JIMMY Bartel hardly slept on Monday night but it wasn't because he was toasting his Brownlow Medal win until dawn.

Instead, the 23-year-old stayed up into the small hours, replying to all the messages left by well-wishers.

Many of them came from the Bell Park Football Club where Bartel played much of his junior footy. Hundreds gathered there to celebrate the win and hear him thank them several times in his acceptance speech. Those who know him say it is typical.

Two weeks ago, as the Bell Park boys faced a tough preliminary final, Bartel dropped in to watch training and deliver an impromptu team address. Often he can be found on Saturday afternoon watching the team at its basic home ground.

On Monday night at the clubhouse they all drank wine; special bottles with Bartel's face plastered on the label.

"I woke up this morning with quite a few phone calls in my message bank after they'd had a few wines and beers," Bartel said, as he showed off the medal at Skilled Stadium yesterday.

No one was happier than the veteran Bell Park clubman who bet $40 on Bartel at the start of the year at 300-1. He collected $12,000.

Down the street is St Joseph's College, setting for Jimmy Bartel's school days. It is a football breeding ground, producing more than 40 VFL and AFL players, including fellow Geelong stars Matthew Scarlett and Cameron Ling.

Even so, Bartel always stood out, said John Fitzgerald, who coached the St Joseph's senior side in 1999. Most of the team were year 12 boys, a handful of special talents were in year 11. The future Brownlow medallist came from year 10.

"He was always very good," Fitzgerald remembered. "A huge talent, but he had a terrific work ethic too. He was extremely courageous and he was always going to succeed."

In the corridor of the Catholic school his name is on the honour board as the best sportsman of 2001.

Three years earlier the award was won by his now-teammate Ling. Last year it was Socceroo Matthew Spiranovic, now playing in Germany's Bundesliga.

Bartel was always a gifted athlete. His junior cricket coach, Andy Allthorpe, said yesterday he could easily have succeeded at that game if football hadn't grabbed him. As it was, he was a junior state cricketer.

"He was a batsman and a bowler," Allthorpe said. "In one game we made 200 runs and he got 150 of them, he bowled spin, good medium pacers, he did it all." He was also pretty handy at tennis and golf.

Despite the natural talent, all say he is remarkably modest, level-headed and likeable.

St Joey's is a 10-minute walk west of Skilled Stadium where Bartel now plays. The Bell Park clubrooms are just a couple of kilometres to the north. Jimmy Bartel has come a long way in one sense, but in another he's stayed in the exact same place.

"He was a really nice kid and you can tell now how unaffected he is," Fitzgerald said. Even yesterday, Bartel couldn't understand how he was good enough to have earned such an honour.

He has done it with his mother Diane by his side. It was she who worked all day and then spent nights and weekends ferrying him to sporting contests all over Geelong; she who — junior coaches say — always insisted that he play in a helmet because she didn't want him hurt. Later, coaches at the Geelong Falcons advised him to take it off to maximise his chances of getting drafted.

It was she who he called on Monday night from the lavish ceremony but the noise was so loud he could hardly hear her.

She told him she was proud — of course — but also that she was glad he had bothered to shave for once in his life. Yesterday, he hadn't: the stubble was back.

Her reward has been to see her boy on football's biggest stage, but also something else. On Monday night, courtesy of a grateful Bell Park Football Club, a dozen bottles of wine labelled with Jimmy Bartel's face were on their way to her door.

While his colleagues linked arms with glamorous blondes, Bartel brought a former teammate to the medal count. His Danish girlfriend has returned to her home country for a while.

It's an interesting paradox that a man who was born, raised and still lives in Geelong and who played his school and club football a stroll away from where he now stars in the AFL, would choose a partner from the other side of the world.

But in a town where everybody knows how good he has always been, and for a man who finds all that a bit embarrassing, it is a poultice.

"I had a quick chat to her but I don't think she really knows much about football," he said yesterday. "She's just busy going about her business over there."