McClelland Trophy

The McClelland Trophy is an Australian rules football club championship trophy, awarded each year to the club with the best aggregate performance across the Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (AFLW) home-and-away seasons.^[1]

The trophy was inaugurated in 1951. From 1951 to 1990, it was a club championship award presented to the club with the highest aggregate performance across the three grades of competition that were sanctioned by the VFL/AFL - seniors, reserves, and under-19s - with senior wins carrying a higher value.

By 1991, three interstate clubs had joined the AFL seniors without competing in the minor grades: after the AFL announced that the under-19s competition was to be shut down at the end of that season, the club championship format was discontinued.^[2] From 1991 to 2022, the trophy was presented to the minor premiers, i.e. the club that finished the AFL home-and-away season on top of the ladder.

In 2022, the expansion of the AFL Women's competition meant that all AFL clubs now fielded a men's and a women's team. Thus, from 2023, the club championship format returned, using the men's and women's seasons: both seasons were given roughly equal weightings overall, with each match in the shorter women's season having a higher weighting than each match in the longer men's season. The trophy now includes $1 million in prize money, to be shared equally between the club and its AFL and AFLW players.

Teams that win the trophy are given a simplified replica of the middle panel of the perpetual trophy, which features the AFL lettering and a round die-cast of McClelland.

The award was instituted in 1951 and is named in honour of Dr. William C. McClelland, who at that time had reached 25 years' service as President of the Victorian Football League. He had previously played 91 games for Melbourne in the VFA in 1894 and in the VFL from 1898-1904, playing in its 1900 premiership team, and captaining the club in 1901-1904. After retiring as a player, he served as a club delegate in 1905-1911, and then as club President from 1912-1926 (when he resigned to become VFL President).

From 1951-1990, the trophy was a club championship, presented to the club with the highest aggregate points across the three levels of VFL/AFL competition: seniors, Reserves and Under-19s.^[3] The points system in 1951-1953 had five points being awarded for a win in first grade (seniors), three points for a win in the 'seconds' (Reserves), and one point for a win in the 'thirds' (Under-19s). In the event of a drawn match, each team received half of the points.^[4]

In 1954, the points system was amended, weighting results slightly more in favour of senior level success and eliminating half-points from drawn matches: seniors wins were now worth ten points, with Reserves wins being worth four points and Under-19s wins being worth two points.^[5]

The 1985 season was the only time that there were joint winners of the McClelland Trophy, with Hawthorn and Carlton both finishing the home-and-away season with 228 points. Hawthorn was originally declared the winners via countback, which separated the two clubs by just 0.5% (or less than five goals) over the course of the entire season.^[6] However, less than a week later, the VFL rescinded this decision after it was discovered that the McClelland Trophy followed the rules of the Brownlow Medal, which had removed its countback system five years earlier: consequently, the Hawks and Blues were declared joint winners.^[7]

The countback system was used for the McClelland Trophy once, in 1954, after Geelong and Melbourne finished tied on points: Geelong were declared the winners by virtue of having a higher percentage in the seniors.^[8]

In 1957, a unrelated trophy of the same name was struck to reward the best Victorian player in interstate matches played against South Australia.^[9] The inaugural winner was Peter Pianto,^[10] and evidence of the award being presented continued up until at least 1965, when Footscray defender David Darcy was awarded the trophy.^[11]

With the VFL's interstate expansion from 1987 and rebranding as the AFL, the three-grade format became problematic. While Sydney had continued to field teams in all three grades following the club's relocation from South Melbourne in 1981, Brisbane had fielded a Reserves team from 1989 but not an Under-19s team, whereas WAFL and SANFL officials rejected VFL/AFL proposals for West Coast and Adelaide to field teams in the Reserves and Under-19s.

Subsequently, the AFL announced that the Under-19s competition would be shut down at the end of the 1991 season, to be replaced with a new Under-18s competition (the TAC Cup) featuring teams that were unaffiliated with the AFL clubs. Consequently, the club championship format was discontinued, and from 1991-2022, the McClelland Trophy was awarded to the team finishing on top of the AFL ladder at the end of the home-and-away season, thus becoming an award for the minor premiership.^[2]

Despite this change, some newspapers continued to publish cumulative results of the McClelland Trophy across the three grades up until Round 8,^[12] while there was notable apathy throughout the league about the award's relevance.^[13] In the event, the dissolution of the AFL Under-19s competition confirmed the discontinuation of the club championship format.

At the end of the 1999 season, the AFL Reserves competition was shut down, being replaced by alignments with the Victorian Football League and other state leagues, thus completing the league's shift to having each AFL club field one team.

In March 2023, the AFL Commission announced it had approved a proposal to incorporate the results from the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition into the awarding of the trophy, thus bringing an end to its 1991 format. This followed the expansion of the AFL Women's in the 2022 (S7) season, which for the first time saw all clubs field a team in both the men's and women's competitions.

From the 2023 AFL and 2023 AFLW seasons onward, the trophy will be presented to the club with the highest aggregate points across the home-and-away seasons of both competitions, with the winning club also being awarded $1 million prizemoney: $500,000 goes to the winning club, with $250,000 being split among that club's AFL players ($6250 per player), and $250,000 being split among that club's AFLW players ($8333 per player).

The points system for 2023 has four points being awarded for a win in the AFL home-and-away season, and eight points being awarded for a win in the AFLW home-and-away season, with four points for a draw; this reflected the AFLW's shorter season length, meaning that the men's and women's complete seasons would have approximately equal weightings. The points system will be reviewed each year, based on changes in season length.

In the event that two or more clubs are tied on aggregate points at the conclusion of both seasons, the club with the highest percentage over both the AFL and AFLW will win the trophy.^[1]

The trophy is a perpetual shield that is kept at AFL House.^[13] The original trophy features McClelland's head embossed in bronze on the centre of five panels of wood, where the names of each winning club is inscribed over the years.^[14] Clubs also receive a smaller one-panel replica of the trophy.

When the trophy format was changed to an AFL/AFLW Champion Club Trophy in 2023, the trophy was redesigned entirely. The new design consists of a glass plate in the shape of a typical Australian rules football, with the logos of both the AFL and AFLW competitions in the centre: on the side of the panel it is inscribed the words "Dr. WM C McClelland Trophy", and the base plate has the names of the winning clubs. The new trophy was presented at the AFLW Awards night in 2023.

It was altered once again in 2024 to a more traditional trophy design.

The award has been relatively low-key, with no prize money until 2023, although in recent seasons there had been a private presentation to clubs released in video format on websites.

Prior to 1991, there was no trophy for the team that qualified for the finals in first position as minor premiers, even though winning the minor premiership did come with some prestige: finishing on first on the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season ensured an advantageous draw in the AFL finals series, and is also part of the official records.^[15]

This is to allow for the fewer games played in the AFLW season compared to AFL season.

• Brisbane and West Coast (who entered the VFL/AFL in 1987) are excluded from this table as they did not field a team in all three grades in 1987–1990.
• Richmond won the trophy four times in succession in 1972–1975, the most consecutive of any club, and also won all three grades' premierships in 1973, the only club to accomplish the feat during this period.
• Collingwood (1964–1966) and Hawthorn (1984–1986, including 1985 tied) both won the trophy three times in succession.
• Thirteen of these 41 McClelland Trophy winners (1985 was a tie between Hawthorn and Carlton) went on to win the senior premiership in the same year.
• 20 of these 41 McClelland Trophy winners also won the senior minor premiership in the same year.

• Essendon (1999–2001) and Port Adelaide (2002–2004) each won the trophy three years in succession.
• Eleven of these 32 McClelland Trophy winners went on to win the AFL premiership in the same year.

Melbourne won the inaugural McClelland Trophy contested under this format in 2023. While Hawthorn won in 2024.

• List of AFL premiers
• List of AFL minor premiers
• List of AFL Women's premiers
• List of AFL Women's minor premiers