Why Was Richmond’s Best and Fairest Named After Jack Dyer?
Updated: Aug 30
The full RTSSG member feature, Did you know the Jack Dyer Medal wasn't always The Jack Dyer Medal?, opens the deeper investigation behind this Public question.
Richmond supporters know the club best and fairest as the Jack Dyer Medal. The award, however, carried another Richmond great’s name before Captain Blood became its permanent public identity.
Who was Vic Thorp, and why was Richmond’s leading individual award once the Vic Thorp Memorial Shield? What did Thorp represent to a club still establishing its early VFL identity?
How did Jack Titus become the first recipient of that memorial award, and what changed later when Jack Dyer’s name came to dominate Richmond’s language of individual excellence? Was the renaming simply about recognising the club’s most famous figure, or does it tell us something about how sporting institutions continually rewrite the hierarchy of memory?
What gets preserved when an award changes names, and what risks slipping out of everyday supporter knowledge? How many Richmond stories remain hidden behind names that once carried enormous meaning?
The member feature goes back to the award before the Jack Dyer Medal and restores the people and context behind it.
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