Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide to award retrospective medals to best player from first six Showdowns
As Robbie Gray earned himself a record fifth Showdown Medal on Saturday night, the Crows and Power have agreed to retrospectively award medals to the best on ground in the first six contests.
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The best player from the first six Crows-Power clashes will each finally be retrospectively awarded a Showdown Medal.
Adelaide Crows president Rob Chapman told The Advertiser he and his Port Adelaide counterpart David Koch would now seek to fast track naming and awarding the Showdown Medals owed to the best-on-grounds in the clashes between the two fierce rivals in 1997, 1998 and 1999 before the medal was created.
The two presidents agreed at the end of 2013 to deliver retrospective Showdown Medals when the two clubs left Football Park, but the pledge has fallen by the wayside.
Chapman said that after a discussion with Koch at the Showdown earlier in the year, this would now occur.
“We thought it would be a good idea to retrospectively award them, so you have a completed set over the whole journey of 47,” he said.
“We will now leave that with (club CEO’s) Andrew (Fagan) and Keith (Thomas) to work out the detail but I can see how we engage our collective fanbases, especially those people who were there at Footy Park back in the day and whether it be a voting system or whether we establish some committees of supporter groups.”
Chapman said it was not only an opportunity to “fix” a historical wrong, but to also have some “fun” with the clubs’ respective fanbases.
“We will work that out over the next couple of weeks, it’s a good example of David and I and the two clubs working together to remedy something that isn’t right,” he said.
“We have the opportunity to fix it. History is important and there is no reason why there shouldn’t be showdown medal winners for the first two years so we will retrospectively award them.
“It’s an opportunity for us to engage our members and supporters and have a bit of fun.”
The Showdown Medal was established when the game’s original sponsor, SA Brewing, decided it wanted to present a trophy to the winning team as well as a medal to the Showdown’s best player.
Port star Robbie Gray has won the most Showdown Medals after he claimed his fifth, and third in his past three games against the Crows, on Saturday.
In Perth, West Coast and Fremantle came to an agreement to award retrospective medals for the first 12 Western Derbies, played from 1995 to 2000.