Rugged Essendon midfielder Jason Johnson has joined esteemed company this evening becoming one of a select group of players to win more than one Crichton Medal. Johnson was named Essendon's best and fairest player for season 2005 in front of more than 1200 people at a function at Crown Palladium.

Johnson was amazingly consistent throughout the season polling votes in 19 of the 22 games. His best performance of the year came in round 22 against Melbourne when he polled 24 votes. He finished the count on 308 votes, 43 votes ahead of early leader Mark Johnson.

Mark Johnson had a commanding 44 vote lead after 12 rounds but failed to poll a vote in five of the seven games between round 13 and round 19, allowing Jason Johnson to establish a winning lead.

One of the biggest stories to come out of the count was the performance of second-year player Brent Stanton who polled 253 votes to finish clear in third place. It was a remarkable finish for Stanton considering he had just eight votes after eight rounds of the season. He polled votes in every game for the remainder of the year to storm into third place.

Other notable performances included first-year Bomber Andrew Lovett (155) who finished in ninth place. Adam McPhee (8th) and David Hille (10th) also polled particularly well given the amount of football they missed through injury.

The highest polling games of the season included Mark Johnson (27) for his six-goal performance against Carlton in Round 21. Adam McPhee (27) and Andrew Lovett (27) were the only other players to reach that mark and they both did it in the one game against Fremantle in Round 8.

The final finishing order in the 2005 Crichton Medal was:

Jason Johnson 308
Mark Johnson 265
Brent Stanton 253
Scott Lucas 217
Dustin Fletcher 208
James Hird 208
Damien Peverill 171
Adam McPhee 159
Andrew Lovett 155
David Hille 142
Matthew Lloyd 135
Mark McVeigh 124
Andrew Welsh 123
Nathan Lovett-Murray 108
Kepler Bradley 87
Justin Murphy 84
Dean Solomon 40
Jason Laycock 36
Ricky Dyson 32
Mark Bolton 25
Ty Zantuck 25
Dean Rioli 20
Paul Thomas 14
Aaron Henneman 13
Ted Richards 8
Jobe Watson 7
Marl Alvey 5
Angus Monfries 5

Note: How voting works: The three people who vote on the Crichton Medal can give up to eight players a maximum of 10 votes per game.

Multiple winners of the Crichton Medal:
7 – Dick Reynolds. Bill Hutchison
4 – Simon Madden, Tim Watson, James Hird
3 – Tom Fitzmaurice, Wally Buttsworth, John Birt, Barry Davis, Graham Moss
2 – Jason Johnson, Mark Thompson, Ken Fraser, Reg Burgess, Jack Clarke

Other Award winners were:
Best First Year Player: Andrew Lovett
Most Courageous: Dustin Fletcher
Best Clubman: Nathan Lovett-Murray
Most Improved: Brent Stanton
Leading Goalkicker: Matthew Lloyd