The 1990

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as "Charlie"), is awarded to the "best and fairest" player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by t ...

was the 63rd year the award was presented to the player adjudged the

fairest and best In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

player during the Australian Football League (AFL) home and away season. Tony Liberatore of the

Footscray Football Club The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

won the medal by polling eighteen votes during the

1990 AFL season The 1990 AFL season was the 94th season of the Australian Football League (AFL) and the first under this name, having been known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. It was the highest level senior Australian rules football competiti ...

The Count

It was an emotional occasion for Liberatore, whose triumph capped off a great year for the

, which barely 11 months prior had survived an attempted merger with . The tiny rover had struggled to break into Footscray's senior team over the previous three seasons, started the year unsure of his place after being overlooked for a night game during the pre-season and contemplated nominating for the

AFL Draft The Australian Football League draft is the annual draft of unsigned players, especially new nominations, by Australian rules football teams that participate in the main competition of that sport, the Australian Football League (AFL). History W ...

. After earning best-on-ground votes from the umpires in the Round 5 and 6 wins over and respectively, Liberatore led the medal count and managed to hold it for the remainder of the evening, enduring an agonizing wait after not polling in the final three games of the season due to a knee injury in Round 19. winger and runner-up in the count Graham Wright finished strongly with two best-on-ground votes in Rounds 21 and 22, but fell one vote short of tying for the award, while third-placed Carlton full-back Stephen Silvagni, two votes behind Liberatore at the end of Round 19, did not gain any further votes in the final three rounds. Liberatore thus became the first VFL/AFL footballer to have won the League best and fairest award at three levels, having previously won the

Morrish Medal The Morrish Medal is an Australian rules football award. Formerly awarded to the best and fairest player in the VFL Under-19 competition (known as the Thirds prior to 1959), since 1992 the award has been given to the best player in the Victori ...

(for the Under 19s competition) in 1984 and the

Gardiner Medal {{Use Australian English, date=January 2018 The Gardiner Medal was an Australian rules football award, formerly awarded to the best and fairest player in the VFL Reserves competition. Officially named the Seconds prior to 1959 and the Reserves fr ...

twice (for the Reserves competition) in 1986 and 1988. Upon accepting the award, Liberatore thanked the club president, Peter Gordon, for saving the club, coach Terry Wheeler for the opportunity to play and for believing in him, and thanked his parents and fiancée. He also spoke of how persistence and being given a chance had helped him cement his place in the team:

I always believed that anything you do in life, you persevere and give it all you got. ... Through the love of Footscray, I decided I would stick at it. ... It goes to show that playing at that level, sometimes when the young players get an opportunity, they really play well and that's what happened to me.

Top 10 votegetters

*If a number is vacant, it indicates that the player missed that particular game. *Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led/were equal leader in the Brownlow Medal count at the end of that round. *Players with asterisks next to names indicates ineligibility to win the award due to suspension from the Tribunal.

Leading votegetters by club

References

External links

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

1990 Australian Football League season {{AFL-stub