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/collingwood-juniors-football-club/ Thu, 04 Jan 2018 00:22:37 +0000 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=12599 William Beazley also became the first president of the Juniors, and the new club was allowed to use Victoria Park. The Magpies couldn’t provide much more assistance until the mid-1890s, due to their own financial battles, but thereafter provided old jumpers and some financial aid. The club was a hit almost from day one – especially in terms of developing senior players. The mighty Jack Monohan played with the Juniors in 1893 and made his senior debut the same year. Three more Juniors’ graduates made their debuts in 1894, and they all turned out to be absolute stars – Dick Condon, Charlie Pannam Snr and Frank Hailwood. Those four players alone made the Juniors experiment a raging success. Premiership wins proved more elusive, although the club did manage to finish as runners-up on new fewer than four occasions – in 1900, 1901, 1903 and 1904. Two of those were extremely controversial. In 1900 the team was on top of the ladder nearing the end of the season but was penalised two points for playing unregistered senior players. That meant a tie for top spot and a play-off to decide the winner, in which the Magpies went down to Preston. Three years later there was more controversy. The Juniors needed to win the last game of the season against South Melbourne to capture the flag but went down by a point, leaving the two teams locked together and needing a play-off. But the Juniors protested the result, accusing one of the goal umpires of cheating. The protest was refused, however, and the play-off game went ahead, with South winning a spiteful game by 10 points. Less than two years later, it was all over. Two players were suspended for the season in the middle of the year, and another for three weeks. Discipline all but disappeared, the team struggled for numbers and even forfeited a number of games. So it was no surprise when the club folded in August of 1905, to be replaced by the Collingwood District Football Club. In 1936, another club called Collingwood Juniors was formed, playing in the Victorian Junior Football League. While not officially affiliated with the senior club, the Magpies helped out with financial and other assistance. If you have any other photos of (or information about) the Collingwood Juniors teams or players, please contact us at forever@collingwoodfc.com.au]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/magpies-come-to-blows-over-first-captain/ Fri, 14 Apr 2017 02:11:15 +0000 https://cfc-forever-staging.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=12154 Sporting Standard noted that the men who turned out for Collingwood for the first time were “big and muscular”, and included only four ex-Britannia players. Even more presciently, they noted the enormous public interest in the new club. “There was unusual interest manifested as to the representation of the Collingwood, and long before the team made their appearance a large crowd of supporters were anxiously waiting,” the paper said. In a neat twist, the first goal that day was kicked by former Preston defender Alf Toll. It was also Toll who, just three weeks later, kicked Collingwood’s first goal in its first official VFA game against Carlton. Collingwood drew its second practice match, against 23 of the Rainbow team, and in its final hit-out against Collingwood Imperials the Imps gave up and went home after the Magpies kicked their first goal! If only our early experiences in the VFA had been so easy.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/birth-of-the-magpies-pt3/ Sat, 01 Apr 2017 23:19:55 +0000 http://cfc-forever-staging.qodo.com.au/?p=12007 mean as much to them. But Alf Manfield and Edwin Wilson, increasingly seen as the leaders of the push, weren’t that easily deterred. Neither were the local MPs, George Langridge and William Beazley, or other local businessmen such as Dan Reddan (a tobacconist in Smith Street), J R Bremner (licensee of the Yarra Hotel) and Tom Sherrin (football and leathergoods manufacturer). So Manfield and Wilson arranged another meeting in August, back where it all began at Harriet Pryde’s City Hotel in Johnston Street. There it was resolved not to give up, but to keep pushing the VFA and its delegates. The resolution passed that night read: “That it is the opinion of this meeting it is thought desirable to approach the Victorian Football Association for the purpose of getting the Collingwood Club admitted to the Association.” A letter was sent to the VFA straight away, and a serious campaign of lobbying was about to begin at both an individual and association level. They were encouraged in this by the support of the Argus newspaper, which urged the Collingwood locals not to give up. While being critical of its backers for having moved too slowly to form a club years before, and for not having an alternative scheme to propose when their initial request was rejected, the paper also suggested that it was time for the VFA to find ways to remove uncompetitive clubs. “The general opinion is that the Collingwood club need not necessarily take the first no for an answer,” it said at the end of August. “The perfect system is one that shall compel the failures of the senior association to give way periodically to an outside club which, being duly qualified in all respects, may desire admission.” The Argus went on to tag Footscray as one club that had “quite failed to justify its admission as a senior.” “The suburb was too small to commence with, and many years must pass before that defect can be remedied. Footscray is the failure of the association, and … a club so situated cannot expect to go on perpetually in that position. Glancing over the records of the past few seasons one finds that Footscray has played some 60 matches against senior twenties and won but 11. It is obvious that the association should ask Footscray to retire and give some other suburb a chance.” The paper also took aim directly at the arguments of the Evening Standard, among others, over the suitability of Britannia. “It is just as well to recognise openly that the Britannia club is merely a means to an end. If it were intended to play as a senior under its present title, utter and complete failure might at once be prophesied. A senior club to succeed must be identified both in name and residence with some important suburb, and within the local limit must have no rival. That fact has been sufficiently proved. “Other than Collingwood, the Brighton and Hawthorn districts would appear to be the only centres likely to make a claim on the VFA for many years to come. In any future consideration of the matter it will be as well to remember therefore that the claims are those, not of the Britannia Club, but of Collingwood, and Collingwood will probably get its chance only when Footscray is brought to recognise the hopelessness of its position.” There was further support in September from Melbourne’s VFA delegate, Mr Hunt. He had been publicly behind the push the night that Collingwood presented to the VFA, and he didn’t back away in the wake of the rejection. In September, when Collingwood’s letter came up for consideration, he suggested that if an existing team couldn’t reach a certain number of points over a two-year period, that team should be relegated to junior ranks to allow in another team “that would make a better show”. Such public support encouraged and emboldened the Collingwood supporters. But the road ahead was long and frustrating. The VFA secretary, Theophilius Marshall, described Mr Hunt’s suggestion that poorly performed teams should drop out as “suicide”. Instead he set up a committee to investigate the merits of admitting a thirteenth club to its ranks. In early 1890 there was talk of the VFA being split into two divisions to allow more teams in, but that ended up leading nowhere. The association, as it turned out, was wracked by internal divisions for much of that year, especially between the weaker and stronger clubs, and there was little or no movement on Collingwood’s petition to join through all of 1890. But all that changed early in 1891. In March that year, as recorded in Richard Stremski’s Kill For Collingwood, the VFA finally amended its rules to allow for a “prominent junior club” to be admitted as a thirteenth team. Manfield seized upon the rule change and asked the VFA if Britannia would be admitted as a Collingwood team if Victoria Park was brought up to standard. The VFA replied that it could foresee no further objections. Any celebrations were tempered, however, by the death just days later of George Langridge. He had been one of the key players in the push, and sadly didn’t live to see his hard work come to fruition. His parliamentary colleague, William Beazley, had no trouble convincing the Collingwood council to spend around £600 upgrading the ground and adding a picket fence, and they also promised a new grandstand for Victoria Park should the club be admitted. It still took until a meeting late in the year for Britannia’s formal application to be considered. And by then the public momentum had swung heavily in Collingwood’s favour. The long fight, and persistence of the club’s supporters, seemed to have won just about everyone over. And the fact that Britannia was enjoying one of its best seasons (it would end up finishing second) didn’t hurt either. In early September, the Australasian wrote that “there seems to be no just ground for any longer excluding them.” The Argus added: “If persistency and earnestness, coupled with good play are reasons why a junior club should be admitted to the senior ranks, Collingwood has fairly earned the distinction. The Britannia, the local junior club, has long been prominent, and the ground on which it proposes to play is properly enclosed and equipped, and already better than several of the grounds on which senior clubs play. Clubs should not be admitted to the association on any but strong grounds, but Collingwood has in every way justified its claim.” The changing tide of public opinion even swayed the old enemies at the Evening Standard to come on board, saying that there was “no visible reason” why the VFA should not grant the new club a berth in the association. The application was formally made at the VFA’s meeting on September 11^th, and the discussion held two weeks later, on September 25, 1891. Secretary Marshall and several of his colleagues inspected Victoria Park in the days beforehand and told the meeting that they had “found it in all respects satisfactory”. In the end it was Marshall himself who moved that the Collingwood Football Club should be admitted to the VFA for the 1892 season, describing the suburb behind it as “an important centre of population”. The resolution was unanimously carried. Collingwood had won. It had been two years, three months and 18 days since that first meeting at the City Hotel, but the local forces behind the push had prevailed. Langridge hadn’t lived to see victory, but Beazley would go on to be the club’s first president, Wilson its first secretary and Manfield its first treasurer. It was, as a famous politician and one-time Collingwood supporter would say many years later, a victory for the true believers. Much hard work still lay ahead to get everything ready – including assembling a team virtually from scratch, as most of the Brits would go their own ways – in time for the club’s debut the following May. But for now, the only thing that mattered was this: the Collingwood Football Club had been born.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/birth-of-the-magpies-pt2/ Sat, 01 Apr 2017 23:16:04 +0000 http://cfc-forever-staging.qodo.com.au/?p=12005 th meeting came to light. And it was led by the Evening Standard newspaper, which pulled no punches in its opposition, mocking the motives of those behind the push and declaring that, “although the dignity of Collingwood would be raised by the possession of a senior football club”, it could not and should not be allowed to happen. This was, the paper said, a “useless errand” and one which would only see people “bumping their heads against stone walls.” As the campaign against Collingwood intensified, it also broadened. The Standard questioned, for example, whether Britannia really had been successful enough to justify inclusion ahead of a rival junior team such as North Park, which had won four junior premierships (but had no ground of its own and did not represent a distinct suburb). Papers like the Standard weren’t brazen enough to openly object to Collingwood’s admission on the grounds of social status. But the bias was real: you could see it in the mocking tones and condescending language used whenever Collingwood’s bid was discussed. ‘A place like Collingwood could never have its own football club, so why bother trying?’ seemed to be very much the tone of the articles. The Collingwood forces began fearing the impact the attacks would have on delegates considering their application. So Alf Manfield, becoming an increasingly important figure in the pro-Collingwood movement, felt compelled to write to the Mercury and other papers, stressing that it was not Britannia that was seeking a spot in the VFA, but Collingwood. “The Evening Standard having been so persistent of late in doing all they can to thwart our movement, and with their articles trying to influence the delegates of the Victorian Football Association, it is only fair that something should be said on the other side, and why we should receive the association’s support,” he wrote. “I wish to point out that it is not the Britannia Football Club, but a Collingwood Football Club, who wish to be represented on the Victorian Football Association, and this club [Britannia] is co-operating with us in the movement, and would form a nucleus for the proposed new club. It is hardly expected that all the junior members now playing would form the senior twenty. Players living in the district and others would join us. We would have a ground of our own, which some of the clubs now on the association cannot say, and for easy access would be second to none in the colony. It is the oldest suburban city having a population of over 30,000 people. The ground is certainly large enough and enclosed, and very easily converted into a first-class playing ground, the surroundings of same being pleasing to the eye, and where is the suburb or any place that supports football better than Collingwood, aye, or even any other outdoor sport? I would ask now what district do the North Park represent, have they an enclosed ground?” Manfield’s arguments, and those of his other supporters, seemed to have done the trick. The VFA meeting on June 28^th, held at Young and Jackson’s Hotel in the city, heard from local MPs George Langridge and William Beazley, among others. Beazley said that, through Britannia, they had a junior club that met the VFA’s criteria in terms of membership and financial security, and that its ‘merits in the field’ had been sufficiently proved. They also had a ground that could soon be brought up to senior standards. The initial response was positive. The VFA said that night assured the deputation that their claim would receive “full and fair consideration”. The Chairman said he was personally in favour of it. Melbourne’s delegate, Mr. A. Hunt, later gave notice that he would move at the next meeting that the Britannia Club be admitted to the association in the name of the Collingwood Football Club. Collingwood’s supporters were rightly encouraged. But they seem to have underestimated the power of the campaign waged against them. At the VFA’s next meeting two weeks later, a majority of the delegates decided that the association “was already a sufficiently large body, and, on the ground that the Collingwood club could not be admitted while other clubs anxious to join were refused, the resolution moving their admission to the association was lost by 12 votes to 8.” The Sportsman questioned the decision: “Some persons think the association might have stretched a point in this instance; others fancy the delegates decided thus from a loyal attachment to their own rules, which they rigidly enforce – when it suits them.” Collingwood’s supporters were stunned, and the local residents dismayed. It had been just over a month since that initial meeting at the City Hotel. Just over a month. And already the Collingwood Football Club as a concept seemed to be dead in the water.  ]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/birth-of-the-magpies-pt1/ Sat, 01 Apr 2017 23:06:13 +0000 http://cfc-forever-staging.qodo.com.au/?p=12001 Argus carried a special cable from London that Madame Nellie Melba (also known as ‘Mrs. Armstrong, of Melbourne’) had been wowing crowds with her performance in Rigoletto, one critic saying it would be “impossible to surpass her voice for purity and sweetness”. The same paper reported with great excitement that the RMS Oroya, of the Orient line, had left Melbourne for London the previous day carrying the second largest cargo of mail in our city’s brief history. In football circles, there was controversy over Carlton players being caught wearing illegal nails or stops in their boots against Essendon the previous Saturday. And a team of Maori footballers, having been to Kyneton and Daylesford during the week, was going to play a game against Essendon on Saturday. But local Collingwood MP and former mayor George Langridge presumably cared little about such matters. He spent much of that Friday at Customs House (now the Immigration Museum) chairing meetings about Victoria’s wine displays at the Paris World’s Fair, but his mind would surely already have been on another, more important, meeting he would attend that evening: one that would give birth to the Collingwood Football Club. ********** When George Langridge left the Customs House building that day, he headed to Harriet Pryde’s City Hotel, in Johnston Street Collingwood (which later became the John Barleycorn Hotel). There he was met by a large group of local businessmen, politicians and community leaders, all of whom were there for one reason – to talk about forming a senior football club that would represent Collingwood in the Victorian Football Association. At that point the closest thing that Collingwood had to a football team was a junior club called Britannia (‘junior’ referring not to the age of its players but to its standing within the game). The Brits played at Victoria Park, but were aligned as much, if not more, with Fitzroy than they were with Collingwood. Fitzroy had formed its own senior football club in 1883, and it was part of the VFA. Some of Collingwood’s other geographical neighbours such as Richmond and Carlton had teams in that competition too, as did lowly ranked suburbs like Footscray and Williamstown. Increasingly, people in Collingwood were asking, ‘What about us?’ Letters even began appearing in local Collingwood papers, urging “leading citizens” to push for a team that year. Part of that push was commercial. Businessmen and leaders had seen the crowds being attracted to senior football matches in other suburbs and wanted a piece of the pie. Partly it was also driven by the desire to see local boys playing football with a local team that carried the name of their municipality. But mostly it was driven by a fierce parochial pride. Collingwood was regarded as not much more than a slum in those days. It was mocked as a place of pestilence, poverty, larrikinism and crime. As the Clifton Hill Tribune noted a few years later, Collingwood had a reputation as a place of “moral filth, a hot bed of vulgarity in forms of speech and general manners, and a very poor and despised place.” Faced with such opinions, many locals began to feel that having a senior football club bearing the Collingwood name might be one of the few ways of gaining some respect from the rest of Melbourne – maybe even taking it up to them. When public pressure starts to build momentum, you know that politicians will never be far behind. Langridge himself had been twice Collingwood mayor previously, and was coming towards the end of what would be a 17-year reign representing Collingwood in the Legislative Assembly. At the City Hotel that night were the current mayor, community leaders, business representatives and a number of other councillors, including one, William Beazley, who had been elected to State parliament for the first time earlier that year (Collingwood was a dual occupancy seat, so was entitled to two MLAs). He would hold the seat for a further 15 years. Also there were Edwin Wilson, the town auditor, and Alf Manfield, a local landowner. Langridge told the meeting that it was nothing short of “a disgrace” that Collingwood did not possess either a senior football or a senior cricket club, meaning that teams in other suburbs were being manned with Collingwood locals. He didn’t want Collingwood to be a training ground for other clubs any longer, and he called on Britannia to help clear the path. Beazley spoke, and emphasised the support that could be expected from council. The meeting unanimously passed a motion declaring “that it is desirable to form a Senior Football Club in Collingwood, and that the Britannia Club be asked to co-operate in doing so.” A delegation, headed by the MPs Langridge and Beazley, was appointed to meet with the Britannia committee as soon as possible. That meeting took place two weeks later, at the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street. Both local newspapers, the Observer and the Mercury, were right behind the move, and the Mercury did its best to encourage Britannia officials to support it. “Collingwood could undoubtedly turn out a first-rate club,” the paper wrote the day before the Britannia meeting, “and one that would be able to hold its own. It has some first-class exponents of the game, who directly they become at all prominent go away and play with a Senior Club in another district. The Association could not possibly overlook the fact. It [Collingwood] is possessed of a very large population, the oldest suburban city, and from the amount of support not only monetarily but also from prominent players which has been promised, also the opportunity of an enclosed ground, the club should undoubtedly be represented on the Association.” As it turned out, Britannia’s support was never in doubt. They wanted to be in the VFA every bit as much as the people behind the Collingwood push, but they had been knocked back several times previously and realistically knew they were neither successful nor organised enough to make it happen on their own. That was confirmed at the meeting on June 21^st at the Grace Darling, when the Britannia president, Mr Anson, announced that his club had unanimously decided to help Collingwood’s supporters in forming a club. The VFA’s next meeting was only a week away, but a Collingwood-Britannia deputation was formed that night and immediately began preparing to appear. The Collingwood Council was formally asked for permission for the yet-to-exist club to play at Victoria Park. And there was one other important detail that was agreed that night: the name of the new entity would be the Collingwood Football Club.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/our-first-election/ Thu, 30 Mar 2017 23:35:06 +0000 http://cfc-forever-staging.qodo.com.au/?p=11983 riotous public meeting at the Collingwood Town Hall, the same venue played host to the first ever meeting of the Collingwood Football Club. The purpose of the meeting was to elect the office-bearers for that historic first season. And despite the local clamour to be involved with the exciting new football team, there were no ructions or unseemly jockeying for positions (at least not publicly, anyway). Instead there was an overwhelming sense of anticipation and goodwill. Election bloodletting was for the future. Cr William Beazley, who had played such an important role in founding the club, was chosen as the first president, a role he held until 1911. His fellow founding fathers Edwin Wilson and Alfred Manfield were elected as secretary and treasurer respectively. Two other local politicians and two local businessmen were named as vice-presidents. The ‘committee of management’ consisted of four players and five non-players, the latter group including local figures Tom Sherrin (the father of the sporting goods business), Dan Reddan, Ninian Batchelor, Andrew Brownlie and T Yates. Together, these were the men who would pilot the fledgling club through its tricky first season – and beyond. The VFA sent along a representative that night to assure the new club of the governing body’s best wishes, and there were warnings about the dangers of professionalism creeping into the game. But there was great excitement at the news that the tender for fencing Victoria Park had been let, and that within a few weeks Collingwood would possess “a splendidly enclosed ground larger than any other in the colony”. “The club bids fair to be a great success,” wrote one local newspaper after the meeting. How right they were.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/7-may-a-date-with-the-blues/ Wed, 04 May 2016 06:27:41 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=10434 By: Glenn McFarlane, Herald Sun journalist and Collingwood historian. On 7 May 1892, Collingwood met Carlton for the first time. But it wasn’t any old match. It was the first match in the club’s history. Between 1892 and 2015, the Magpies have taken on the Blues four times on 7 May – and each of the games proved noteworthy, for a variety of reasons. Each contributed something to the fabric of the one of the most fiercely contested rivalries in Australian sport. 1. THE FIRST MATCH, 1892 Collingwood may not have won that first encounter against Carlton in 1892, but everywhere other than the scoreboard, it was a resounding success. Less than three months after a Collingwood Town Hall forum launched Melbourne’s newest football club at a community meeting, somewhere in the vicinity of 16,000 fans flocked to Victoria Park to see the Magpies take to the field for the first time against one of the oldest VFA clubs. The match – on May 7, 1892 – was billed as “a tug of war between the old and the new” and Carlton was generous enough to donate its share of the gate takings to the new club as it was building its future. Shopkeepers on Johnston Street got their first taste of what would become a sporting phenomenon that afternoon. The Argus explained this first Collingwood team was “comprised largely of juniors, though some of the 20 had played as seniors in Victoria and Tasmania. (But) in physique they can hold their own with the heaviest of the older, senior 20.” Their captain, Joe Delahunty, did not play in that first game, due to illness, so the honour of leading the Magpies fell to George Watt. Before the clash, the club’s president, W. D. Beazley, presented the club with a flag as a memento, hoping that one day it would lead to a premiership pennant. Those new Magpie players each received a commemorative cap by a leading supporter, “Mr Vincent”. But there were still some issues to contend with for the fledgling club. For a start, the promised new grandstand was not yet completed. As a result, the inaugural Collingwood team had to change into their jumpers at the Yarra Hotel in Johnston Street, about 300 metres away from Victoria Park. Still, the venue was, according to the scribe, “all that could be desired for football … so the new club starts under very favourable conditions.” The guernsey was on display for the first official time, with one reporter noting “their colours are Black and White in diagonal stripes”. No goals came for Collingwood in that opening quarter, though there were some positive signs early for the home team. It wasn’t until the second quarter that forward Alf Toll kicked the first six-pointer in the club’s history, and it was followed by “loud cheering”, setting the template for goal celebrations for the future. The Magpies trailed at half-time. But it was only late in the game when some nerves started to show. At one stage Dick Langford was momentarily caught running in the wrong direction with the ball. But another goal did come in that last quarter when Bill Proudfoot kicked the club’s second for the game – it would be his only goal in 15 years in Black and White. Carlton won the match, by three goals to two. But The Argus noted “Collingwood, although beaten, are to be congratulated on playing a fast and fair game … they promise to be a formidable team in second flight.” But the real winner was Collingwood, the suburb. An influx of football fans showed that new entity had already gained a strong foothold in support, and there would be no turning back. The Mercury detailed: “Collingwood footballers have to be complimented on the stir that they have made and will make from Saturday to Saturday throughout the present season.” “At the opening of the match some 15,000 or 16,000 persons assembled to watch the progress of this game. Out of that number we estimate that fully 7000 persons were visitors to Collingwood from other parts. “They spent the afternoon in Collingwood and each paid their entrance fees to go (into) the ground and from the smiles that radiated the various countenances of the Johnston Street tradesmen generally, they were pleased at seeing such a large influx of persons into the city, as in all probability they left a silver coin here and there behind them that would not have chinked on the counter of a Johnston Street or Smith Street shop.” 2. CREATING FOOTBALL MAYHEM, 1977 Eighty-five years to the day since the first time these two teams met, Collingwood inflicted what was then a record 102-point defeat of Carlton on 7 May, 1977. Although that margin was later surpassed, it remains as one of the most emphatic victories over the Blues, especially for supporters with memories long enough to recall it. It was Tom Hafey‘s sixth game as Collingwood coach, and it elevated the previous year’s wooden spoon side to the top of the AFL ladder – a position it would not relinquish for the rest of the home-and-away season. There were few signs of the one-sided clash to come in what was a relatively even first term. Collingwood led by only three points at the first break in play, but a seven-goal second term set the scene for the Magpies’ dominance. Hafey’s team bettered that with nine goals in the third term and closed the game out with three goals in the final term. The Age’s Stephen Phillips said the Magpies “created football mayhem”, saying they reduced the Blues “to a fumbling shambles … bringing one era to an end and another to a most promising beginning.” Peter Moore, 20, and in his 45th game, had previously kicked 24 goals. On this day, he kicked seven for the match – the same tally as Carlton managed – including five in the third term. It could have been more as he gave off a handball to a grateful Graeme Anderson – who booted four goals himself. Max and Wayne Richardson were dominant, Len Thompson was unstoppable in the ruck and around the ground, and Phil Carman controlled centre half-forward with relative ease. Better still for the Magpies’ fans among the 64,256 fans at Waverley Park, the Blues went 62 minutes without kicking a goal – from the 11-minute-mark of the second term until the 13-minute-mark of the last quarter. Part of that was the dominant Collingwood backline. Bill Picken outpointed Robert Walls, Gerald Betts and Andrew Ireland were strong across half back, and the last line of defence included the previous year’s Copeland Trophy winner Robert Hyde, full-back Ian Cooper and first-year Magpie Kevin Worthington. Carlton coach Ian Thurgood said Collingwood had shown his team “how modern-day football is played” under Hafey. The new Magpie coach, though, was playing down the win and top spot on the ladder, insisting “the backslapping and applause is nice, but I don’t want it going to their heads. There is a long way to go.” But at least Collingwood fans could bask in the glory that night, knowing they had made their old rivals look second rate. The Carlton and Collingwood players line up for the National Anthem ahead of the Centenary Game in 1992. 3. PARTY POOPERS, 1992 It was meant to be the party of the century for Collingwood; in the end it turned out to be the hangover from hell. As part of the Magpies’ 100th birthday celebrations, a clash with Carlton was scheduled for a Thursday night at the MCG – one hundred years to the day of the first encounter between the two famous clubs. Fireworks lit up the night sky that night, but as far as Collingwood fans were concerned, the match turned out to be more like a penny bunger. The MCG’s new Great Southern Stand cheered as a motorcade of club greats went around the ground, including the likes of Bob Rose, Lou Richards, Neil Mann, Ray Gabelich and Murray Weideman. Richards wrote later: “I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye at the MCG. The lump came before the match when, along with all the other Collingwood and Carlton legends, I was driven around the ground in the motorcade. As for the tears they came around about three-quarter time, when I saw the writing on the wall for Collingwood.” The Magpies actually led by two points at quarter-time, but it got messy from there. The Blues were out by 11 points at half-time, then 25 points at three-quarter-time before extending it to 33 at the end. Good Old Collingwood Forever had blared from the loud speakers before the game before 83,262 fans. Sadly, We Are The Navy Blues was the theme song that reverberated around ground at the end of the match. Magpies coach Leigh Matthews lamented the 9.18 (72) score line, plus the fact that the club had had two more scoring shots than their opponents yet still soundly beaten. “They kicked goals, we kicked points. You can’t afford to keep missing shots like we did,” Matthews said. “It’s the opposition, the venue, the crowd, the four points, the centenary . . . that probably creates pressure and we didn’t perform that well. “We’ve got to handle the pressure of the occasion and kick goals when you get the shots.” Carlton captain Stephen Kernahan buried the Magpies with seven goals, yet could only manage one Brownlow Medal vote. Adrian Gleeson scored the three votes and Matthew Hogg claimed two. Peter Daicos kicked three goals for Collingwood, 18-year-old Shane Watson kicked 0.4 in his seventh game, while Scott Russell (celebrating his 22nd birthday) had a game-high 37 touches. But too much was left to too few as the Blues were able to reign on the Magpies’ parade. First-year Magpie Dale Thomas sports Collingwood’s ‘alternative socks’, something we haven’t seen before or since. 4. A SMASHING, PLUS SWANNY ON THE RISE, 2006 A special roar went out across the MCG midway through the final term of the Collingwood-Carlton match on 7 May, 2006 when a “live ladder” flashed on the giant scoreboard. The Magpies were on top. Yes, it was great to be thrashing the Blues – by 12 goals as it would turn out – but when the victory elevates you into the No.1 spot on the AFL ladder; it’s just the icing on the cake. On a day in which Collingwood wore unusual clash socks, black with a white stripe down the middle, Mick Malthouse‘s Magpies proved far too good for the Blues in James Clement‘s 200th AFL game. The game appeared to be in the balance at half-time when Carlton led by two points, off the back of a late goal from Brendan Fevola. Blues coach Denis Pagan dared to dream of a monumental upset: “I’ll tell you one bloke who thought we were right in it and a real chance.” But Collingwood kicked 16 goals to four in the second half to produce a landslide 72-point victory. It elevated Malthouse’s team to the top, even if the coach played down the significant of the moment after the game. “What relevance is it? None,” the coach said of the ladder position. “Not one bit of relevance. Round six means round six. Yes, it is better to be where we are now than where we were last year. “But at the end of the day, it doesn’t get you into the eight, it gives you a kick-start, but they don’t give you a discount.” Shane O’Bree had 31 touches for the Magpies, Brodie Holland was impressive with 28 and Paul Licuria had 27. Alan Didak top-scored for his team with three goals. Anthony Rocca kicked two goals, but was well held by Lance Whitnall, while Chris Tarrant and Nathan Buckley were solid without being spectacular. A 22-year-old enjoying his best start to a season, and playing his 36th game, was impressive. He had 24 touches, kicked two goals and had no ink on his arms. His name was Dane Swan. Swan said after the game: “I had a bit of trouble off-field a couple of years ago and Mick sort of put an ultimatum to me. I said, ‘Give me one more life’, and he just said, ‘You are on your last legs, do something about it’. “Then I realised what I have to do to become an AFL footballer, I don’t think I am there yet, but I have taken a few steps to where I want to be.” “Mick has shown some faith in me to play in the midfield and hopefully I’m repaying the faith.” The Herald Sun recorded: “Yesterday at the MCG, Swan took another significant step towards repaying his coach by being an integral part of the Collingwood midfield that smashed Carlton in the second half.” By the end of the year, Swan would finish sixth in the Copeland Trophy on his way towards winning three successive best and fairest awards in 2008-09-10. And the young Pies were building towards a flag four years on.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/britannia-football-club/ Mon, 25 Aug 2014 21:56:34 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=8878 Kill for Collingwood (1986), the Britannia Football Club was founded in 1877 at the Crown and Anchor Hotel in Collingwood by James Cohn and P.H. Cherry. They wore blue, red and white and played its first games in 1878. It played out of Victoria Park from 1882, having played its earliest matches at the Willow Flat and Richmond Paddock. Over time, Britannia gradually assumed control of Victoria Park during the winter, charging for admission to the ground on match day. It was sometimes forced to move its matches elsewhere when the ground became waterlogged. Its early years were patchy before it began to consolidate in 1881. The club lost only two of its 16 games (played in a competition outside of the VFA), and its membership base grew. Politicians and businessmen began to join the club, and with continued on field improvement (highlighted by its runners up finish in the Victorian Junior Football Association in 1884), the club approached the VFA for admission into the state’s premier competition. Unfortunately for Britannia, the club was deemed too disorganised to be included in the VFA, despite their renowned care for injured players which Stremski (1986) saw as a precursor to Collingwood’s “discipline and paternalism”. The social struggles experienced by the suburb of Collingwood hampered Britannia’s bid to reach the VFA. This was compounded by the VFA’s decision to limit the league to 12 clubs. Although Britannia produced some consistent results over the course of its final year, the people of Collingwood wanted change. More concisely, they wanted a club of their own. They argued that Britannia did not properly represent their suburb. What’s more, Britannia had strong connections with the Fitzroy Football Club who represented Collingwood’s closest neighbour, one with whom they did not share a cordial relationship. In 1889, several Collingwood residents met in June 1889 at Mrs Harriet Pryde’s City Hotel in Johnston Street to form the Collingwood Football Club. With the involvement of Britannia patrons and parliamentarians William Beazley and George Landridge, a decision was then made to form a joint application for a Collingwood-Britannia team to be admitted to the VFA. The VFA denied the joint application on the basis that Britannia was thought to be “too disorganised and amateurish” for its competition and while Britannia was content to accept the decision, the people of Collingwood would not. Two more years of discussions and stand offs ensued between parties from both sides. Support for a Collingwood team in its own right hinged on several factors, including the VFA’s refusal to demote weaker teams from the competition. A potential upgrade of Victoria Park became an important factor in the fate of the two sides. There was no objection from the VFA to a proposal that would have seen Britannia admitted as a Collingwood team if Victoria Park was upgraded. The result of the struggle to form a VFA club that was truly representative of Collingwood was Britannia’s dissolution following a meeting at the Grace Darling Hotel in early 1892. Britannia’s treasurer, committeemen and the majority of Britannia’s declared their allegiances to Fitzroy in favour of backing the uncertain future of the soon to be formed Collingwood Football Club. As Stremski (1986) notes on page 11 of Kill for Collingwood: “Although Britannia’s role as a precursor of the Collingwood Football Club is tarnished, those Brits (Britannia supporters) who wanted to end the subordinate relationship with Fitzroy and establish Collingwood’s own senior football club had triumphed”. One historical aside of note is the fate of Britannia’s game bell. Britannia personnel took the bell when the club shifted its allegiance to Fitzroy. It took until the 1960s before the bell was returned to Victoria Park.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-formation-of-the-club/ Sun, 24 Aug 2014 21:17:30 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=8543 W.D. Beazley, who would go on to be the club’s first president, chaired the meeting, and speaker after speaker clamored to offer bold predictions about the future glories that awaited the new club. He enthusiastically told the large gathering that the Collingwood club would “draw immense crowds and be the cause of much money being spent in the district”. On a more cautious note, he urged those in attendance to “be true to their colours, and not be dispirited if they at first lost matches, as they (the players) would require one or two seasons to lick them into first class football”. The next speaker, John Hancock MP, was less circumspect. Sensing the buoyant mood of his audience, he offered a joke to start proceedings, claiming he was too fat to don a Collingwood guernsey and too stout to act as goalpost. But, more seriously, he claimed the club would soon be “the premier team – for the very name Collingwood would strike terror into the hearts of opposition players”. Hancock also set the scene for Collingwood supporters for the next century, and beyond, by suggesting that “if barracking would prevent an opposing player kicking for goal, (the barracker) would be there and give such unearthly shrieks as would terrify the kickist”. Despite the feeling of optimism at the meeting, there were reminders of the worsening economic climate surrounding them. Beazley himself had to be excused before the conclusion in order to address a rally of unemployed residents. An even more ominous reminder of the situation came in the local Mercury newspaper which reported on the same day as the meeting that “there were some 60,000 men, the bone and sinew of the colony, walking the streets of the metropolis and suburbs, idle and penniless”. This was hardly the ideal time to be embarking on a new venture. But the people behind the new club had judged the public mood to perfection. There really was a massive, community-wide push for Collingwood to have a club of its own – a means of competing with their suburban rivals and winning some pride and respect for the oft-derided ‘Collingwoodites’. Three months after this historic meeting, on May 7, the Collingwood Football Club played its first ever senior game. A massive crowd of more than 16,000 turned up. By year’s end, Collingwood had the biggest membership of any club. A powerful force had been unleashed on football – and the first signs of it had been shown at the Collingwood Town Hall on February 12, 1892.]]>