Honours

Collier was retrospectively rewarded a Brownlow Medal after originally tying for the 1930 award where Collier, Stan Judkins and Allan Hopkins all finished with an equal number of votes. The Umpires Board (which administered the award) recommended that no medal be awarded as there were inconsistent provisions within the rules for the event of a tie.^[1][2] Significantly, among three informal votes cast during the year, one vote from a Collingwood game was simply labelled "Collier", but as there were two Collier brothers playing in the game, the vote was not counted.^[3] The VFL board ultimately overruled the umpires board, and used the criterion that stated the medal be awarded to the player who polled the highest percentage of votes against games played to award the medal to Judkins.^[4] To avoid situations like this in the future, the rules were altered to a 3-2-1 system in 1931. In 1989, the VFL retrospectively eliminated the countbacks from all tied Brownlow Medal results, and Hopkins and Collier, while both still living, were awarded joint 1930 Brownlow Medals.^[5]

Other honours include Collier's posthumous induction into Collingwood's Team of the Century and, in 1996, induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.