Player Rater

9th September 2011 Category: Feature

Images: Slattery Media Group

Some say Murphy, some say Mitchell, some say Judd. Who was the footballer of the year for 2011? To find the answer, we’ve bought together the results of 3 major media awards - The Age Football of the Year, ABC Footballer of the Year and the Herald Sun Player of the Year. 

The 3 awards and their voting structure:

Age journalists vote for their 5 best on ground. A total of 5 players receive votes, but the journalist can decide how many votes each of the top 5 receive. The maximum number of votes a player can receive is 10.

ABC commentators vote for their 3 best on ground. 3 votes for best on ground. 1 vote for the 3rd best on ground.

Herald Sun journalists vote for their 5 best on ground. 5 votes for best of ground. 1 vote for the 5th best on ground. 

Earlier in the year we also included the AFLCA votes, but they can’t be included here because votes for the final 4 rounds of the AFLCA award are cast ‘in house,’ with the winner announced on September 27. Click here to see the results up to Round 19. 

The contenders:

Scott Pendlebury: Third in the Herald Sun award and fourth in AFLCA award at the end of Round 20.

The voting parameters for each award vary slightly, so in order to aggregate the votes fairly, the total votes for each player in each award have been divided by the maximum number of votes available per game. For example: the maximum number of votes that can be awarded in the ABC award is 3 - so the total votes for each player in the ABC award are divided by 3.

By the system below, the footballer of the year for 2011 is... Sam Mitchell.