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-presidents-eddie-mcguire/ Sat, 23 Aug 2014 09:38:31 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7771 President: 1998 – 2021 Eddie McGuire became Collingwood President on 29 October 1998 – his 34th birthday – and he would go on to become the club’s second longest serving President, behind Harry Curtis. Eddie and his three-man team comprising Alex Waislitz, Ian McMullin and Brad Cooper joined the Collingwood board at an extraordinary general meeting at the Camberwell Civic Centre. McGuire replaced Kevin Rose as President, though Rose remained on the board until 2007. A long forgotten footnote is that the Collingwood members had to alter the club’s constitution to allow Waislitz and McMullin to be eligible for the board. Previously, the pair was ineligible as neither had been social club members for the previous 24 months. The Age’s Greg Denham reported that one of McGuire’s priorities was “to lift Collingwood from the bottom half of the ladder. However, he was clever enough not to predict when Collingwood again be a finals series contender.” “We hasten slowly. The future of the Collingwood Football Club is going forward and we are going north on the AFL ladder from now on,” – Eddie McGuire, 29 October, 1998. Denham said that McGuire’s wish was to “put a bit of passion back into the place.” “People will have to be accountable, but our main focus is the need to start winning games again, and some tough decisions have to be made and will be made. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the best marketing and the best sponsors, unless you win when you go out and play football,” – Eddie McGuire, 29 October 1998. “From now on, let there be a clear message go out to the opposition and to us, that only the best from now on will be accepted at Collingwood. There will be no more mates’ rates, or anything like that; people will be accountable and we are really going to start to make things happen off the ground,” – Eddie McGuire, 29 October 1998. Ahead of the extraordinary general meeting, The Age’s Jake Niall forecast the influence McGuire would have on both the club and the competition: “Tonight, he will achieve a much less contentious constitutional rearrangement that will change his busy life, the Collingwood Football Club and perhaps football forever.” Niall reported that McGuire would “accomplish a rare feat – a bloodless coup at Collingwood.” “The culture has got to be only the best for Collingwood. I reckon Collingwood accepts defeat far too easily and accepts mediocrity far too easily,” – Eddie McGuire, The Age, 29 October 1998. “I don’t think that I have got all the answers, by any stretch of the imagination. My philosophy has always been that you get the best people around you and that gives you the best chance. I’ve been in the lucky situation for the last 15 years where I’ve not only been able to watch but to analyse everyone in football. I think I have a reasonable idea of who is alright. At the end of the say I think we’ve picked up a couple of gems. The next step is to pick up a few more who can play!” – Eddie McGuire, In Black and White Magazine, March 1999. “I think we’ve taken a realistic approach. It’s a tough caper this footy business. Only one team a year wins. But there are a number of other measuring sticks (such as) supporter and member satisfaction, for a start. I think the financial viability of the club, long term stability, club structure, all these type of things are what we should be measured on as well. The ultimate measure, of course, is results on field,” – Eddie McGuire, In Black and White Magazine, March 1999. “My one ambition in coming in as President of this club (is) that this club is a lot better and a lot more secure than when I took over in October 1998. I had real fears last year that for the first time ever, Collingwood supporters were dropping their heads and giving it away. And I felt shattered last year,” – Eddie McGuire, In Black and White Magazine, March 1999. “This is a good way to do it (saying goodbye to Victoria Park). What a perfect way to end the Millennium. The last football home and away match of the Millennium will be at Victoria Park, and in the new Millennium we’ll have fantastic facilities, a new approach, a new attitude,” – Eddie McGuire, In Black and White Magazine, March 1999. A selection of milestones from Eddie’s tenure Tony Shaw’s departure, 1999 – With only one win from the first 12 games, the time had come for Shaw to depart the club after four years as senior coach. McGuire oversaw a dignified end to the club legend’s tenure that saw Shaw see out the season and blood several youngsters who would become the backbone of the club’s charge up the ladder. Last game at Victoria Park and collecting a wooden spoon, 1999 – The game was rapidly evolving and the much-loved Victoria Park was being left behind in the modern world of Australian football. Collingwood brought the curtain down on Victoria Park with a match against Brisbane in the final round of a season that produced only the second wooden spoon in its history. Mick Malthouse arrives, 1999 – McGuire was a key factor behind Mick Malthouse’s decision to depart West Coast and take the reigns at Collingwood ahead of the 2000 season. Coupled with the recruitment of highly rated youngsters Josh Fraser, Ben Johnson, Shane O’Bree and Leon Davis, it marked the rebirth of the club, one that would eventually culminate in a premiership a decade later. Life in the box, 2002 – Although he was the logical front man for the first year of Channel Nine’s football coverage, as club President, McGuire created controversy when he called Collingwood’s Friday night matches. His first match was a loss to Richmond in round one, but he managed to have a laugh when, after getting excited about an Anthony Rocca goal from 58m out, he yelled “I don’t care who’s watching tonight, I’m excited about that one!” Grand Final heartbreak, 2002 – As much as the nine-point loss to Brisbane in the 2002 Grand Final stung the club, it marked its return as a respected and feared presence in the football landscape. Only three years after claiming the wooden spoon, McGuire watched on as a young Collingwood outfit surprised Port Adelaide in the Qualifying Final, outlasted the Crows in the Preliminary Final and stuck with the all-conquering Lions all afternoon in wet conditions in the Grand Final. A Grand Final trouncing, 2003 – Hell-bent on redemption after finishing agonisingly close to its 15th premiership 12 months prior, Collingwood flew home in the second half of the season and looked set to reach the top of the mountain after knocking off Brisbane and Port Adelaide in the lead up finals. Unfortunately the club’s dream transformed into a nightmare before its eyes as the Lions mauled the Magpies by 50 points on the biggest stage of all. Shift to the Olympic Park Precinct, 2004 – Under McGuire, Collingwood became one of the first clubs to shift from its spiritual home and start a new life at a cutting-edge training facility – a trend that has been followed by several clubs across the competition in the years since. Two years in Sydney, 2006-2007 – McGuire shifted to Sydney to become the CEO of the Nine Network. He stepped down from his on-air commitments on The Footy Show and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? as well as his AFL commentary. A decade in charge, 2008 – McGuire’s 10th year at the helm arrived at an interesting juncture for the club. Having suspended Heath Shaw and Alan Didak for an off-field indiscretion late in the season and finishing eighth on the ladder after the home and away season, the Magpies drew a line in the sand and quickly bounced back up the ladder. They would reach the Preliminary Final in each of the next four seasons. Back to Victoria Park, 2009 – McGuire announces Collingwood’s return to Victoria Park to play its VFL home games from 2010 onwards. The coaching succession plan, 2009 – Ending months of conjecture over the coaching future of Malthouse and the recently retired Nathan Buckley, McGuire oversaw a deal that would see Buckley join Malthouse as an assistant coach in 2010-2011 before taking the reigns in his own right in 2012. McGuire called it “a humbling experience as a Collingwood person.” The ultimate glory, 2010 – Twenty years on from the 1990 premiership, Collingwood finally scaled football’s Mt Everest in claiming its 15th flag against St Kilda on 2 October. But there was so much more to it than that. The Magpies had to survive only the third drawn Grand Final in history a week earlier before backing up to claim the ultimate prize seven days later. Thirty minutes from back-to-back, 2011 – Collingwood trailed Geelong by only seven points at three quarter time in the 2011 Grand Final. It would not score a goal in the final term as the Cats ran out 38-point victors. The match marked the end of the road for Malthouse as coach and ushered in the Buckley era. Bucks takes charge, 2012 – Nathan Buckley’s time as Collingwood coach started with a loss to Hawthorn in the first game of the 2012 season but the year ended with a Preliminary Final appearance against eventual premiers Sydney. So close, 2018 – after years in the wilderness, Collingwood charged back into the finals in 2018, and all the way to a Grand Final. They broke away early, only to be reeled in by West Coast, and then the same pattern repeated in the final quarter. In the end it was one freakish string of possession by the Eagles, and a Dom Sheed shot from the boundary, that broke Magpie hearts. The fire sale – 2020. When salary cap pressures hit at the end of 2020, the club was forced to make decisions on some key players, including Adam Treloar and Jaidyn Stephenson, that shocked and upset many fans.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-presidents-kevin-rose/ Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:28:03 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7767 A self-effacing person, even Rose would admit that his three years as president came at an extraordinarily difficult time for the club. And his tenure during the mid-to-late 1990s coincided with a changing environment in the AFL, at almost the juncture when clubs went from traditional, semi-professional teams to fully professional national brands. And even if he didn’t have the team success as president, he remained on the board of his successor, Eddie McGuire, for several years after, which would prove to be more fulfilling. Rose always seemed a natural fit for the Collingwood board after 159 games with the club, between 1958 and 1967. He was a successful businessman, who founded and ran Kevin Rose Food Services, but he resisted the temptation until he received a phone call from Magpie president Allan McAlister in late 1995, pleading with him to take over the role McAlister had had for 10 seasons. Rose’s sense of duty meant he answered in the affirmative, though he was under no illusions about the task at hand. Only five years had elapsed since the 1990 premierships success that was meant to safeguard Collingwood forever, but the club was under significant pressure – financially the club was under a significant strain, its home ground was all but falling down around them, and new coach Tony Shaw was taking on a battling playing list. He insisted he had “no magic wand” to cure the club of its issues, and made it clear he would not be the outspoken and often controversial leader McAlister was. “I would think every area of the club has to show some improvement,” he said. “I don’t think we are performing as well as we’d like on the administration side and, obviously, neither is the football side.” At 56, Rose said he did not want to be a long-term president. He would stand to that word, serving for three completed seasons, during which time he faced a range of difficult issues, and yet confronted them with integrity. He and his board sought new revenue streams and opportunities. Some flourished, and others, such as the joint partnership to set up the Collingwood Warriors soccer club, didn’t. Rose desperately wanted to improve the club’s financial bottom line, and began selling off the many properties that had been bought under McAlister’s reign. An embarrassing situation arose in late 1997 when Collingwood’s chief executive John May struck a deal with telecommunications company Viatel that had been promoted as “the most lucrative in football”. It later emerged that the company was unable to meet its financial obligations. Rose promptly arranged Primus and Spicers Paper as replacement sponsors, but the damage was done from a publicity point of view. But it was the football side of things that was causing the club as much angst as anything else. Collingwood failed to make the finals in any of Rose’s three completed seasons as president – 11^th in 1996, 10^th in 1997 and 14^th in 1998 – which put the pressure back on the club and Shaw as coach. There was success, though, in keeping a champion. The Magpies were able to retain Nathan Buckley, thwarting a lucrative bid from the newly-formed Port Adelaide to recruit him. It would prove to be a critical moment. Shaw had been re-appointed for two more years at the end of 1997, but along with it a provision from Rose that the coach needed more help, and the club’s recruiting philosophies needed to be addressed. But a damaging leak from within the club that it had sounded out Sydney assistant coach Damien Drum in late 1998 as a coach came to public light, which infuriated Rose and embarrassed Shaw, who still had a contract. At the time, Rose said: “I would feel very annoyed and disappointed if it (the information) was coming from our board or an area close to our board … I would feel extremely let down if that’s the case.” Drum would chose the vacant Fremantle coaching position, and Shaw agreed to see out the last year of his contract, 1999. After Collingwood’s 55-point loss to Carlton in the penultimate round of 1998, a new candidate for the presidency emerged. Media giant Eddie McGuire, yet to turn 34, but already one of the most influential men in football, offered a new vision for the future and was determined to drag the Magpies into the 21^st century. In keeping with what he had done throughout his time at Collingwood, Rose took the selfless approach, and embraced McGuire’s interest, knowing it would be good for the club that he loved so dearly. At a club in which bitter elections are almost a tradition, Rose paved the way for a smooth, bloodless transition and even remained on the board to help out. He acted as a board member and sounding board to McGuire until 2007. But he also remains almost a patriarch of the club to this day, serving in a number of roles, including on Collingwood’s Hall of Fame selection committee. Rose might not have had the success he wanted as president, but he will be remembered as a man who had a hand in preparing the club for its departure from Victoria Park, looking towards a new training base. When he was granted AFL life membership in 2013, McGuire summed up his selfless qualities – “His service and passion for the club is now into a sixth decade, a wonderful contribution few could equal.”]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-presidents-allan-mcalister/ Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:22:21 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7762 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-presidents-john-hickey/ Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:01:58 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7752 John Hickey hadn’t always been a Collingwood fan. In fact he was born in Toowoomba, in Queensland, and spent much of his early years devoted to rugby and cricket. But it was aviation that became one of his greatest passions, and he gained his commercial pilot’s licence before enlisting in the RAAF at the start of the Second World War. While Collingwood has a rich tradition of its players serving their country in times of war, few people realise that one of its presidents – Hickey – would serve with distinction long before he came to be at Victoria Park. Hickey was a member of the 22 Squadron and would be awarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross for his courage in an enemy raid during the conflict. By the end of the war, he would be a Wing Commander. He would devote much of his working life to the aviation industry, predominantly working with TAA. In moving to Melbourne to further his career, Hickey instantly knew he had to choose a football team, and fortuitously, that team would be Collingwood. He started out helping on the reserves committee, and then served on the senior’s committee before being elevated as one of the club’s vice-presidents. When Ern Clarke resigned from the Collingwood presidency in May of what was a tumultuous 1976 season, Hickey was elevated to the role and was charged with trying to unite what had been a fractured club. The Magpies “won” their first wooden spoon in 1976, but Hickey was all about building for the future, and that included chasing the best available coach in the pursuit of that long-awaited flag. A chance encounter with four-time premiership coach Tom Hafey later in the year sowed the seeds of what would be a masterful coaching appointment. Hickey had Hafey installed as the new Collingwood coach – the first time an outsider had been selected – and he would take the Magpies from last to a Grand Final appearance in his first season. The appointment almost delivered the ultimate prize. The Magpies led by 27 points at three-quarter-time of the 1977 Grand Final before North Melbourne responded. The game ended in a draw, but the Kangaroos would win the replay by 27 points the following week. Further Grand Final losses would come in 1979 (five points), 1980 (81 points) and 1981 (20 points) as Hafey took what were considered modest teams almost to the point of being a premiership side. There was constant debate about whether Collingwood was doing enough from a recruiting point of view to deliver the players Hafey needed to take his team to the ultimate prize. And as the club continued to come so close to success, and yet not close enough, there was criticism that Hickey and this board were too conservative in actively pursuing stars from rival clubs and not aggressive enough in unleashing the purse strings to allow it to happen. The 1981 Grand Final loss was a turning point. The relationship between Hafey and many of his players – which had been so tight in those early years – became frayed and it resulted in a miserable start to the 1982 season. After eight consecutive losses – and nine defeats from the first 10 games – Hickey and the board felt they had no alternative but to sack Hafey, believing the players did not want to play for the coach any longer. The move to sack Hafey, and failure to achieve the ultimate success when it had been so close, brought the inevitable challenge to Hickey. The seeds of a new revolution were grown as the Magpies’ miserable season rolled on. There was a groundswell for change, and media proprietor Ranald Macdonald was the headline name on a seven-man ticket which called itself the ‘New Magpies’. They promised to modernise the club, to embark on a recruiting blitz previously unheard of in football, and to put the club into a position where it was capable of winning premiership on a regular basis. Hickey had no chance against that sort of rhetoric. As much as he had worked passionately for the club, as close as he had come to tasting the ultimate success, and despite a 55-per-cent win-loss ratio in his presidency, he was swept out of power by the biggest landslide the club had seen. It wasn’t the sort of exit he wanted, or deserved, but he remained a passionate supporter until he passed away, aged 88, in 2009.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-presidents-ern-clarke/ Fri, 22 Aug 2014 08:08:04 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7748 Clarke wasn’t the only reason for this; others within the club played their roles, too. But there is little doubt the tension and lack of cohesion between Clarke and Magpies coach Murray Weideman – who had inherited the job as one of the last acts of outgoing president Tom Sherrin in October 1974 – and a lack of unity between a divided board and the playing group played a role in the unseemly division and dissension. All of those things combined to create an untenable situation that led to Collingwood’s first wooden spoon in 1976, albeit months after Clarke had been pushed into a resignation to avert further turmoil at the club. According to Richard Stremski’s Kill For Collingwood, Clarke had come to the presidency “almost by default” after Jock McHale Jr. and Frank Galbally chose not to run for the role when Sherrin announced his resignation late in the 1974 season. Clarke promised to be “part of a progressive movement in the club”, which was seen as the antidote to the overly traditional approach of the Sherrin administration which had endured several heartbreaking Grand Final losses. And members craving that elusive premiership favoured this “brash, young businessman” over former great Neil Mann, with Clarke easily winning the role when it was put to a vote. As part of his promise to modernise the club, and free it from the shackles of the past, he oversaw the removal of the photos of past greats from the dressing room walls. He felt tradition weighed down the present, and wanted the modern players to be seen to make their own history. There were tensions within the club almost immediately from the time he took over, though the first six months seemed to pass without too many incidents. Weideman had the team playing reasonable football that would lead to a finals berth in 1975; star recruit Phil Carman was on his way to a Copeland Trophy in his debut season; and Clarke’s modernisation program had seen the set-up of the first coterie within the club, the Woodsmen. But not all was rosy. Secretary Peter Lucas resigned and the board was divided by some of the president’s actions, even though those strains were kept relatively in house in that first season. Relations between Clarke and Weideman were unmistakably frosty, particularly with the coach’s belief that the president was having too much to say about football matters, predominantly about team selection. As Stremski noted, Weideman and Carman signed a statement at the end of the 1975 season – after Collingwood had finished fifth – that they would quit the club if Clarke remained president. They withdrew it before it reached Clarke, and that all but guaranteed a showdown between coach and president the following season that only one of them could possibly win. Clarke’s decision to chase ex-Magpie Des Tuddenham and get him to return to Victoria Park in 1976, and re-assume the captaincy, frustrated Weideman, but also Wayne Richardson, who had been the skipper the year before. Petty jealous and divisions within the playing ranks about payment to certain players, with much of it directed at Carman, led to tensions at almost every level of the football club in that fateful 1976 season. Carman summed up the mood when he later declared: “I just couldn’t be bothered; the administration wasn’t stable and they’d just lost me.” Something had to give, or perhaps someone. The issue came to a head early in the season when Weideman issued a public statement, saying he could no longer continue to coach the club if Clarke remained as president. The wording of it showed the true depth of feeling when he stated: “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 internal bickering was laid bare across the front page of The Sun newspaper with the headline: “Magpies: It’s Open War!” Although some of the players had their own issues with Weideman, the group backed him over his showdown with Clarke. The president and the coach were forcibly brought together to make a temporary truce for the sake of the club, but it was only ever going to cover the cracks for so long. Petitions from members called for Clarke’s departure, and in late May, he felt as if he had no choice but to resign from the presidency in order to save the club from further embarrassment, or perhaps worse. Stremski concluded: “No one person or group of persons was responsible for the fiasco of 1976; everyone was culpable. The club had an impetuous president, an ineffectual committee … and an undisciplined coach. To cap off a frustrating year on and off the field, the Magpies finished last on the ladder for the first time in their history, and while Clarke wasn’t there when it happened, the divisions within the club during his short-lived presidency undoubtedly contributed to the end result.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-presidents-jim-sharp/ Fri, 22 Aug 2014 07:46:25 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=7731 Sharp had been an outstanding defender with Fitzroy before he joined Collingwood as a player in 1911. His playing career at the Pies was cut short just over a year later by a seriously broken leg, but he had impressed so many people at Victoria Park in his short time there that he was immediately elevated to a vice-presidential position. The following season, 1913, he was elected by the Committee to take over as club President. Jim had many qualities that stamped him as a man capable of leading a major football club. Chief among them was that he was one of the most admired and respected men in football. “It is men like Jim Sharp who bring honour to the pastime,” wrote the Football Follower. He was well educated and well spoken. Indeed there were times when others around this “working man’s” club had to ask Jim to use words or phrases that were easier to understand! He was also successful in business, his family having for many years run the famed Allan Photographic Studio in Collingwood. After a short dalliance with teaching in Box Hill, Sharp became involved with the family business and, together with his brother Les, ran it until his death in 1945. Jim Sharp proved to be an excellent President, his intelligence, integrity and knowledge piloting Collingwood through the difficult years of the First World War and into the dual Premiership successes of 1917 and 1919. He was not only an outstanding leader but also a popular one. In 1917, ‘Chatterer’ in the Football Record claimed that “there has never been a more popular President’. That was true not just of his fellow administrators but also the fans, with whom he was a favourite. Jim made no secret of his love for the club and, before one Grand Final, even allowed that passion to spill into verse: “Two fast teams, a springtime day, Who will win, ’tis hard to say. The Magpies record is well known, But Richmond’s fame has also grown. So cheer them on, both teams good, I tip to win bold Collingwood.” Magpie fans also loved his commitment to the club, as shown when he pulled on the jumper again in 1917 for one game when the team was a player short. His knee crumpled in the first minutes, but everyone loved that he’d been prepared to put himself on the line. He eventually resigned at the end of 1924, after Collingwood’s two least successful seasons to that point. The club’s annual report that year noted that his resignation had been accepted “with the keenest regret”, and especially remarked upon the ‘hands-on’ nature of his presidency. “Mr Sharp was not content to remain a president in name only. He was constantly in evidence as chairman of the General Finance and Selection Committee, where his football experience and ability were invaluable. His genial personality and fluency of speech made him an ideal chairman, and his retirement is a distinct loss to the football world in general, and Collingwood in particular.” Thereafter Jim concentrated on business at Allan Studios, and on his other love, lawn bowls. But he remained a patron of the club and continued to be a keen student and observer of the game. Never was this better demonstrated than in 1944, just a year before his death, when he penned an article for the Sporting Globe. It says much about his standing in the game that he was still being asked for his views, some 20 years after he had retired. And what he had to say was freakishly prescient. He suggested a number of far-reaching changes to the game, including a significant increase in the number of players on the bench. At that time there was only one, and it was only a direct substitute, no interchange. But Sharp believed as many as four or five players should be on the bench, so a game would not be ruined by injuries. How many do we have on the bench today? He also suggested that, for finals matches, every seat in the public stands should be numbered and booked in advance. And he also advocated that a free kick should be paid against any player who kicked the ball out of bounds on the full – a full 25 years before this rule was actually introduced! Such progressive thinking was typical of Jim Sharp, and one of the many reasons he was so highly regarded in the football world. Collingwood was fortunate indeed to have had him serve more than a decade in the top position at the club.]]>