentum for change.
Whether Pendlebury is the club’s best ever player is debatable; not, for example, the remarkable Nathan Buckley, who won Brownlow and a Copeland from Pendlebury, or Bob Rose, whose genius was constrained by the footballing economics of the time, or Len Thompson, another Brownlow medalist and archetype of the modern rucks. And then there are either the Coventry brothers – Gordon, the goal-scoring record holder, or Syd, a two-time best and fairest winner and captain when “The Machine” won the four-peat – or Peter Daicos, because you’ve never seen anyone like him.
But the record of the match now makes a compelling case for Pendlebury’s career and what he represented to the club more broadly as a modern Collingwood player.
Pendlebury has won the Copeland Cup five times. Pendlebury finished second on a further six occasions and in 11 of his 20 completed seasons Pendlebury was among the top two players at the club. If you add in the fact that he finished third three times, it looks like he finished in the top three in 14 of 20 seasons, more than two-thirds of his career.
He also has six All-Australian titles, the Norm Smith Medal, four Anzac Medals, two premierships, of course, and he has also captained the club more times than any other Collingwood player.
Recency bias is difficult to resist in sport, but this should not ignore the fact that the club’s Pendlebury achievements encompass a comparison spanning the entire history of the game.
He has now played more VFL/AFL games than anyone else; this is a record that adds to his previous achievements as he has more disposals, tackles and goal assists than any player to ever lace up a boot.
These are not facts that should be taken lightly, but what takes Pendlebury as a player beyond those numbers is what Collingwood has done to help them get to where they are today as a club. He followed in the footsteps of greats Tony Shaw and Buckley to help develop this club into the giant it is today.
Pendlebury broke box office records during his time as an actor. He took part in teams watched by more than 23 million people; that number is more than any other player in the history of the game.
If 90,000 people turn out Saturday for a game that would probably have been half as many draws had it not been for his breakthrough, it will be the 25th time he will play in front of 90,000 or more. Nearly half of the plays he performed (more than 200) were performed in front of more than 50,000 spectators.
The club will spend the next months (perhaps a year or more if it continues) working out what it needs to do to properly recognize him when he’s done. No doubt they will consider the idea of renaming Copeland, perhaps naming a high-performance center or district after him and perhaps erecting a statue. All valuable ideas. But they should not be the only ones who should consider what needs to be done to recognize his extraordinary career.
As you walk from Jolimont Station towards the MCG you pass statues of Norm Smith, Kevin Bartlett, John Coleman and Jim Stynes. They are all champions.
As well as the above records, the MCG should consider adding another one for the man who played more games on the famous ground and was watched by more people than any other (and therefore significantly funded the redevelopment of the ground).
This is not an exaggeration. Pendlebury’s achievements defy exaggeration.
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specializing in AFL and athletics.Connect with: X or email.
