‘No way in the world’: Missing detail on AFL premiership Cup explained

It’s the trophy every team wants to lift on Grand Final day, but one missing detail continues to baffle AFL fans. Now it’s been explained.

The name of the winning team isn't added until weeks later.

It’s one of the great mysteries of AFL Grand Final day.

As the winning team does a lap of honour around the MCG, all eyes are on the premiership Cup as the players pose for photos and hoist it high in the air.

But one thing is missing from the iconic trophy at that precious moment — the name of the winning team. Instead, there is a blank space underneath the words “Premiership Won By”.

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It’s a quirk that has rankled some fans in the past, given other sports, including tennis and NFL, manage to engrave the trophy before it gets in the hands of the winner athlete or team after a title-winning performance.

But there’s a simple explanation, as the man behind the AFL Premiership Cup explained to news.com.au.

Vin Formosa of Cash’s, an insignia and medal company, has been involved in the making of the Cup since 1986. The entire process is done by hand, including the engraving of the winning team’s name.

“We do the whole thing,” Formosa said. “We still make the Cup exactly the same way it was when it was first made. So it’s all hand engraved.

“A lot of engravings these days are all done on computer. The Melbourne Cup for example, that’ll be engraved on an engraving machine. It’s in a machine, you program it up and it’ll come out engraved.

Brisbane legend and Toyota Ambassador Jonathan Brown with the 2024 AFL Premiership Cup at Toyota’s live site. Picture: Mark Stewart

“There’s not many of those guys left. We use a contractor, Jason, he’s been working for us for quite a few years now. He engraves the Cup every year and when we get it back, he also engraves the team name.

“You might see the engraving of the NFL trophy or some of these things, but it’s an inch or two long. Whereas the name that goes on the Cup is about 200mm by about 20mm in height — the text is big.

“It’s got to match the engraving that’s on the Cup itself. The Cup engraving takes about seven hours to do.

“You’re not going to be able to sit there and go, ‘Oh Collingwood’s won it’ and get someone to engrave that in 15 minutes. It’s just not going to happen.

“You can’t afford to slip because then it’s finished. There’s no way in the world that could get done.”

Collingwood’s Nick Daicos after the 2023 Grand Final. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Geelong’s Joel Selwood celebrates in 2023. Picture: David Caird

Premiership Cup myth debunked

Each year the AFL Premiership Cup goes on a national tour, with Swans 2012 Norm Smith medallist Ryan O’Keefe this year’s Cup ambassador.

But despite belief to the contrary, there is only one Cup made each year.

The Premiership Cup was first introduced in 1959 when then VFL president Sir Kenneth Luke decided there needed to be some silverware given out on Grand Final day.

The trophy weighs “around five-and-a-half kilos” and takes “about 100 hours” to make.

“It’s a bit of a task to create,” said Formosa. “It’s all handmade.”

Prior to then, the winning team would receive the traditional premiership flag, which is now unfurled at the team’s first home game the following year.

The AFL’s “retrospective program” kept Formosa busy, with clubs who won premierships before 1959 able to get a Cup to recognise their triumph.

He recalled: “I think we made about 60! Collingwood and Richmond took all theirs. Most of the clubs took all the Cups that they’d won I’ve made a lot of them.

“For a company that doesn’t make Cups, we make a lot of Cups.”

Vin Formosa of Cash's (left) and AFL CEO Andrew Dillon (right) with the 2024 Cup. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The whole thing is made by hand. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

As Formosa, affectionately known as ‘Trophy man’, explains, it’s a seriously painstaking process that is done completely by hand.

“Everything starts as a sheet of brass,” he explains.

“All the oak leaves are stamps cut out by hand. The Cup’s got to be polished, the handles are made by hand. It takes around three days just to make the handles.

“Everything you see is hand done. You’ve got to imagine, if someone gave you a big sheet of brass and said ‘Go turn that into a Cup’. It’s amazing the amount of effort and time that goes into it, and we get the product 95 per cent the same every year.”

The history involved in making the Cup is taken just as seriously as the Cup itself.

“We’re still using the same dye for the eight oak leaves that was used when the Cup was first created in 1959,” said Formosa.

“It’s nice to have the history that we’re still using the original dye.

“That shape is all cut out by handed, then soldered to the bottom of the Cup. You would not believe how much effort goes into it.

“We keep making it because it’s very high profile and prestigious. That’s why we continue to do it.”

Bulldogs legend John Schultz with the 2016 AFL premiership cup. Picture: AFL Photos

Remarkably, Cash’s makes the Premiership Cups at no cost to the AFL.

“We love making it,” Formosa said.

“We actually don’t charge the AFL for it. We donate it to them, donate it to the game.

“It’s just what we do as part of being associated with the AFL. We produce it, hand it over, and we do it for free. It’s a priceless type of product. It’s so iconic.

“We love being involved in it. It’s something we’ve been doing for the past 20 years, at no cost.

“We do everything for the AFL. We make the Brownlow, premiership medals, all the women’s trophies and awards.”

The 63-year-old has been making the Cup for nearly 40 years and has no plan to stop soon.

“I’ll probably continue doing it while I can, while I’m still physically able to,” he said.

“I still think I’ll be going for a few years.”

Has he had to do many patch up jobs?

“A lot of the older footballers do sportsman nights and those nights and they do not get treated very well at times,” Formosa said with a laugh.

“I’ve had to do quite a few repairs over the years. I’ve had to replace bodies and handles. I’ve done a lot of restoration of Cups too when they’re tarnished or have been sitting around and not looked after.”

Formosa and his team also make the Ron Barassi medal, introduced for the first time this year and given to the captain of the premiership team.

This writer is attending the AFL Grand Final as a guest of Toyota