Chris Grant hopes Sam Mitchell doesn't win Brownlow Medal

FORMER Footscray star Chris Grant hopes Hawthorn's Sam Mitchell does not poll the most votes in tonight's Brownlow Medal.

Sam Mitchell

FORMER Footscray star Chris Grant hopes with all his heart that Hawthorn's Sam Mitchell does not poll the most votes in tonight's Brownlow Medal count.

Grant, 38, knows all too well the feeling of "winning" a Brownlow when ineligible - a miserable experience in 1997 when he polled 27 votes to finish one ahead of St Kilda's Robert Harvey.

There are eerie similarities between the Grant of 1997 and the Mitchell of 2011.

Grant was judged best afield by the umpires in Round 7 against Hawthorn at Princes Park, only to be controversially later reported by then AFL football operations manager Ian Collins.

Grant received a one-match suspension for an open handed slap to the head of Nick Holland. He won several media awards that year, and his team suffered a two-point loss in the preliminary final to Adelaide.

Mitchell was controversially pulled up by the Match Review Panel for head-high contact on Geelong's Steve Johnson in Round 5. He could accept a reprimand and play the following week, or contest the charge and risk suspension. He chose the former.

Mitchell has since won several media awards, and on Friday night his Hawks suffered a heart-breaking three-point preliminary final loss to Collingwood.

Grant said he had no thoughts of Brownlow medals during that 1997 season, but come the night he started to feel slightly sick as the vote count progressed.

Because he was ineligible he did not receive an invitation so watched it at home with teammate Brad Wira. He takes up the story.

"I remember saying to 'Spewy' Wira something like 'oh no, this could be bad'," recalled Grant, who played 341 games (554 goals) with the Bulldogs between 1990-2007. "I polled a few votes early on and was always up with the leaders and knew that I had finished the season well. Sure enough, I got eight votes in the last three games to top the voting.

"Looking back it probably would have been better had I not won. My fear is it is going to happen again this year with Sam Mitchell who, like me, is ineligible.

"He has elevated himself to far and away his best year and from what I have seen will surely poll very well. But I absolutely hope it doesn't happen. It would be better to lose by one vote as I did in 1996 (when second to James Hird and Michael Voss)."

Grant was regarded as an extremely fair player throughout his decorated career, although he admits being guilty when rubbed out for striking Leigh Colbert in 1998. But the incident with Holland draws a different reaction.

"In my own mind I know the contact warranted a free kick and nothing more. It was an open slap in a marking contest," he said.

"The Brownlow medal is a great award with so much history to it and I will watch it with interest. But I really do think Mitchell will be in the top three. In 1997 with two rounds to go the press started turning up at our front door.

"I said something to 'Spewy' like 'tell me this isn't happening'. Two days earlier we had been beaten in a really close preliminary final against Adelaide so it was a bad time.

"The phone was ringing off the hook and suddenly 'Plough' (senior coach Terry Wallace) and footy manager Gary O'Sullivan turned up. We stayed up for a while. In fact I can remember the sun coming up."