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/ted-rowell-the-coach/ Sun, 10 Aug 2014 22:19:10 +0000 http://forever.collingwoodfc.com.au/?p=5258 Coach: 1907-08 (part) Games coached: 12 Ted Rowell faced a tough job when he took over as Collingwood coach for the 1907 season. For a start, he was taking over a club that had endured a tumultuous 1906, with player dissension rife and the playing coach, Dick Condon, suspended by his own committee for being a major cause of that unhappiness. But to make matters worse, Rowell became the first coach to have to win a clearance from the VFL to take up his post. The trouble stemmed from a new rule the League introduced in February of 1907, as it tried to take greater control over all people working for the clubs. The rule said that: “Any person who has been refused a permit by the league to play, or has been disqualified shall not be allowed to hold any position whatever in connection with any league club until such permission be granted as disqualification removed by the league.” Rowell’s problem was that the League had refused to grant him a playing permit when he returned to Victoria Park in 1905 after a one-year sojourn in the goldfields of Western Australia. Their stance forced Rowell to watch from the sidelines for a year, effectively banning him from the game. So when Collingwood decided it wanted the steady, highly regarded Rowell to take over as coach from the combustible Dick Condon, it had to seek VFL approval to do so. The early signs did not look good, with the Permit Committee hearing in April refusing a similar request from the Melbourne Football Club to appoint W Monagle as ground caretaker and coach. But fortunately they came to a different conclusion in Collingwood’s case, and Rowell was declared clear to coach the Pies for the princely sum of £1 per week. The club was still shaken after the events of 1906, but Rowell and the equally reliable Arthur Leach, who has taken over as skipper late the previous year, provided a steadying influence. But while those appointments brought stability, they didn’t bring success: the team finished in fourth spot and lost its only final. Rowell himself had an outstanding season on the field, finishing fifth in the competition goalkicking, but 1908 proved a different story. He missed a number of games through injury, the team didn’t seem to be progressing (it lost four of its first five games and for a while was sitting on the bottom of the ladder), and there was another mid-season change of captain. Rowell felt the coaching role wasn’t helping his game, or the team’s, so the club arranged for the great Bill Strickland to take over for the latter stages of the season. Rowell enjoyed the release from responsibility. In 1909, freed of the burdens of coaching, he moved into the back line and became a stalwart in defence for the next six years, including the 1910 Premiership. He might not have spent long as Collingwood coach, just over 18 months, but he returned some stability to the club at a time it was sorely needed, and helped set up the flag that was to follow a couple of years later.]]>