THESE days a Brownlow Medal count comes with the all-singing, all-dancing glare of the multi-media spotlight, a spectacularly attired companion, and all the glitz and glamour a gathering of 1400 football identities at the Crown Ballroom can muster.

Unless, of course, you are Dane Swan on Mad Monday in 2007 and you are wearing a Spiderman costume, unaware that late in the count you are in contention for footy's greatest individual accolade.

It's all terribly different to 1969, when Kevin Murray was at a function organised by a Fitzroy coterie group, the Lionhunters, who held their own best and fairest count and listened to the Brownlow count on radio.

"I happened to win on that night, and about 30 of them carried me on their shoulders down Bourke St, blocking the trams, down to Swanston St. We did a right hand turn up to the Town Hall, blocking the trams again, then another right hand turn into Collins St, still blocking the trams, and back to Queen St, where the dinner was," Murray said before the 2008 count.

It was a happier occasion than in 1961, when Murray was bookies' favourite for the medal. Lou Richards and Ron Casey from HSV-7 sat in his kitchen listening to the count on radio. "They bolted half way through when it was clear I wasn't going to win," Murray said.

Footscray's John Schultz, who won in 1960, had a similar tale to Murray's of media personalities sitting in his home ready either to get the first interview with the victor or to nick off quickly somewhere else. Schultz hosted Richards and Jack Dyer, and when he was announced as the winner he was whisked off to GTV-9 for an interview with Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight.

St Kilda's Verdun Howell lost on a countback to Bob Skilton in 1959, but was awarded a retrospective Brownlow when the rules were changed in the 1980s. He was training for a night series match – teams that failed to make the finals played a knockout series under floodlights at the Lake Oval – and was in the showers when one of his teammates poked his head around the door and told him he'd just been beaten in the Brownlow.

Howell said he felt that favourites for the medal in the modern era "couldn't afford to read the papers" such was the pressure of expectations placed on them as individuals. "People came along to watch contests like Neil Roberts playing on Ted Whitten, but there was no television coverage and we weren't pinpointed as much."

A more recent winner, dual medallist Greg Williams (1986 and 1994), also said he felt for the count favourites. "It's not good," he said. "You don't enjoy it at all. There's a lot of pressure on you, and it's not enjoyable – it's okay if you win it, but I've come second before ..."

Hawthorn's Robert DiPierdomenico came with no expectations of winning in 1986 when he shared the Brownlow with Williams, famously declaring on the night that he had only been at the function for the free meal.

And unlike his fellow medallist, Dipper reckoned the count was fun for those in contention. "Get in there and enjoy yourself. This changes your life forever. This puts you in the spotlight forever. If you never play football again you'll always be a Brownlow Medallist, and we hold that dear to our hearts."