The Charles Sutton Medal is an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

award presented annually to the player adjudged

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

for the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Originally named the Footscray F ...

throughout the

Victorian Football League The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football competition in Australia operated by the Australian Football League (AFL) as a second-tier, regional, semi-professional competition. It includes teams from clubs based in east ...

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...

season. The medal is named after 1950 winner

Charlie Sutton Charlie Sutton (3 April 1924 – 5 June 2012) was an Australian rules footballer who represented in the Victorian Football League (1897–1989), Victorian Football League (VFL). He captained the Bulldogs to their first VFL premiership in ...

, who was the Bulldogs' 1954 premiership captain-coach. There were many previous names for the medal, which was originally known as the McCarthy Trophy from 1927 to 1939, named after Con McCarthy, who played a key part in getting the club entry into the

. It was also called the Con Weickhardt trophy (also known as the Con Curtain trophy) from 1940 to 1954. It was named after the man who chaired the club for 4 years. It was renamed to its current name in 1955. The inaugural winner for the award was Ivan McAlpine in 1927. The voting system as of the

2019 AFL season The 2019 AFL season was the 123rd season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior men's Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season feature ...

, consists of five members of the

match committee awarding a score from zero to five for each player after every game. The maximum score that can be obtained after one game is 25. Five players have won the award while also winning the

Brownlow Medal The Charles Brownlow Trophy, better known as the Brownlow Medal (and informally as Charlie), is awarded to the best and fairest player in the Australian Football League (AFL) during the home-and-away season, as determined by votes cast by the f ...

, the best and fairest award for the

. Those players were Norman Ware (1941), John Schultz (1960), Gary Dempsey (1975),

Kelvin Templeton Kelvin Templeton (born 30 September 1956) is a former Australian rules footballer. At sixteen years of age Templeton kicked 100 goals for Traralgon in the 1973 Latrobe Valley Football League season. Footscray, within whose country zone Trara ...

(1980) and Scott Wynd (1992). Scott West holds the record for most Charles Sutton Medals at the club, winning the accolade seven times in ten years; 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Gary Dempsey and Marcus Bontempelli are in second with a total of six. Dempsey also holds the record for most Charles Sutton Medals won consecutively, his streak running from 1973 to 1977, a total of five years.

Recipients

Multiple winners

References

;''General'' * * ;''Specific'' {{bestandfairest Western Bulldogs Australian Football League awards Australian rules football-related lists