It isn’t often you find a unique WEG illustration in an autograph book full of the signatures of Collingwood and other football luminaries.

But Nick Lidsey has just donated to the Club’s Archives precisely that. It’s an autograph book in which he collected signatures from the late 1950s and into the 1960s. And it contains not one but two highly unusual pieces of art.

Nick’s cousin was Frank Tuck, the captain of Collingwood in 1958 who would miss the Grand Final through injury. So he was responsible for getting many of the Magpie players to sign.

But the book also contains the signatures of Melbourne players and the umpires from the fabled 1958 decider. These were gathered for Nick by his uncle, Des Fitzgerald, who was a boundary umpire on the big day.

Nick himself continued to gather signatures into the 1960s, and there is a wonderful mix of stars like Murray Weideman and Des Tuddenham, down to players who only played a handful of senior games.

But the things that make this autograph book one of the best we’ve seen are the two artworks.

The first was a cartoon drawn by player Ken Bennett, celebrating our 1958 Premiership with a cartoon drawing inspiration from one done by Wells for the Melbourne Herald newspaper.

And the second is the WEG illustration.

WEG, better known as artist William Ellis Green, became famous in football for his cartoons at the Herald and Weekly Times and, most particularly, his Grand Final posters, which are amongst the game’s most prized collectables. Nick’s mother worked in Flinders Street, just up the road from the HWT building, and one day she ran into WEG at the famous Phoenix Hotel – owned by Lou Richards and the main watering hole for HWT journos.

So she asked him to draw something for her son’s autograph book – and on the spot he whipped up the illustration featured here with a nearby pen! She watched in awe as he worked his magic.

So this a true WEG one-off, and a cracking piece of football history. Added to all the other autographs, it’s a wonderful item and a great memento of a terrific era in football.

Massive thanks to Nick for donating it to our collection.