With my father, we attended the 2023 West Australian Football League [WAFL] at Optus Oval. I am a Fremantle Football Club supporter and their alignment club in the WAFL competition qualified for the Grand Final. The team I supported as a child was East Fremantle, they qualified as well so it was a win/win day for me, no matter who won – I was going to be happy.

We decided to book a hospitality area that we do not normally attend, so this gave us a look into a different match day area. Ironically, this hospitality area is directly below our normal seats, so whilst the view of the ground did not change, we saw the hospitality area we normally miss. So we went to indulge in the game day food, it wasn’t that great to be honest, but the food and drinks package was reasonable for the price we paid.

When the game ended, I asked the security if they would open the doors to the ground at the lower viewing area to let us onto the ground. This is not too bad a request as they had let the crowd onto the ground for the premiership presentation. What made it difficult was our doors opened to the restricted media area and match day officials. However, as I had asked the security guard nicely, I had been treating him respectfully all afternoon, and we were neither threatening nor showing visible influence of alcohol, security was more than happy to let us through.

So as we were wandering around in the restricted area, the official holding the premiership cup was waiting patiently with the trophy in hand. I asked him nicely if my old man could hold the Dixon Cup before it was presented to the premiership captain of the East Fremantle Football Club, to my surprise, he was more than obliging. So I whipped my phone out and got a series of snaps of my old man holding up the Dixon Cup.

The Dixson Cup is the oldest premiership cup in Australian Rules history, inaugurated in 1885, the cup was created and promoted by Sir Hugh Robert Dixson. The cup was made in the United States to the specifications required by Dixson. The cup was to go to the first club to win the premiership three times. The first premiership was Rovers [now West Perth] in 1885, and Fremantle in 1886 with Unions [now East Perth] winning the Premiership in 1887, 1888, and 1889 and claiming the Dixson Cup.

The Dixson Cup was lost after Unions awarded the cup to the premiership captain Paddy Knox, in the 1960s the Dixson Cup was privately purchased at auction in the 1960s. When the whereabouts of the Dixson Cup became known to league officials in the 1980s, the Western Australian Football League [WAFL] first attempted legal action, this failed and after decades the Dixson Cup ended back at the WAFL where it is now presented to the premiership team as a perpetual trophy.