https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au The complete history of Australia's greatest sporting club Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:13:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.21 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-miracle-of-58/ Sun, 08 Jul 2018 02:32:30 +0000 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=12877 reallyspecial, however, is not just that the team somehow found a way to win in all those circumstances; it’s that, by doing so, they allowed the club to hold on to one of its most cherished records, the four-in-a-row of The Machine. That’s what gives the 1958 flag its added romance, its sense of destiny, and elevates it above so many others. Even beyond Collingwood, this is one of the most famous, and fabled, premierships in VFL/AFL history. To understand the significance of what the Collingwood players achieved that year, you first have to understand the force they confronted. The Melbourne teams of the mid-to-late 1950s were some of the most formidable football has ever known. The Demons played in seven successive grand finals, winning five, and finished on top in six of those seasons. They were led by one of the game’s greatest coaches, Norm Smith, and included one of the game’s greatest players, Ron Barassi, in his prime. The Magpies seemed to have no answers to them: by the time of the ’58 grand final they hadn’t won in their previous 10 encounters, including the 1955 and 1956 grand finals, and had not beaten Melbourne in a final for 20 years. In the second semi-final we had been smashed by 45 points, and even that margin flattered us. The Pies made all sorts of changes to their team after the semi-final – the line-up included five teenagers and two others with barely a handful of games – and looked a vastly improved outfit in getting over North in the preliminary final. But when it came to the grand final, the Demons were unbackable favourites. The Agedescribed the Magpies as ‘the greatest outsiders in a finals game for many years’. Barrie Bretland, in The Sun, said Collingwood simply didn’t have the class to beat Melbourne and it would take a miracle to even get close. Even Lou Richards described Melbourne as the ‘hottest favourites since Phar Lap’ and admitted they looked ‘certainties’ to win the flag. The only things Collingwood had in its favour were the glorious uncertainty of football, and the emotional pull of protecting the club’s four-in-a-row premiership record. The day didn’t get off to the most promising start when the club’s reserves side went down in its grand final by four points. But there was better news on the weather front, with the cold, wet conditions expected to favour the Pies. Despite an emotionally-charged pre-match address from coach Phonse Kyne that had all the Magpie players fired-up, Melbourne produced a five-goal first quarter and charged out to a 17-point lead at quarter-time. It looked like the game was going to expectations. As the players returned to their positions after the break, acting captain Murray Weideman and Barry ‘Hooker’ Harrison decided to ramp things up a notch. Upon the restart, Weed almost immediately crashed into several Demons, and Harrison flattened Melbourne’s most important player, Ron Barassi. Bill Serong decked Ian Ridley. There were spot fires everywhere. And this is where the game turned. The Demons began hunting for retribution, while the Magpies quickly returned their attention to the ball. Having sucked Melbourne in, they focused more on the footy while their Demon opponents ran around trying to belt Magpie players left, right and centre. Dick Fenton-Smith gave away a free to Thorold Merrett and crashed the ball onto his head in disgust. Laurie Mithen ran 20 yards to flatten John Henderson after he’d marked, then a few minutes later swung a wild left hook at another Magpie, sparking a melee that involved trainers as well as players. There were skirmishes everywhere, but in the midst of it all, Kenny Bennett, the youngest and smallest player on the field, twice tore through packs for two goals. Then Mick Twomey goaled with a long bomb from a free kick. By half-time the Magpies were – remarkably – two points to the good. The Collingwood players weren’t used to being in front of Melbourne at half-time of any game, let alone a grand final. And they drew great confidence from what had happened in the second quarter. In the Melbourne rooms, Norm Smith was imploring his own players to stay away from the fights and return their attention to the ball. Any resolve Smith had instilled in his players quickly evaporated, and the argy-bargy began again within minutes of the restart. Much of the rough stuff was coming from Melbourne players, clearly unhappy and frustrated at being behind. ‘It was a pity to see the Demons’ attitude to the game,’ wrote The Sporting Globe. The play was fierce, and some Melbourne players seemed to become hesitant about putting their head over the ball in the packs. Collingwood players, on the other hand, were more than willing to take part in the physical exchanges, but also seemed more capable of playing footy in between the fights. And in the third quarter they played some great footy, their magnificent defence keeping Melbourne goalless for the term while the forwards piled on five goals. Collingwood went into the last huddle for the year with a stunning 33-point lead. The team spent the last quarter focused almost entirely on defence, forcing ball-ups, kicking to the boundary at every opportunity, wasting time wherever they could. Reeves, Sullivan and Gabelich fought superbly in defence and closed down every Demon surge. Melbourne grabbed a couple of goals, while Collingwood could manage only a single behind, but it didn’t matter. The siren sounded with those mighty, magnificent Magpies 18 points in front – and the four-in-a-row record safe, hopefully forever. Phonse Kyne and the rest of the officials on the bench leapt high into the air in jubilation. Players were carried from the field on the shoulders of teammates and support staff, and there was complete chaos in and around the rooms, as thousands of fans crammed the walkways underneath the MCG. About 1000 attended the celebration dinner that night, where Kyne and his wife led the dancing with a fox trot to ‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’. ‘I still can’t realise we’ve won it,” he told the happy crowd. Another 750 crammed into the clubrooms on Sunday morning and there was a further dinner on Monday night. On Tuesday, players and officials left by train for a two-week holiday in West Australia, and the celebrations resumed almost as soon as they returned, with half a dozen more functions, including a massive dinner at the Collingwood Town Hall. Those celebrations honoured an extraordinary team performance. While Weideman and Harrison played their ‘tough guy’ roles superbly, it’s often forgotten that we played by far the better footballthat day. Ken Turner and Thorold Merrett were magnificent in the wet, as was the diminutive Kenny Bennett. Graeme Fellowes and Ray Gabelich were outstanding in the ruck, and Gabbo, Harry Sullivan, Mike Delanty and Ron Reeves impassable in defence. Bill Serong added muscle to speed. Young players like Beers, Henderson and Rose, as well as Reeves and Bennett, all stood up when needed. Every single player did his bit to ensure that Collingwood held onto its most cherished record. It was a staggering result, and still remains the greatest grand final upset in VFL/AFL history. Critics were unstinting in their praise. Alf Brown in The Heralddescribed Collingwood’s performance as ‘courageous and amazing’. St Kilda coach Alan Killigrew said the premiership was ‘a triumph of courage and spirit – the will to win’. Percy Beames in The Agewrote: “The deciding weapon in [Collingwood’s] win was something Melbourne simply could not match on the day – the fierce desire of Collingwood’s players to win Saturday’s honour for their club. Those Collingwood players had something more than courage and determination behind them. They were defending the League record of four successive premierships … and they played throughout the grand final as though their very lives depended on keeping that record.” But perhaps the final word should be left to the great Syd Coventry, the man who piloted the team to those four successive flags, and who was president of the club in 1958. ‘This was the greatest performance in the history of the Collingwood Football Club,’ he said. ]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-coaches/ Sun, 19 Mar 2017 02:42:25 +0000 http://cfc-forever-staging.qodo.com.au/?p=11003 Jock McHale. McHale is arguably the most famous name in Collingwood history. He’s certainly been the game’s most fabled coach, not just for his longevity and games record, but also for his achievement in piloting the club to no fewer than eight Premierships. It’s no wonder that the AFL has named its award for each season’s leading coach after him. But the club has also had plenty of other outstanding coaches along the way, such as Phonse Kyne, Bobby Rose, Tom Hafey, Leigh Matthews and Mick Malthouse. Not all of them have enjoyed the ultimate footballing success (Rose, in particular, was desperately unlucky). But every one of them has given his all. That applies even to Collingwood’s two most short-term coaches. Ron Richards filled in while Neil Mann was coaching the Victoria team in 1974, and is officially credited with a coached-two-won-two coaching record. The other historical anomaly came in the 1930 Grand Final, when Jock McHale was sick in bed at home. While no coach was appointed for the day, Treasurer Bob Rush delivered a famously stirring half-time speech so is sometimes credited with having a coaching role on the day (though not officially by us or the AFL). Good trivia questions, those two. Of course there were no coaches in the club’s earliest days, with off-field preparation usually handled by the captain, in conjunction with the head trainer. Match-day moves were the province of the skipper. The club’s first coaches were senior or recently retired players. It was not until 1977, when Tom Hafey came across from Richmond, that Collingwood finally looked outside its own nest for a senior coach. But no matter their background, every single one of Collingwood’s coaches has put his heart and soul into the job, devoting huge reserves of time and energy into taking the Pies as far as he could. All that work is aimed at one thing – returning the Magpies to the top of the tree. As fans, we always hope that moment is going to come next season. So do our coaches.

Years	Senior Coach
1904	Bill Strickland
1905-06	Dick Condon
1907-08 (part)	Ted Rowell
1908 (part)	Bill Strickland
1909-11	George Angus
1912-49	Jock McHale
1950-63	Phonse Kyne
1964-71	Bob Rose
1972-74	Neil Mann * (Ron Richards filled in as senior coach for two games while Neil Mann was coaching the Victorian side.)
1975-76	Murray Weideman
1977-82 (part)	Tom Hafey
1982 (part)	Mick Erwin
1983-84	John Cahill
1985-86 (part)	Bob Rose
1986 (part)-95	Leigh Matthews
1996-99	Tony Shaw
2000-11	Mick Malthouse
2012-21 (part)	Nathan Buckley
2021 (part)	Robert Harvey
2022-	Craig McRae

]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-coaches-murray-weideman/ Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:21:05 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=8828 Coach: 1975-76 Games coached: 45 FOOTBALL is so often about timing, and for Murray Weideman, his timing as a player was impeccable. He played in a premiership in his first senior season – in 1953 – and was the club’s acting captain in another flag – 1958 – on his way to becoming one of Collingwood’s favourite sons. As a coach, his timing would be at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, and it would end with the Magpies’ first wooden spoon. Weideman had coached West Adelaide for four seasons (1968-1971), taking them to a preliminary final in his second year, having earlier coached in Albury. It seemed almost a natural fit that the Magpie great would one down return home to Victoria Park to coach, and that opportunity presented itself at the end of the 1974 season. But the seeds of concern were there almost from the outset, particularly with relations between the new coach and the new president Ern Clarke being frosty almost from the start. In time, the waring between Clarke and Weideman would create a massive divide at the football club, and if you add that in with strong criticism of the coach’s laid-back, casual approach, it was almost a recipe for trouble. Weideman had come across from Adelaide in the same year that Phil Carman had. And Carman took the game by storm in his first season, with a few breathtaking performances, including the day he kicked 11 goals in white boots in a clash with St Kilda. Collingwood had a reasonable season in Weideman’s first year as coach. They won 13 of 22 home-and-away games which left them in fifth place, and squaring off against Richmond in elimination final. But the Tigers held on against a fast-finishing Collingwood, who had recovered from a 32-point half-time deficit to lose by only four points at the end. The 1975 season had ended with a strong, positive performance, but the start of 1976 was a serious concern, with Weideman and Carman signing a statement early that they would quit if Clarke remained. The statement was withdrawn before it got to Clarke. Yet that didn’t stop the tension. Clarke stoked the fire by bringing Des Tuddenham back to Collingwood against Weidman’s wishes. There were petty jealousies and bickering among the group, with Carman being part of the fuel that stoked the fire. Carman admitted later that the place was out of control and the one-time fitness fanatic almost gave up caring. He would say: “I just couldn’t be bothered; the administration wasn’t stable and they’d just lost me.” Through it all, Weideman was criticised for failing to instil discipline into his players, which he later said was unfair: “I was close to the players, very close, but I felt that being with them in that way they respect you and will always give you their best.” What he would concede was that his approach to the game was too linked to the 1950s, and might not have had that modern feel to it. Collingwood lost its first three games of 1976, by which time it had dropped the Richardson brothers (Wayne and Max) for the first time in their careers. Wayne criticised the club and was suspended; Max refused to play in the reserves that day, but both would come back into the fold. Losing became a habit, and the coach and the president were at each other’s throats regardless of the results. The issue came to a head when Weideman issued a public statement, saying he could no longer continue to coach the club if Clarke remained. Weideman said: “I will not coach Collingwood until Ern Clarke resigns as president … it’s either him or me. I cannot work under this man again.” “Even if I lose my job, which I am sure I will, at least I’ve let the players, members and supporters know what is happening at Collingwood under this president.” The pair were forcibly brought together to make a temporary truce for the sake of the club, though Clarke would eventually resign. And Weideman’s time in the job was also coming to an end. A stretch of eight successive losses towards the end of the season had them on the bottom of the ladder before a win over Essendon in Round 21 restored some hope. The Magpies had to beat Melbourne in the last round to have any hope of staving off the club’s first wooden spoon – and they also had to hope that Fitzroy would lose to Essendon. The signs were positive early as Weideman’s team led narrowly at the first two changes. But an eight-goal-to-one term for the Demons almost put the game beyond doubt by three-quarter-time. And despite a strong last term – seven goals to three – it was not enough to overhaul the Demons, with the 15-point loss ensuring Collingwood would finish last for the first time in its long and proud history. Six wins from 22 games was the return from a bitter and divisive year. That would be Weideman’s last game as Collingwood coach, with his 19 wins from 49 games a disappointing postscript to what had been such a successful playing career.]]>