The highlight of the dockerland calendar has come and gone with Clinton Wolf Medal presentation night being held at the Doig Palladium (the tin shed out the back) last night. While none of the players actually showed, they were there in spirit as the medals and trophies were allocated to the winning players. From the Golden Helmet to the CWM, it really was the night of nights.

Much like the Dockers season, things didn't go exactly to plan early on in the Clinton Wolf Medal Night. Freo supporters will remember that last year's event was marred by the fact that we'd left the Doig Palladium out for rubbish pickup during the season after it had rusted through. Unfortunately, construction of the new Doig Palladium had a projected completion date of early January 2006 but problems with not being able to find the right sort of screwdriver and the cricket coming on the television saw the project abandoned. No one had told the Clinton Wolf Medal Organising Committee about the construction problems though and there was a bit of panic as the guests started arriving. There was a quick rush to move proceedings to the Doig Stadium but there was a lot of old paint tins and unwanted exercise equipment taking up space. Luckily we had the Doig Tarp on standby and were able to hook it up to the Doig Clothesline to create a temporary facility - the Doig Arena.

There was another hiccup when it was time for the entertainment portion of the evening to kick off. Irene Cara was supposed to perform her classic hit "What a Feeling" but there must have been a bad connection over the phone and they miss heard the request for Irene Carr, Matthew & Josh's great aunty. She got into the spirit of things and did her best but the pink leotard probably fitted her better in the 80's when she was in hers.

It wasn't long before the presentations of awards got underway and first up was the much coveted John Hutton Award for highest goal kicker. Matthew Pavlich donned the Golden Helmet this year, improving on his tally of 61 goals last year with a lazy 71. It was Pav's second Golden Helmet but, sadly, he missed out on winning the Tony Modra Golden Thongs for the most goals ever in a match, only managing to get as far as 6 goals in a game.

Then it was onto the Linda Blair Cup which, as you all know, is for the player who has the most possessions in a season. Last year saw the Hasleby/Bell combination surrender the trophy for the first time in living memory but St Peter was back amongst this year, picking up an extra 120 possessions. By the end of the season he needed three catholic priests and a lend of the Doig Tarpaulin to sort himself out.

The glamour awards of the night are always as popular as they are controversial, and The Peter Carey Medal for mark of the year was no exception. As always, there were a few contenders this year. Pavlich, McPharlin, Hasleby, The Wiz...the list of screamers was endless but in the end it came down to two stand out performers. David Mundy rose above a pack of Essendon players as Fremantle started their charge on the top 4, hitting the ground with a thud and requiring a new kidney the new next day. In the last round of the home and away, Byron Schammer tried to go one better, jumping over the top of Tommy Logan, getting horizontal to the ground, and hanging onto the footy while his head tested out just how hard the Subiaco surface is.

It was a tough decision to split the two and more than one trip to the casualty ward was made while the aggressive debate took place but, in the end, Byron Schammer was handed The Peter Carey Medal based on the fact that he's absolutely no chance to ever get up that high again.

There were plenty of memorable goals of the year in 2005 with Matthew Pavlich giving us 71 to choose from and Jeff Farmer a lazy 55 but, when it came time to pick the Chrome Aeroplane Award winner it was a unanimous yet still controversial decision. For the first time in the rich history of the award, the winner was actually 4 blokes.

 It had all the ingredients of one of the classic goals of all time. It was exciting, it was brilliant and it was against the Eagles. Heath Black’s raking left foot got the party started as he kicked the ball out towards Jeff Farmer at half back. The Wiz had Selwood and his rubber glove closing in on him so he leapt into the air and smashed the ball over his head into the path of Michael Johnson. Johnson plucked the footy out of the air, dodged around a couple of Eagles, throwing in a blind turn so he could get a look at their faces while he goosified them, then he handpassed off to a streak of white that the slow motion replay has shown was Brett Peake. Peake started bouncing his way towards the goals, players desperately lunging in his direction but unable to even get close, then he sailed the ball over the goal umpire head for goal number 8.

Of course we like to take a bit of the focus off the players sometimes and attention soon shifted to the premier WA football media award - the Brodie Holland Medal. It's hard to think of a year where there have been more contenders for the Brodie. Who could forget the call from that bloke with the shrinking beard to have the coach sacked or when he called Shaun McManus soft or had another crack at Matthew Pavlich's ability, the fat bloke with the nightly radio show who keeps chucking tanties when he's not allowed to pick fights on a website, the endless efforts of Monkey Butler and Chips Wilson to try and get a reaction out of Freo supporters, or even Australia's favourite Commentator and his weekly attempt to set up Pav and Chris.

Then there was the brilliance of George. He might be old man staring down the ever approaching battle with senility but there's still no one who can hop on and off a bandwagon as fast as George. He had too many highlights in 2006 to mention but he topped off his outstanding season in the days after the Grand Final by declaring Fremantle's "window of opportunity" closed.

There were so many contenders this year we had to call in NASA to calculate the votes but the winner still managed to stand out like a crumpet on a tray of muffins. In fact, it was back to back Brodies for this man. Kim Hagdorn - keeping the dream alive for the village idiots everywhere who hope to make a living of writing for a Sunday paper.

After a season of sniping, back handers and kicking them every time they down, Fremantle started to string a few wins together and Kim quickly ran out of things to bag the Dockers for. So, like a punch drunk boxer with nothing left to throw but wild punches at the air, he unleashed a tirade against the Fremantle players because the knots on their ties weren't perfectly symmetrical. Apparently footballers showing up to functions in tailored suites didn't quite meet up to the lofty standards set by newspaper journalists.

Back to the blokes with ability and some of the less glamorous awards were handed out before the big one. The Scott "Prince of the Pockets" Chisholm Sceptre for the best nickname was a tight contest.

By shear weight of numbers Chris Connolly was a short priced favourite, he's picked up a bucket load of nick names this year (few of them able to be repeated) but the 2006 winner of the Prince of Pockets Sceptre went to Paul Hasleby. After a string of shockers, the boys at the club starting calling him 'Adolf', because the stats sheet said he'd only got one ball.

Jeff Farmer was defending his Pewter Crank award for best wind up of the year and was nominated for his work in the Derby but was pipped by Ryan Crowley in the same game. Crowley managed what many would have thought was an impossible task when he stirred up the Eagles cheersquad - he got Fat Daniel out of his seat. Fat Dan went on to become a cult hero at the Eagles and later the official spokesperson of their fans. So now, whenever anyone wants to hear what the average Eagles supporter thinks - Fat Dan is the go to man. Which should provide Freo supporters with years and years of entertainment.  Well down Crowls.

The Maurice Rioli Medal for the best turtle of the season was the least controversial award of the night. Justin Longmuir - a bloke with a reputation as a bit of a hard man, who put Barry Hall down on his back in the Preliminary-Finals won it hands down for his hit a week earlier against the Demons. Nic Smith hadn't played a game in 3 years and, after Jlo knocked him up into the air and down onto his back in the closing minutes of the Semi-Final, he's unlikely to play for another 3 years.

The Dale Kickett Red Boot for most courageous player was one of the most hotly contended awards with more playing carrying busted limbs than a Snowtown rubbish truck. Paul Hasleby struggled with a broken spine, Justin Longmuir was held together with sticky tape for most of the year, Jeff Farmer kept kicking goals despite coming down with leprosy in one of his legs and Matthew Carr managed to play on after being knocked out by a small, wiry small rookie but the winner was Aaron Sandilands. After having his jaw broken, he not only refused to dob in the bloke who king hit him from behind, he took himself down to the hospital, knocked back the  anaesthetic while they were re attaching his jaw bone, and showed up at training a week later to work on his tackling. A few weeks later he was back on the ground and had Fremantle's season back on track..

With most of the silverware handed out it was time for the business end of the night, the presentation of the Clinton Wolf Medal.

Brett Peake was an early favourite for the award once it was established the Clinton Wolf Medal Voting Committee were prepared to hand out votes to him even in games he wasn't playing in but it didn't take long for Peter Bell to stamp his authority on the award. By the time the final siren blew on the Dockers season, Bell has put the rest of the team to shame with daylight coming in second and third.

So congratulations to all winners and we all look forward to seeing you go around again in 2007.