There aren’t too many former Collingwood players who could claim to have spent time spruiking the virtues of Australia and demonstrating Australian football to a curious audience in Germany.

But that’s where former Magpie big man Stuart Atkin found himself many years after his career ended. How he got there, and his story overall, is fascinating.

Stuart grew in Victoria’s Western District on a mixed farming property, the youngest of four boys in a family of seven. His father had been a bomber pilot in the Second World War, serving in New Guinea, and became a soldier settler on a small property near Yalla-Y-Poora. His mother was a primary school teacher.

Stuart was a big St Kilda fan as a kid, idolising the Saints who had given the club its first flag over the Magpies in 1966. The local football club was called SM&W Rovers – an amalgamation of the three small towns of Streatham, Mininera and Westmere, who played in the Mininera and District League, in Collingwood’s zone. Two of his brothers also played with the club and his father spent time as President.

Stuart started playing in the under-16s as a nine-year-old, and progressed to eventually captaining the under-17s (and sometimes filling in for the seniors later the same day). In 1974 he played in a League representative game and was named among the best players rucking and in a forward pocket, but there was still no overt interest from the Magpies. In 1975 he began an Electrical Engineering Degree at Ballarat, travelling home to the farm to play football on weekends.

Late in 1976 he was asked by Beaufort to play some games on permit in the Ballarat Football League. His home club reluctantly agreed, but refused to continue the arrangement into 1977. So Stuart stood out of football for a few weeks until Rovers agreed on a clearance, which eventually came.

It had been messy, but it had no impact on Stuart’s football: he ended up coming third in the competition best-and-fairest in just half a season of games. The next year was even better, and he won the Henderson Medal for best-and-fairest in the Ballarat League.

At long last the Magpies began paying attention, and a congratulatory telegram soon arrived from club secretary Twiggy Dunne. So in 1979, aged 21, Stuart finally headed to Victoria Park.

His qualities were soon apparent – a magnificent leap, good hands, astute ruckwork. But he was raw, and there was competition from Peter Moore and others, so he was forced to do a long apprenticeship in the seconds, not making his senior debut until the last game of the 1980 home-and-away season against Melbourne.

He kicked a goal with his first kick and did well enough to hold his spot for the elimination final the next week against North. He was dropped after that but remained as an emergency for both the preliminary and grand finals. (he also had his wedding to squeeze in, and ended up playing with the reserves on the morning of his wedding day!)

It was a stop-start beginning to the 1981 season, but things began to click half-way through. He played 11 of the last 12 games, though some of those were at centre half-back as selectors used him to fill holes as they arose. But when captain Peter Moore went down with successive hamstring injuries, Stuart was thrown back into the ruck – and stood up. He played in all four finals, and really made a difference. He played arguably the best game of his career in the famous first semi-final against Fitzroy, rucking superbly against the formidable Ron Alexander. Two weeks later he played a key role in getting us to the Grand Final with a sterling second half in the preliminary final against Geelong, coming back to take some huge marks after having been knocked out early in the game.

The 1982 season always loomed as a pivotal one, but Stuart injured his PCL early, after just a couple of games. And while he managed two more games late in 1983, the writing was on the wall and he was released at the end of that year, having totalled 18 senior games and a massive 75 in the reserves.

He moved to Preston in 1984, where Ray Shaw was playing coach and many former Magpies were also playing, and the team won the flag. He decided then that 1985 would be his last year in footy, so moved back to Beaufort to play in the Ballarat League (he would later be named among Beaufort’s Top 25 players since World War 2).

Professionally he was working with the German company Siemens, and he spent several three-year stints in both The Netherlands and Germany. And that’s where he found himself in a public forum about Australia, where he had to give a presentation and demonstration on Australian Rules football.

It’s a reasonable assumption that few in the audience that day realised just how over-qualified their guest speaker was. For while Stuart Atkin played only 18 games, five of them were finals – one a Grand Final where his team was leading until late in the game. He was that close to being a Premiership ruckman.

- Michael Roberts