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/daicos-versus-ablett/ Wed, 18 May 2016 04:35:29 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=10467 By: Glenn McFarlane, Herald Sun journalist and Collingwood historian. This match wasn’t simply Collingwood versus Geelong; for much of it, this was Daicos versus Ablett. The round two, 1993 clash between the Magpies and the Cats was not only an early-season blockbuster; it had the added bonus of taking place at one of football’s suburban battlegrounds, Collingwood’s Victoria Park. And, fittingly, the game would duly live up to the expectations. This would be the last time these two great sides would square off on the Magpies’ hallowed turf and it also proved to be a cracking contest, centred on two champions of the game. Collingwood had beaten Footscray in the opening round of the season; and Geelong, the previous year’s Grand Finalist, had beaten St Kilda in their first game. Given the limited number of people who could attend Victoria Park matches, many fans were going to miss out on the occasion. The Cats lobbied unsuccessfully with the AFL to have the game transferred to the MCG, but the fact that the home of football already had games scheduled for the Friday night, Saturday and Sunday made that problematic. In contrast, the Magpies were steadfast that the venue needed to be retained. But they did seek to have the game played live on television, but the AFL wouldn’t allow Channel Seven to do it. Daicos was coming into the game under a fair amount of pressure. The 31-year-old almost retired after the end of the 1992 season, but the club coaxed him into returning. Ablett, also 31, and born 11 days after Daicos in 1961, was still at the peak of his powers, and clearly Collingwood coach’s Leigh Matthews’ biggest worry going into the match. Gary Ablett kicked seven goals in Geelong’s loss to Collingwood in round two, 1993. In a Herald Sun column days before the game, the Magpie forward said that “in my 15 seasons as a senior player … never has the depth been greater.” “Maybe that’s why people have been asking me all week how I felt about my own game (against Footscray in round one). It’s a funny thing. Obviously, I have played many better matches of football, but some of those have received far less favourable response from my coach Leigh Matthews. On Friday night, he asked me to perform a certain role, and while a few extra touches would have gone down well, Leigh was pleased I stuck to my task.” Collingwood took a gamble in selection before the game, bringing in “burly rookie” Glenn Sandford to give some assistance in attack, while Gavin Crosisca was also back in the Magpies’ side. On the same day, across town at the MCG, a 17-year-old kid called Dustin Fletcher would play the first of his 400 games, in a match where Essendon and Carlton drew after a Stephen Kernahan miss. A total of 24,147 fans squeezed into Victoria Park on 3 April, 1993, with Magpies president Allan McAlister apologising to the many fans who missed out on seeing the game. Ablett kicked the first two goals of the match, as well as adding a third goal and two behinds before quarter-time. Matthews had a dilemma – should he stick with Gavin Brown on Ablett or swing an early change? Matthews backed his judgment, and as Ablett tired during stages of the game, Brown helped to set up many forward entries off the back of running off his opponent. During the second term, Ablett let frustration get the better of him. He was reported for striking Gary Pert with a left-forearm during a fiery second term. It would see the tribunal ban him for two weeks. He kicked a fourth goal soon after, but he didn’t get a touch in the third term. Then he came home with three last-quarter goals to push the Cats closer to their opponents. But if Ablett was putting on a show at one end, Daicos was faring even better at the other. Those who crammed into the Magpie star’s favourite pockets had the perfect chance to see his artistry in what would ultimately prove to be his fourth last game. Daicos kicked two goals late in the first term which dragged Collingwood back into the contest. His second came as he read the ball off the pack to give his team a narrow lead at quarter-time. He was looking dangerous, boosted by the home crowd support he was receiving. The Age recorded: “Sure, he has played well elsewhere, but Daicos trapping the ball deep in the (Victoria Park) pocket, looking up and threading the ball through the sticks from a position where most would hardly bother to try is a performance that deserves its own theatre. Like Jack Nicklaus playing a great round at Augusta, or Don Bradman cracking a century at Lords, a Daicos bag somehow seems even better at Victoria Park. All the more so yesterday because the performance was so unexpected.” The goals kept coming for the Magpie star, with his eye in, and his tongue out, as he put his team in a winning position. Fans would only witness the magic of Peter Daicos just thrice more after his eight-goal game against the Cats. One of the best of his eight goals for the game came when in the last term he had three bounces “before pinning himself against the boundary with an opponent bearing down”. It was his seventh, and it put the game beyond doubt.Sensing the moment, Daicos waved to his father as he ran towards the boundary. He added an eighth goal when he launched a left foot shot around his body when the ball came out of a ball-up stoppage. Halfway through the last term, the margin was 33 points, and even though the Cats made a late charge, Collingwood never seriously looked like losing the match. The final margin was 10 points. One interesting sideline to the game was Collingwood’s use of Barry Mitchell, the most expensive recruit of the season. He spent most of the game on the interchange bench. His stats were one kick and one handball, and that kick was partially smothered off the boot. “It wasn’t his performance today – I mean you can’t perform if you are on interchange,” Matthews said. “We chose to play him there because we had a better 18 in terms of balance.” Cats coach Malcolm Blight summed up the difference in a handful of words: “We just couldn’t find anyone to stop Daicos.” In the rooms after the game, Daicos admitted he was delighted with the win, and his return to form. “Two people I need to thank, who I live with day in and day out, are my wife Colleen and my little daughter Madison who have had to put up with a lot of s— and they’ve been fantastic,” he said. “When I’ve had doubts I’ve always talked to Colleen about it and she has never been negative about things. “I’ve got to thank her for the turnaround.” He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face, saying just what it meant to him to be playing again at Victoria Park: “I would have loved to have been in the outer at the 20-minute mark (of the last quarter) and seen how some of the other guys were acting … It’s all part of the emotion of the game … That’s what it is all about.” Jubilant Collingwood fans would have said the same thing. But instead of a rebirth for Daicos, it turned out to be his last great moment in the game. He would only play three more matches – the following week against Essendon, when he kicked two goals, and goal-less games against North Melbourne in round 10, and Sydney in round 15. That last game – his 250th – was spent mainly on the bench, and it wasn’t the farewell he so richly deserved. Still, Collingwood fans prefer to recall that memorable day at Victoria Park against the Cats as the lasting image of Daicos’ final season – when he went head-to-head in an enthralling goal kicking duel with Ablett.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/vic-park-the-last-goodbye/ Sat, 23 Aug 2014 06:57:17 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=5898 The Last Day, August 28, Lulie St, 10am More than four hours before the first game at the newly named Jock McHale Stadium, and the last at Victoria Park, trains unloaded swarms of football fans wearing black and white jumpers, jackets, scarves and a few long-neglected duffle coats. The masses congregated on the platform and headed towards the ground, over the railway yard and into crowded Lulie St. Sausages sizzled on barbecues, face painters daubed long lines of children in layers of black and white war paint and people waited patiently for admittance through the old turnstiles. One poor soul clutched a large cardboard sign, held in desperation and blind hope, with a plea that read: “I will do anything for a ticket.” Many of the fans circled the ground one last time, taking it all in, walking down Lulie St to Turner St, then into Bath St and around the corner from Trenerry Crescent into Abbott St. A precious few parking positions were reserved in Turner St for those willing to fork out a little extra. One person in an old Holden evaded a security net and illegally parked his car in one of the spots. His mate jumped out and said: “You can’t park there, you’ll get a fine or be towed away.” The Holden driver smiled. A parking fine would be considered a souvenir on a day like this. Some kids were flying for speccies on the little grassy area on the corner of Turner and Bath Sts. Families and friends, fathers with their sons on their shoulders, mates and strangers gathered and entered the ground to watch a game there one last time, talking about the old days and how footy used to be when it was simply a game, not an industry. The Last Lunch, 11am The game was still hours away when Eddie McGuire turned on the biggest president’s lunch in footy – 1200 people in all. A collection of past players, the board, sponsors, officials, the media and some fanatical fans with $350 to spare listened to Eddie’s last Vic Park lunch. He told the audience that this would be a day that no one would forget. First, he handed out a history lesson, saying: “In the 1800s Collingwood, the suburb, was on the bottom rung of the socio-economic scale. It was the flatlands of Melbourne, the dumping ground to the abattoirs and shoe factories.” Then he rewrote history when he welcomed Melbourne’s Lord Mayor as “the Mayor of South Collingwood.” The former players in attendance signed everything from footy records to serviettes, from menus to footballs. Peter McKenna, McGuire’s hero as a kid, was one of the most sought after, just as he was when he wore No.6 in the goalsquare across the road. Even Jock McHale, son of the legendary coach who spent more than half his lifetime at the ground, and a former player himself, signed his share of autographs. When he signed a footy for a young fan, he paused to wonder what his father would have thought about leaving his “home away from home”. On The Ground, 1pm The old girl was decked out in her finest. The club’s 14 VFL Premiership flags fluttered in the chilly breeze from atop the Rush Stand, just above the names of the club’s most revered footballers. Temporary stands jutted out from the Yarra Falls end, a giant video screen started off slowly and without sound, before clicking into gear. A faint ray of sunshine failed to push its way through the ominous clouds. A handful of past players strolled out onto the ground. One of them was not even a former Magpie. Ron Barassi was out there in a Melbourne jumper, shadowed in his every move by Barry ‘Hooker’ Harrison, of course. The former players were back on show to relive some of the club’s most famous or infamous deeds, most of which never happened at Victoria Park. But that didn’t really matter on a day such as this. Denis Banks was standing on a stepladder out near centre half-forward. Banks was there to re-enact his mark of 1984 taken across town at the Western Oval. He re-emerged shortly after, looking as svelte as when he used to wear No.12, with a dummy wearing a blond wig. Banks belted the David Rhys-Jones effigy just as he had done to the real thing back in 1986. The dummy’s head fell off. Someone yelled: “Give him another one, Banksy.” No one could accuse Phil Manassa of being svelte. He looked as if he had been in a fair paddock, and that’s precisely where he was on the Ryder Stand wing, with no one between him and the goals. He bounced once, clumsily at first, and then again, and again, with a little less pace and surety than he did along the MCG wing in the 1977 Grand Final Replay. The ball slipped off his boot and ended up in the Vic Park crowd. It was not the only piece of history to go awry. Ross ‘Twiggy’ Dunne missed his first attempt to recreate his famous goal from 1977, and even Peter Daicos’s magic from his trademark Social Club forward pocket took an extra shot before he nailed one in his inimitable style. Then, there was the Dream Team – a chain of passes that linked Thommo and Tuddy and Pricey and Thorold and the Weed and the great Bobby Rose, Lou and Daics and …well, you get the idea. Fittingly, it finished with a McKenna goal. Fans began to dream, and to drool. Then the serious tributes started. Legends circled the ground in golf carts in a few moving moments. The crowd roared in appreciation, cheering their heroes and remembering the good times, and a few bad ones. The biggest cheers were reserved for Bob Rose, Daics, McKenna, Tuddy, et al. One of those being driven around was less well known, but he enjoyed it every bit as much as the legends. At 98, Roy Allen was then Collingwood’s oldest living player. Never mind the fact he had played only two games, in 1924. He was a hero, too, on that last day at Victoria Park. Driven around the ground, Allen passed the spot where he used to watch games as a kid with his mate ‘Bottles’ Chesswas, when they used to sit next to timekeeper Jim Manning in the old Cowsheds in the years before the First World War. The Last Pre-Match Speech, 1.45pm Tony Shaw’s words were muffled at first, lost somewhere in cyberspace. The giant television screen flickered and the audio crackled. Finally, the coach delivered his message to the 22 players, to the 26,000 in attendance and the hundreds of thousands watching around the country. Shaw was saying goodbye. It was his last game as coach of Collingwood and the crowd was silent as he delivered his final instructions to his players. He gave one last plea for the team to play with passion. More than most, he knew what the history of the place meant to the fans. He named some of the players who had carried the hopes of Collingwood. Great names, too – the Coventrys, the Colliers, the Richards, the Pannams, the Roses, the Twomeys, the Richardsons, to name but a few. Shaw told his team that Victoria Park used to intimidate opposition teams and players, and give those in the black and white strength. Shaw’s players did not especially know all the names, but knew the importance of the occasion. “Just go out there and know that there are 30,000 people out there who would love to be in your position today,” Shaw said calmly, but with purpose. “They would do anything to be in your position today.” The Collingwood cheersquad were not listening to Shaw’s speech, however. They had their own mountains to climb, or to lift, to be precise. The farewell banner was a monolith of black and white proportions – a massive eight metres by 40 metres. They tried to raise it nervously as Shaw instructed his players. The Brisbane Lions cheersquad arrived to help them out. Finally, they managed to raise the banner just as the Collingwood players emerged from the race. The epitaph said it all: “Victoria Park 1892-1999, thanks for the memories.” The Last Match, 2.10pm Pent-up emotion can be a double-edged sword. It can fire you up and make you achieve the extraordinary. Or it can cling to you and overwhelm you. Within a few minutes of the opening bounce that afternoon, the Magpies were overwhelmed. Emotion simply proved too much for the young Magpie players, or more to the point, the Lions proved too much for them. Brisbane kicked four goals in the opening six minutes and an eerie silence came over the venue that had roared for 108 seasons. Sadly, the final game was over in 15 minutes. It took Collingwood 17 minutes to get the ball past the half-forward line. Finally, Anthony Rocca kicked Collingwood’s opening goal at the 20-minute mark. A cheer started up in the Sherrin Stand after Rocca’s goal and spread across the ground, ending the silence for a minute. The difference was 33 points at quarter-time; the game was shot. The Lions managed to shut down Collingwood’s attack and the home side faced the same deficit at the long interval, despite second quarter goals to veteran Gavin Brown and second year player Chris Tarrant. The Interval and the Second Half, 3.30pm The first half was almost like a funeral, so perhaps it was appropriate that there was a wedding at half-time. Long-time fan Jennie Hallam’s longstanding joke with her fiancé Kevin Bear that they would become the first couple to marry at Magpieland came true in front of 26,000 fans and several hundred thousand gatecrashers. She tied the knot in the goalsquare of the Sherrin Stand to the bemusement of the crowd. The knot tightened further for Collingwood in the second half. The Magpies failed to score in a dreadful third quarter; the old scoreboard was seemingly fixed on 3.3. The last quarter was at least a little better. Collingwood managed to outscore its opposition by five goals to three. But it was cold comfort. The final margin was 42 points, the Victoria Park scoreboard stuck forever on 8.4 (52) to 13.16 (94). The Last Rites, 5pm Everyone was looking for Tony Shaw after the game. The players wanted him to be a part of the final farewell; they wanted to carry their coach off the ground one last time. But the man who made his name on this ground had gone off for a solitary Crown Lager. He had escaped the coaches’ box one last time and headed down the Ryder Stand steps, straight into the deserted Collingwood rooms. He wanted to be alone. Out on the ground no one seemed to know what to do. Past players and the last 22 to represent the club on the ground lined up for Collingwood’s equivalent of the Last Post. The black and white flag was symbolically lowered. Nathan Buckley and Lou Richards, captains five decades apart, gathered to collect the flag. Bucks then handed it over to Eddie McGuire for safekeeping. “Good Old Collingwood Forever”, the song everyone wanted to hear, regardless of the result, was played over and over again. The legends on the ground seemed unwilling to leave, as if they did not want to say goodbye. Eventually, they shook hands, wiped away a few sentimental tears and left the ground. For a few minutes the famous turf was empty, besides the army of police and security guards. Then a kid scaled the boundary at the Yarra Falls end. Like a leak in a dam wall, he was followed by more and more intent on having their personal chance at saying farewell. The ground announcer tried in vain to get them to leave, then simply gave up trying. Kids – and kids at heart – swamped the arena for one last kick. Underneath the Ryder Stand, Nathan Buckley admitted the emotion had got the better of the players. Tony Shaw held his last press conference. Typically, he finished with a joke and said to the congregation of media that “we must have a beer, and it’s your shout.” The After-Party, 6pm-late Queues for the “Vic Park Party of the Century”, the after-match function at the Walker Corporation building across Trenerry Crescent, started long before the final siren sounded the death knell for the ground. An hour after the game the queue stretched to 400m. When it was reduced to 200m, an official came out and said the party was sold out, just as the game had been. A few disappointed fans headed to the local pubs where fans congregated like they had for more than a century. In the “Vic Park Party of the Century”, the faithful toasted the old girl one last time, music blared from the speakers and the result of the 910th match involving Collingwood at Victoria Park was consigned to history. The last Collingwood team to play at Victoria Park appeared on stage at 8pm. Finally, Tony Shaw emerged, too, to say goodbye after 21 years. He grabbed the microphone and said he could barely believe how a team that had finished on the bottom of the ladder, that had been thrashed earlier that day, could have so many loyal and dedicated supporters. Someone near the front chanted “Shawry, Shawry.” The crowd went into raptures when three players – Chris Tarrant, Mal Michael and Brad Fuller – belted out a rendition of the Village People’s YMCA. The party concluded around midnight when the drinks ran out and the voices became hoarse. As the fans trudged off into the night, the raucous sounds of “Good Old Collingwood Forever” echoed along Abbott and Lulie Street. Finally, the curtain closed on the day we all said goodbye to Victoria Park, the day when football and the community welded together for one last, emotional time. Postscripts There were two postscripts at Victoria Park, though they were never planned. Rather, they simply evolved out of two Collingwood Grand Final appearances, something that had seemed improbable back in 1999. When the Magpies made the 2002 and 2003 Premiership play-offs – against the Brisbane Lions, the team that had played in that last game at Victoria Park – fans turned out in their droves to watch the final Thursday night training sessions before the Grand Finals. For a time, that atmosphere and special magic of the venue was switched on again. The fans were there in huge numbers – more than some games used to attract in the old days of suburban grounds – and they began streaming into the ground a couple of hours before training even started. The smell of sizzling sausages wafted over the ground. Many fans chose their vantage point those afternoons not based on where they’d get the best view to watch training, but on where they used to sit when the venue hosted league matches. Fathers and mothers brought their kids along to savour the moment, and thousands in attendance cheered every kick, mark and handball as if they had occurred in a match. In 2002, particularly, there was an air of delightful unreality to it all. Only the most optimistic fan could have contemplated the idea of a Collingwood Grand Final appearance that year. Most were just happy to be there again, to know that the club was once more involved on the last Saturday in September. A year later it was different. There was genuine confidence about the result, a feeling that the Malthouse-led renaissance would be complete in just a few more days. They were memorable, happy afternoons; only the results in the games that followed soured the feelings. At the end of those sessions, the players left the field for the sanctuary of the Ryder Stand change rooms to truly thunderous applause. Then that famous patch of turf belonged once more to the fans – many of whom took the opportunity to have one more kick-to-kick on the ground and think about the good old days of Vic Park. Somehow this seemed like the kind of farewell Vic Park deserved. The team’s insipid performance ensured that the formal, structured farewell of 1999 had turned out to be a damp squib. But these were days to remember – a final celebration of Victoria Park, and all that it meant to the supporters of the Collingwood Football Club.]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/vic-park-the-begining-of-the-end/ Wed, 13 Aug 2014 06:32:53 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=5887 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/a-new-lease-of-life/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:52:57 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4951 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-social-club/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:41:12 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4946 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/the-ryder-stand/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:37:05 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4941 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/copeland-saves-collingwood/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:31:19 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4935 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/football-comes-to-victoria-park/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:23:52 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4930 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/victoria-park-is-born/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:19:49 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4925 https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/a-famous-patch-of-turf/ Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:13:44 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=4922