While much of the pregame focus on Sunday surrounded Tom Harley’s lap of honour and the unfurling of the 2009 premiership flag, the Cats pulled another surprise with the club having premiership cups minted to commemorate early successes.

The AFL first handed out a premiership cup following the 1959 grand final, meaning that the club did not have cups from its 1925, 1931, 1937, 1951 and 1952 successes.

The Cats hierarchy arranged for cups to be minted and in the pregame festivities each of these were paraded with either a past premiership player or a family member of a past premiership player.

Cliff Rankin, the nephew of the 1925 premiership captain of the same name, presented cup from that season; Bill Clymo, the nephew of former coach Charlie Clymo paraded the 1931 cup, the 1937 cup was handled by Meg Wilkie, the daughter of the 1937 premiership coach, Reg Hickey, the 1951 cup was presented by Ron Hovey and the 1952 cup by Bill McMaster. Both Hovey and McMaster were members of the back-to-back wins.

The club’s 1963 cup was paraded by captain Fred Wooller and Matthew Scarlett represented the 2007 team.

Following the parade of cups, Harley and Mark Thompson unfurled the 2009 flag to a thunderous ovation from the nearly 30,000 packed into Skilled Stadium.