Collingwood champion and Brownlow medallist Dane Swan has been inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

On a night when Hawthorn’s champion goal-kicker Jason Dunstall was due to officially be elevated to Legend status, Swan was the fourth inductee at Tuesday’s gala event in Melbourne.

But his special honour was slightly spoiled by the club after it accidentally released the information four hours before the event.

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The charismatic Swan had an incredible 15-year career with the Magpies and famously won the Brownlow Medal in 2011.

Swan was at times criticised for not looking like a professional athlete, and courted his share of off-field controversy, but was a genuine star of the competition on the field.

Before his Hall of Fame recognition, Collingwood pushed out a statement about the achievement which at least one journalist shared on social media.

The club then issued another statement, titled, ‘Attention All Media Regarding Previous Communication’.

The club pleaded to “all media” to “keep an embargo on the communications issued a short time ago regarding the Australian Football Hall of Fame”.

“This will be announced on Fox Footy after 9pm tonight,” the club said.

“The club apologises for this technical error.”

While Collingwood may have accepted it blew the surprise, Swan also unwittingly acted as a spoiler as well.

The 40-year-old took to Instagram a few hours before the event and posted a photo of himself dressed in a dazzling suit and surrounded by frocked-up friends.

“Just a quiet Tuesday night,” Swan said in the caption.

Fans, of course, immediately knew what was happening.

“Congratulations legend,” one fan wrote.

“Congratulations – definitely due!” another wrote.

And another: “Congratulations legend! Finally!”

And another said: “Congrats great man well deserved.”

Swan played 258 games for Collingwood and was a key cog in their 2010 premiership-winning team.

He was also an All-Australian on five occasions and boasts the second-highest average possessions among all retired players at 26.9 (the ball-magnet’s biggest possession game was a whopping 49 against Hawthorn in 2012).

Swan is a three-time Collingwood best-and-fairest winner and a two-time Anzac Day medallist (for best on ground during the Anzac Day games between the Magpies and Bombers).

Former Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse said Swan’s approach to football behind the scenes belied his public persona, and was crucial to his success.

“Dane is the sort of player that gives the impression that he’s a bit loose … but he’s a very, very proud person. I can see the other side of Dane,” Malthouse said in a video tribute to his former superstar.

“What a lot of people don’t realise is he’d go into the altitude room, put the heaters on to 30 degrees, pump it up to nearly 4000m, he’d get on the running machine and didn’t publicise it, and come away knowing that he could get through a match with the speed and power that he could take on any tagger and anyone in the middle.

“That was his secret.”

Inaugural Adelaide Crows captain Chris McDermott, brilliant Footscray forward Kelvin Templeton and New South Wales pioneer Ralph Robertson were also acknowledged on Tuesday night.

And Hawthorn’s champion goal-kicker Jason Dunstall was officially elevated to Legend status.

A four-time premiership player with Hawthorn, Dunstall kicked 1254 goals in a glittering 269-game AFL/VFL career before injuries forced him into retirement in 1998.

Only Tony Lockett (1360) and Gordon Coventry (1299) are higher on the competition’s all-time list of leading goal-kickers.

Dunstall was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002, as soon as he became eligible.

– with AAP