Liam Picken may win the inaugural Gary Ayres medal as best player in this year’s finals series, but there was a time where no AFL club wanted him. 

Liam is the son of Billy who played 2012 games for Collingwood, was twice the club’s best and fairest and finished third in the 1977 Brownlow. 

The 30-year-old Liam was overlooked by the Pies as a potential father-son draft pick before being rookie-listed in 2009 by the Bulldogs, but only because Williamstown subsidised his income. 

‘(Collingwood) just probably thought he wasn’t good enough to take under the father son,’ Billy said. 

‘The club that he came from paid his wages the first year, they paid the Western Bulldogs his first year.

‘They felt he should be given an opportunity and I think all the AFL clubs felt he didn’t.’

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