Marty Gleeson wins VAFA's 2023 Woodrow Medal

The Koroit export, who played 97 AFL games with Essendon between 2013-2021, was awarded the Woodrow Medal last week, given to the Victorian Amateur Football Association premier men's division best and fairest player.

The 29-year-old, who missed around a month of action with a medial collateral ligament (knee) injury, polled 19 votes to narrowly clinch the VAFA's highest honour ahead of Collegians forward Dave Mirra (18 votes) and Old Brighton Grammarians vice captain Tom Fisher (16 votes).

"It was a bit of a surprise, I didn't have too many expectations going into the night," Gleeson told The Standard of his win.

"It was a good surprise to sneak across the line.

"I'm very humbled and I didn't think it would happen. This year we had a better year than last year and we won a few more games which helped."

Gleeson, in his second year with the club, said it was disappointing to fall short in the preliminary final against St Kevin's but paid tribute to his teammates for his individual success.

"It very much is a team award," he said.

"I've got some great teammates that help me play the footy I'm able to play and to see their excitement as well made it even better."

The star half-back isn't the first member of his family to take home the medal either, with cousin Quinton, also a Koroit export, winning it almost two decades ago with Uni Blues.

"He (Quinton) won it back in 2004 so he was pretty quick to remind me that he should have won two," Gleeson said.

"It was pretty cool to have another Gleeson name on there."

Gleeson has loved his time with Uni Blues, which he described as "sort of like a big country club" home to many university students from all over the state.

The senior side featured significant top-end talent this season, with more than a handful of ex-AFL players - including Gleeson - featuring in the side's preliminary final.

The club also has a storied history of recruiting other former Hampden league players, with Mojwok Akoch (South Warrnambool) and Sam Cozens (Koroit) teammates of Gleeson this year, while 2023 Roosters premiership player Jeremy Mugavin played in the club's premier division flag in 2019.

Quinton Gleeson is still involved and on the club's committee.

Outside of football, Gleeson is studying at RMIT university and works for Beon Energy Solutions.

He is enjoying life two years after the Bombers delisted him but admitted it did take time to adjust after being a professional athlete for nine years.

"It's been great, I've been lucky I've been supported by a lot of good people, family, friends, fiancee, (people) around me and I've landed a really good job," he said.

"(I've) been with Beon Energy Solutions for a bit over 18 months and it's going great. Learning a lot which is good and I guess towards the end of my footy career I was pretty tired and fatigued.

"I felt like I had pretty much given everything that I could to that. So I sort of walked away content with where it was all at, no animosity or anything which is a good place to leave it.

"I'm really enjoying it, definitely does take a bit of time to get adjusted to but you get into that routine and I'm really enjoying it."

Gleeson's knee still isn't 100 per cent but he believes it will be good come 2024.

The former Bomber is already looking toward next season and hopes his youth-laden side can go even further.

"We're a very young side, I think in our prelim we had 12 or 13 guys under the age of 22 in our team," he said.

"They all love their footy and want to learn and get better so it's quite refreshing having them at training and playing with them every week, going along.

"So it's a lot of fun hanging out with them and there's obviously a good core group of older fellas as well.

"I've absolutely loved it and this year (in the second semi-final loss) we were two points away from going straight through to the grand final and then couldn't quite get there in the prelim.

"I think next year with improvement from all them younger fellas I think we'll be around the mark again."

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