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-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-leigh-matthews/ Thu, 20 Nov 2014 00:23:33 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=9414 Coach: 1986-1995 Games coached: 224 In the mad minutes after Collingwood broke the longest and most embarrassing drought in its history in 1990, its chairman of selectors Ron Richards summed up the feeling of so many at the club and of its legion of supporters in one sentence. Asked what had made the difference after 32 years, Richards said: “We broke the drought because we employed the greatest footballer of the post-war era and watched him become the greatest Collingwood coach.” Sure, there was a bit of hyperbole in this comment. After all, Jock McHale won eight premierships as a coach, while Matthews’ flag return from 10 seasons as Collingwood coach was one – albeit one of the most important in the club’s history. But, in many ways, the sentiment was not too far off the mark. Matthews helped to transform a football club anchored by the failures of the past into a modern team committed to one another and divorced from the pressure that had attached itself to so many other black and white sides. The former Hawthorn champion was all about the present – and the future – rather than the past. He urged his team to make their own history, not to be burdened by a past that was not of their making. Matthews was appointed as an assistant coach to the great Bob Rose for 1986 – having first been approached by Rose during Hawthorn’s 1985 series – with the view that he would take over for the 1987 season. But after three losses to start the 1986 season – amid a tumultuous time on and off the field at Victoria Park – Rose called Matthews on the Sunday morning and told he was ready to hand over the reins immediately. Matthews was excited by the challenge, but realistic. He told the media: “I make no promises whatsoever … Talk of premierships and the (top) five are pretty much folly. Let’s just take it a week at a time.” He insisted he would look to build a side based on defence. And he wanted to indoctrinate the professionalism that had driven Hawthorn through the 1980s into those already at Collingwood, and those who come in the future. Matthews had a win in his first game as coach and would oversee a debut season where the Magpies would win 12 games and miss the finals only on percentage. In a sign for the future, the club’s under 19s side, comprising players such as Gavin Brown, Damian Monkhorst, Mick McGuane and Gavin Crosisca, won the flag. Yet all the good work was undone the following season as Collingwood slumped to 12^th, winning only seven games. Matthews would recall how some questioned his coaching that season – “there were some unhappy people … mainly in 1987 when things were going bad. Then I doubted – everyone doubted.” The next two seasons brought finals campaigns, but more frustration. The Magpies finished the home-and-away season second in 1988, yet went out in straight sets with losses to Carlton and Melbourne. And a year later Melbourne once more proved a stumbling block in an elimination final as Collingwood finished fifth. Few people saw what was coming in 1990, but Matthews knew his team – one he had carefully and sometimes ruthlessly constructed – was building towards something special. In the first year of the rebadged Australian Football League, Collingwood had an outstanding home-and-away season, finishing second to Essendon, and yet Matthews’ team was able to produce an even more remarkable finals campaign. Having drawn with West Coast in the qualifying final, the coach inspired his team onto a big win in the replay and a comprehensive victory over Essendon in the second semi-final. Matthews kept his players insulated from the external pressure that was building on them. He would explain: “We’ve probably had to divorce the team from the club a bit … The club’s been here for a hundred years and it will be around for another hundred, but the team is the players who are here now.” In a sense, Matthews had purged the ‘Colliwobbles’ tag from the minds of the players. And it paid dividends as the club won its first premiership since 1958, with a dominant performance to restrict Essendon to only five goals in the Grand Final and to win by 48 points. That night, in the ebullience of the moment, president Allan McAlister basically guaranteed 38-year-old Matthews the Collingwood coaching job for life. McAlister told the premiership gathering at the Southern Cross: “(Matthews) won’t get away from us until he is too old and decrepit to do anything for anyone else.” But the next five seasons failed to produce another flag. A premiership hangover cost the club in 1991; it was unlucky in its finals campaigns of 1992 and 1994; and it missed out entirely on September action in 1993 and 1995. At the end of 1995, that “job for life” guarantee was gone. Matthews was told that after 10 seasons – and despite bringing about the most cherished of all the club’s premierships – the board wanted to go in a different direction. He was philosophical, saying: “I can see where they’re coming from, so there’s animosity. Sometimes you just need a change and sometimes the easiest position to change is the coaching position.” McAlister, who was also about to leave the club, told the media he had no regrets about his statement from 1990. “Of course, I don’t. That was after a flag. Be realistic. Indeed, I’m so sad today.” Matthews still had plenty of football life left in him. He would “get away”, coaching the Brisbane Lions to three successive premierships (2001-03), including wins over Collingwood in the latter two years.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-coaches-bob-rose/ Sat, 23 Aug 2014 07:51:48 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7521 Coach: 1964-71, 1985-86 (part) Games coached: 193 Bob Rose was a great player, arguably the greatest this club has ever produced. He was also a great coach. But he was also one of the unluckiest coaches ever to have picked up a clipboard. There were the three famous grand final losses, of course: by four-points in his very first season, by a solitary point in his third and by 10 points in the most famous grand final of all, after the team blew a seemingly unassailable half-time lead. But there were other, less well-remembered heartbreaks as well. In 1965 a preliminary final appearance was derailed by the flattening of Essendon’s John Somerville. In 1969 the team finished on top of the ladder but lost both its finals matches. In 1971, the team imploded late in the season after being flag favourites after 17 rounds. Nothing seemed to go right for Bobby Rose and his boys. The team, it was often said in later years, seemed to be cursed. It had all been so different when the prodigal son returned to Victoria Park at the end of the 1963 season. Rose had retired from the VFL in 1955 and moved to Wangaratta Rovers as playing coach on big money. He guided them to two flags in seven seasons there, and it became widely known he was keen to return to Melbourne and coach in the VFL. Amidst reported interest from Richmond, the Pies moved swiftly late in 1963 to secure Rose’s signature after Phonse Kyne was encouraged to move aside. But in doing so he had to defeat former teammate and loyal reserves coach Neil Mann for the position, and in the aftermath of the result he displayed the humility and grace that would characterise much of his reign. “I am very pleased to get such an honoured position in the Collingwood Football Club, but I feel sorry that Neil Mann had to be the loser,” he told the press. “I understand how disappointed he must be.” The Pies were not in good shape when Rose took over. They’d missed the finals for three successive years, and the last had been dominated by unrest and infighting. Still, Rose felt there was potential there and that a significant improvement was possible. But even he must have been surprised at just how far, and how quickly, the players improved. He set them a punishing pre-season fitness schedule, even having a 100-yard sprint track marked out on the ground to improve performances in the sprints that now became a staple of summer sessions, alongside plenty of gut-busting long runs. His new broom even extended to the clubrooms, which were given their biggest facelift since the 1930s. Rose’s coaching philosophy became evident soon after the season began. While he was a traditionalist who came from the McHale-Kyne school of love the club and bleed for the guernsey, he was also a forward thinker who introduced greater attacking flair to the Collingwood game. He believed greater emphasis had to be placed on fast, play-on football. He reintroduced Tuesday night match practice, and the rule within those games was to play on at all costs. He also believed in greater use of handball, seeing it as an effective attacking weapon rather than just a last resort to get out of trouble. As the 1960s rolled on, sublimely skilled players such as Wayne and Max Richardson, Barry Price, John Greening, Len Thompson and Peter McKenna all joined the club and became perfect exponents of the Rose style of play. Under Rose they played fast, attacking football, with lots of run, plenty of handball and potent scoring power. They were thrilling to watch. Indeed, Bobby Rose’s boys played some of the best, most exciting football ever produced by any Collingwood outfit down the years. But it was never quite enough to secure the ultimate prize. He went agonisingly close in his very first season, taking a team that had finished eighth in 1963 to second on the ladder and a place in the grand final. The players looked like an entirely different outfit, reinvigorated, fitter and more enthusiastic, and for a few brief moments late on grand final day looked like emerging as surprise premiers. Ray Gabelich kicked one of the most famous grand final goals late in the game, but a freak goal to Melbourne back pocket player Neil Crompton with less than a minute left broke Magpie hearts. It was to be the start of a trend. The near-miss of ’64 was followed two years later by Barry Breen’s wobbly point that gave St Kilda their first flag. Four years after that it was Teddy Hopkins coming off the bench as Carlton overcame a 44-point half-time deficit to demoralise players, coaches and fans alike. Through it all, Bob Rose emerged with great credit. He carried himself wonderfully well in the face of continued sporting heartbreak, his dignified response to increasingly crushing defeats a lesson to all on the meaning of sportsmanship. The sight of him making his way through a crowd of excited St Kilda officials to shake hands with Allan Jeans after the siren in 1966 spoke volumes. A former opponent, Brian Dixon, once wrote that the secret of Rose’s success lay in “his love of Collingwood and football, his preparedness to learn and give deep thought to the game…and his capacity for self-analysis and consequent effective direction to others.” But his greatest strength was, perhaps, his relationship with the players who played under him. Almost to a man, they loved him. Many remain heartbroken to this day that they could not win a flag, not just for themselves but also for Bobby. They felt they had let him down. Certainly, they gave everything they could to Bob and the Collingwood cause. But the footy gods decided that would not be enough. And the late-season implosion in 1971 that saw the team suddenly go into freefall and captain Terry Waters resign, was one blow too many for Rose. He retired at the end of that year, though he returned to the VFL in 1972 to coach Footscray for several seasons. Remarkably, Bobby Rose’s coaching story didn’t end when he finished up at the Western Oval. In 1985 he returned to Victoria Park for a second stint as coach. By this stage his standing both inside and outside Collingwood had grown even larger, if that was possible, by virtue of his handling of the tragedy that had befallen his family when son Robert, a promising footballer with Collingwood and Footscray and an even better cricketer, became a quadriplegic after a car accident in 1974. But his second stint as Collingwood coach was brief. The Pies missed the finals in 1985, and Rose retired again – this time for good – after just three rounds of 1986, handing over the reins to a newly-hired assistant coach called Leigh Matthews. Four years later, the drought-breaking flag that Bobby Rose so desperately craved flew again from the stands at Victoria Park. Even now, the hand that fate delivered to Bob Rose’s coaching career seems to have been a particularly cruel one. If anyone deserved to coach his team to a premiership, it was Rose. His teams played brilliant, thrilling football, and only a few pieces of misfortune deprived him of a place among the pantheon of coaching greats. He could easily have had two or three flags to his name. Still, as one of the greatest players to have played for the club, and one of the finest men ever to have represented it, his place in Collingwood’s history is secure.]]>