Brisbane and Carlton will honour the late Robert Walls on Thursday when the two teams meet at Marvel Stadium.
Walls passed away in May at the age of 74, having battled cancer, and decided to pass by voluntary assisted death at his home.
Born in Dunolly, Victoria, Walls started his VFL career with the Blues in 1967 and would spend a dozen years with the club, winning three premierships.
He would captain Carlton for two of those years before leaving for Fitzroy, where he spent three years, retiring at the end of 1980.
Walls would coach Fitzroy (1981-1985) for 115 games and the Brisbane Bears (1991-1995) for 109 matches.
He would coach the Blues to a premiership in 1987 in what was his second of four stints as an AFL senior coach.
The league has now confirmed a player will take out the Robert Walls Medal for matches between Carlton and Brisbane.
"It's perfect because it encapsulates pretty much his entire football career at Fitzroy, Carlton and Brisbane… he'd be so proud," Walls' son David said.
"His old man died when he was 15, and Carlton pretty much became his family. He was going to leave school and get a job to help his Mum, but the club intervened and made sure he finished school. Ron Barassi was very generous and was like a father to him… and other Carlton people like Serge Silvagni, John Nicholls and Ian Collins always looked after him."
"When he went to Fitzroy, he found a different sort of club, but he loved those players like they were his own. And then it was the same at Brisbane, where he was able to become a bit of a father figure to what became one of the great sides.
"While he wasn't directly involved in the Brisbane premiership hat-trick in 2001-02-03 it was so special to him, and he followed the progress of those guys really closely."
The inaugural Robert Walls Medal will be presented to the player adjudged best on ground.
The initiative was driven by outgoing Lions CEO Greg Swann, who approached Carlton to celebrate the contribution of Walls.
