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/players/mark-williams/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:01:07 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/mark-williams/ In Black & White wrote: “There is no such thing as a light-hearted conversation with him when it comes to football. He is intense even when answering the most trivial questions about the game. His obsession with football is undoubtedly a strength. He detests losing and hates playing badly. He loves winning and performing at his peak.” While those words conveniently ignore the lively and outgoing parts of Williams’ personality (it was he who smuggled a black cabbage patch doll into the 1985 team photo), they do neatly sum up his approach to the game back then. That approach might have owed something to his background, because he came from SA football royalty. His father, Fos, was a legend in SA football, having played more than 200 games and won two best and fairests with Port Adelaide. He then captain-coached Port for nine years, coached them for a further 12 years (in all leading them to nine Premierships), then coached West Adelaide. No wonder he and his brothers, Anthony and Stephen, (who were also fine players) were serious about their footy. And Collingwood were the ones to benefit. After an outstanding junior career, Williams found himself playing senior football at age 17, firstly with West Adelaide, then Port. He looked likely to head to Hawthorn but the Hawks lost interest just as Williams was becoming more and more determined to try his luck across the border. That’s when the Magpies stepped in. After winning all-Australian selection and a second flag with Port in 1980, Williams was ready to move. From the moment he stepped through the door he was right at home, both at Collingwood and also in VFL football. He won the Copeland in that debut season and was also chosen to play for Victoria, starting a brief but glorious career in the black-and-white. The key to his success in the VFL was that, unlike many previous SA recruits, Williams played a very Victorian style of football. He was desperate, a fierce competitor, a strong tackier and a player totally committed to doing the hard, team-oriented things. He gave his absolute all for the team every time he played, and wherever he played. Mostly that was as a ruck-rover, in the centre or on the forward line, but he also spent most of his 1985 season – during which he won his second Copeland – as a run-with player assigned to stars such as Leigh Matthews and Tim Watson. He wasn’t a pretty or stylish footballer – his kicking style was actually ungainly – but he was certainly effective. Collingwood had no more gutsy or effective contributor during the first half of the 1980s. He was also more skilled than many appreciated, and actually finished ahead of Peter Daicos in a long-running goalkicking contest the two held before and after training sessions. Still, it was his endeavour and effort and assault on the footy that most people remember – and which his teammates loved. “He read the play well and attacked the ball like a maniac,” wrote Tony Shaw in his book A Shaw Thing. “Desperation-wise he is a bit more along my line of thinking about how a footballer should play the game. I like a bloke who plays like Mark.” It was no surprise when he was made captain in 1983, and he spent four years at the helm, quickly winning a reputation among his teammates as an admired and inspirational leader. In addition to his two Copelands he also won awards for most courageous (after which he remarked that “courage is an indication of the number of times you get stitches in your head”), Magpie of the Year (twice), most consistent (twice) and even leading goalkicker. Despite those achievements he was still on a relatively modest salary at the end of his second contract, but he and the club ran into a dead-end when negotiating the third. That stalemate ended up with Williams crossing to the fledgling Brisbane Bears. It was a move that nobody seemingly wanted. Williams would much rather have stayed. His teammates wanted him to stay too. Their admiration for him was obvious when his career ended four years later, after a game against the Pies in 1990. And he remains a fan favourite, their affection for him apparent again in 2014 when news emerged that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma. Magpie fans were amongst the first and most vocal to support him, even though he was involved with Richmond at the time. By this time, Mark Williams had established himself as a big name in coaching. He’d started in the AFL with Essendon as an assistant coach, then moved to Port Power in the same role before taking over as their head coach in 1999. He stayed there until 2010, winning a flag in 2004, after which he spent time as an assistant with both Greater Western Sydney and Richmond. As a coach he became famous for his intensity, his insight into the game and his skills in educating and dealing with younger players. The highlight of his coaching career came in 2004, when he led Port to their first AFL flag, after a couple of years of near-misses. His post-match antics (grabbing his own necktie as a middle finger to those who’d branded his team ‘chokers’, and his pointed words to club chairman Alan Scott) that day attracted plenty of criticism. But the real story was that Mark Williams’ Port Adelaide team had just beaten the Brisbane Lions, and in the process had protected the four-in-a-row record set by Collingwood’s mighty Machine teams in 1927-30. He must still get a buzz out of knowing that a Collingwood ‘insider’ was significantly responsible for protecting the club’s most cherished record. For one who still clearly loves the Pies, that is overdue reward for all that he gave while wearing the black-and-white jumper. – Michael Roberts]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/peter-moore/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:41 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/peter-moore/ https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/ray-shaw/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:39 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/ray-shaw/ Rhyce and then Heath, became significant figures in the Magpies’ on-field fortunes. As a Magpie through and through, little else could have given Ray Shaw greater satisfaction. – Michael Roberts]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/robert-hyde/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:36 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/robert-hyde/ https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/ian-d-cooper/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:33 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/ian-d-cooper/ Age named him among the club’s best players, saying he was “never outdone” and “kept battling on”. They were qualities Cooper would display often in the years ahead. After such a promising debut, hopes were high for Cooper in 1973. But when the final lists came out he was mysteriously nowhere to be seen. He had contracted a type of rheumatic fever that caused swelling in his ankles and was diagnosed as arthritis. Doctors advised him to stand out of football for 12 months. By the time he returned to football in 1974, Cooper had filled out physically and felt increasingly at home in defence. His critics said he was too short for a key defensive post, but he had no problems playing at full-back or in the back pocket. He made everyone sit up and take notice when he kept an admittedly ailing Peter Hudson goalless in round two, and went from strength to strength thereafter, playing 18 games for the year before ankle problems prematurely ended his season. Something else had changed by 1974 too. The Paul Hogan Show had become one of the most popular programs on TV, and it featured Hoges’ dim-witted housemate ‘Strop’ (played by Hogan’s friend John Cornell, a successful businessman who later played a key role in the formation of World Series Cricket). ‘Strop’, it has to be said, bore an uncanny resemblance to Ian Cooper. So, armed with a new nickname and an ostensibly fit body, Collingwood’s ‘Strop’ set about the golden years of his career. From 1974 to 1977 he was a regular in the Magpie defence. Tough, strong, uncompromising and fearless, he was a nightmare for opposing forwards. He could take a good mark and was surprisingly speedy once he had a head of steam up, his surging bursts from defence becoming something of a trademark. But his main strength lay in being able to nullify high-scoring forwards. He wasn’t afraid to get physical when he needed to, and alongside similarly rugged colleagues such as Phil Manassa and later Stan Magro and Kevin Worthington, he made the Collingwood back line a scary place to be. Fitness was never his strong suit (he finished last in the 1976 pre-season cross-country run), but he was an assiduous trainer and won a television from Canberra TV in 1974 for “dedication to training”. The next year he was named the club’s most consistent player and awarded the J.F. McHale Trophy. Late in Collingwood’s barnstorming 1977 season, Cooper went down with ankle problems that forced him out of the finals series. He initially thought it a recurrence of the 1973 injury, but it turned out to be a chipped bone and ankle spurs. That was bad enough, but recurring arthritic problems with his ankles, back and even a dislocated shoulder saw him miss all of 1978, play only one game in 1979 and miss all of 1980. He became a kind of ghost figure at Collingwood – often mentioned but rarely seen. But Cooper never gave up. One game in three years and he never gave up. It was hailed as one of the great comebacks when he eventually returned to the team for a few games midway through 1981. He spent much of the year captaining the reserves and was set to retire at the end of the season, but when the senior team was hit by injuries to Peter Moore, Stan Magro and Andrew Smith, the Pies pulled a major surprise by naming him in their Preliminary Final side. At that point it had been 14 weeks since his last senior appearance. Cooper responded by playing one of the best games of his career. Many critics chose him as best on ground, and credited him with piloting the Pies to another Grand Final. “Cooper did a marvellous job of refuting the generally accepted view that he was an ageing backman with suspect ankles,” wrote Trevor Grant in the Age. “He jumped, danced and dodged his way out of strife so many times and made the Geelong forwards who had destroyed the Magpies in the Qualifying Final look remarkably inadequate.” “His courage and spirit typifies everything that is Collingwood,” wrote the Sunday Press. The fairytale ending, of course, would have seen the Pies win the ’81 flag and Cooper retire with his Preliminary Final performance a fresh reminder of the qualities he brought to his football. But Collingwood lost, and Cooper decided to extend his career. He managed only eight games in 1982, then in the 1983 pre-season was suspended for four weeks for whacking a Footscray opponent during a charity match to raise money for the victims of the Ash Wednesday bushfires. He never regained a senior berth, and eventually left for Port Melbourne in the VFA. Ian ‘Strop’ Cooper was one of those players that fans love. His whole-hearted, full-on (and sometimes aggressive) approach to footy endeared him to the Magpie faithful from day one. But his long and determined struggle to return to senior football after suffering such debilitating injuries made him even more popular. He was an underrated footballer but one of the finest Magpie defenders of his era. That 1981 Preliminary Final was just about the perfect footnote to his career. – Michael Roberts]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/barry-price/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:09 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/barry-price/ https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/wayne-richardson/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:09 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/wayne-richardson/ https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/len-thompson/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:08 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/len-thompson/ reallyset him apart – was his agility. He moved like a rover at times, and his ground play and ball skills were astonishing for one so tall. He could pick the ball up on the run, sidestep, handball beautifully, short pass or kick long. He could do it all. If you doubt this, search YouTube for footage of Collingwood’s 1973 preliminary final over Richmond and look for his first goal, about halfway into the opening term. Max Richardson taps the ball out to him and Thommo speeds away from Tiger wingman Francis Bourke and sinks a long goal from centre half-forward. Then remind yourself that this bloke is nearly 200cm tall – and he’s playing like a midfielder. Despite his placid nature – Thommo really was the classic gentle giant on the field – he had an unhappy knack of courting controversy. The most famous instance of that, of course, came during the 1970 pre-season, when he and Des Tuddenham went on ‘strike’ for a few weeks in a fight for better pay and conditions, sparked by the club’s decision to spend big on WA recruit Peter Eakins. The strike was front page news for weeks. It was eventually resolved, but the pair’s actions left a bitter aftertaste. To make matters worse, that 1970 incident set a trend: seemingly every second year or so Thommo would threaten to leave, or announce he was leaving, if his latest wage demands weren’t met. The result was that, despite winning three more Copelands in the 1970s and the Brownlow Medal in 1972, Big Len often felt that he was resented by some fans, and certainly by some officials. That feeling was exacerbated when Collingwood pushed him out at the end of the 1978 season. He had finally been named skipper that year but Tommy Hafey decided to off-load him as part of a major clearout at season’s end. Thommo desperately wanted to stay and become the club’s first 15-year player since Lou Richards, but instead he had to end his career at South Melbourne, then Fitzroy, eventually finishing with a grand total of 305 games. He returned to Victoria Park briefly in the mid-1980s as part of the ill-fated New Magpies regime. Len Thompson’s stellar career stamps him as one of the greatest Collingwood footballers of all time. Yet he still felt there was resentment towards him even after retirement, and he admitted to feeling uncomfortable or ‘on edge’ at club functions. But all that changed after Eddie McGuire took over as president. His whole-hearted attempts to bring disenchanted former players back into the fold had perhaps their greatest success with Thommo, who finally found his way back to widespread acclamation in the early 2000s. When he died of a heart attack in 2007, aged just 60, the club mourned. But Thommo’s journey with Collingwood wasn’t quite finished yet. In 2014, his Brownlow Medal and three of his Copelands were donated to the club by an anonymous benefactor. They now form part of the club’s archives, where they will forever remain as testament to an extraordinary and yet perhaps still undervalued career. – Michael Roberts]]> https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/peter-mckenna/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:00:05 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/peter-mckenna/ https://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/terry-waters/ Wed, 16 Jul 2014 11:59:57 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/players/terry-waters/ liked Collingwood, and his VFA club wanted to block his path to the VFL. The major stumbling block, however, was much simpler: his mother hated the Magpies! The Waters clan’s antipathy towards Collingwood can be traced to brother Bryan’s senior debut for Hawthorn. That game was against the Magpies, and the newcomer was unceremoniously flattened early in the match. After that, the Collingwood name was mud in the Waters’ household. So when Terry and his father headed off to Victoria Park one night to talk to Jack Burns and Gordon Carlyon, it was not surprising that Mrs Waters’ parting words were: “Whatever happens, don’t let him sign with that club”. Her husband confidently assured her there was “no chance” of that happening. A few hours and some persuasive words later Terry returned home a Collingwood player for life. Fortunately, even Mum had come around by the time of Terry’s first game. That is just as well, because her boy was virtually an instant hero. Playing against North Melbourne in the second game of the year, Terry started off ruck-roving. He kicked a goal, but was switched to full-forward in the last quarter where he bagged a further four. Three weeks later against Melbourne he kicked seven, and the Magpies had found themselves a new goalkicking hero. Waters had arrived at Victoria Park surrounded by the kind of hype befitting the game’s glamour goalkickers. He had come under notice with Dandenong in the VFA in 1961, where he had followed older brother Bryan after the latter’s brief foray with Hawthorn ended (he won the Liston Trophy in 1959). St Kilda looked to have signed Terry at the end of ‘61, but Terry’s dad thought he was too young and the deal fell through. When Collingwood approached a year later, however, the time was right – but Dandenong then threw a massive spanner in the works when they blocked Terry’s clearance. The Magpies took out a Supreme Court writ against the Redlegs and eventually won the day, but it was messy. The tug-of-war over Waters became big news leading into the 1963 season, ensuring that there was plenty of media attention on the rookie. But he was unfussed, and had a sensational first season. After those two early bags against North and Melbourne he managed further hauls of eight against South Melbourne and seven against Richmond, ending the year with 50 goals to finish second in the VFL goalkicking behind Hawthorn’s John Peck. He was named Collingwood’s best first year player and polled third in the Copeland Trophy count. It was a dream start to a career. But Waters took all the adulation with the equanimity one would expect from a kid who’d grown up playing his footy in the back paddocks of Teddywaddy, near Charlton. His father worked with the railways and his mother was a postmistress, which meant the family moved extensively around the Mallee in those early days. Terry was born in Rochester, but received his early education in the school at Teddywaddy which had only about seven students. He had three older brothers, who made one of the back paddocks into a football field. It was that paddock where Terry Waters’ booming punt and drop kicks got their first airing. The family moved to Dandenong when Terry was still young. There he attended St Mary’s, and won a scholarship to De La Salle College in Malvern. It was here that he played his first seriously competitive football. The keys to Waters’ game were simple – strong marking and long kicking. He had a wonderful spring, a powerful, sure pair of hands and superb judgement. He was one of the safest and strongest marks in the game. “Terry was a tremendous player,” recalled former teammate Peter McKenna recently. “Certainly one of the best overhead marks I’ve seen. He had great judgement, a great pair of hands and could mark a wet ball like it was dry. And everything was one-grab – no juggling.” Those qualities meant coaches and selectors almost always liked to play him at centre half-forward or full-forward. Waters himself felt he was better suited to playing as a follower or ruck-rover, where his canny reading of the game often allowed him to settle in a kick behind the play, or to break up opposition attacks with timely intercept marks. He preferred to make the game rather than be opposed to defenders whose sole intent was to spoil and punch. So it was that Waters didn’t actually last long as Collingwood’s Great White Hope at full-forward. He managed 40 goals in 1964, but by the following year – with Peter McKenna now at the club – he had been reassigned to on-ball duties, resting in either the forward or back pocket. And it was there that he established himself as an outstanding VFL player, his game highlighted by consistency and strong marking around the ground, especially deep in defence. He won the Copeland Trophy in 1966 – so very nearly a Premiership year – and finished third three years later. He won interstate selection for three years out of four, was named the club’s vice-captain in 1967 and was selected in the all-Australian side after the ANFC carnival in 1969. By this time his beaming face, receding hairline and prominent white ankle bandages had become a familiar part of the Victoria Park scene. When Des Tuddenham was stripped of the captaincy after his preseason “strike” of 1970, it was the loyal deputy who took over. That meant Waters had the misfortune to be leading the team when it capitulated in the second half of that year’s Grand Final. The next year, coach Bob Rose made it clear he wanted Tuddy to resume the captaincy but the board refused – meaning Waters had to do the job knowing he wasn’t his coach’s first choice. Far from ideal. To make matters worse, Waters found his form failing him for the first time in 1971. The game was changing, and slower, bigger ruck-rovers were becoming a thing of the past. He was also hit by injuries. Waters lost confidence in his own game, and found it impossible to get it back. Late in the season he was shattered to be taken from the field during a game against St Kilda, describing it as “the greatest insult of my career”. A few days later he resigned the captaincy, and did not play again that year. When the season ended, Waters let fly in a newspaper interview in which he claimed he had been the victim of a campaign to undermine him. He also slammed the club itself, saying it needed new blood, a new coach, new players and some fresh thinking. Rose resigned soon afterwards. Perhaps surprisingly, Waters returned to play in 1972 under new coach Neil Mann. But he could recapture neither his enthusiasm nor his form, and retired after the Round 6 game against Hawthorn at Victoria Park. He concentrated mostly on his long career with Carlton and United Breweries after that (firstly as an industrial chemist and later rising to a senior position in the packaging area), before reappearing at Victoria Park in the 1980s as a successful businessman who formed part of the short-lived New Magpies regime. Even if he wasn’t the full-forward the Magpies were searching for, Terry Waters still ended up carving out an outstanding career. He will be remembered as a wonderfully consistent performer and a great servant who was one of the best high marks of his era. And if fate had been a little kinder, he would also be remembered as a Collingwood Premiership captain. – Michael Roberts]]>