The time has come for Collingwood to rename the Copeland Trophy |
The time has come for Collingwood to rename the Copeland Trophy
May 19, 2026 — 5:15pm
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The best-and-fairest player at Collingwood in any one season wins the E.W. Copeland Trophy.
It is a lovely, storied award – originally a shield, now an engraved medal in a display box – that reaches back to the very origins of the foundation club and now carries the names of some of the greatest players to play VFL /AFL football.
One name on it that is not one of the greatest players in the club’s history, nor that of the VFL/AFL, is that which gives the award its name: E.W. Copeland.
The trophy to acknowledge the greatest player for the club in a season is named after an administrator who donated the trophy.
Ernest “Bud” Copeland did a lot for Collingwood as a life-long administrator, a club secretary whose business acumen reportedly helped them survive the depression of the 1890s, to rescue Victoria Park from dilapidation and to grow the Magpies into the fearsome club they became.
It was he who felt the club should do more to honour their best champions, and donated the shield for the club’s best player. He was a working man whom the working-class club rightly should remember and respect, but just not by giving his name to the award that recognises the best-and-fairest player each year.
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