COLLINGWOOD - Part One: 1889 to 1911
Affiliated: VFA 1892-1896; VFL 1897-1989; AFL 1990-present
Club Address: P.O. Box 165, Abbotsford 3067, Victoria
Home Ground: Melbourne Cricket Ground
Formed: 1889
Colours: Black and white
Emblem: Magpies
Premierships: SENIORS - 1896, 1902-03, 1910, 1917, 1919, 1927-28-29-30, 1935-36, 1953, 1958, 1990 (15 total) RESERVES - 1919-20, 1922, 1925, 1940, 1965, 1976 (7 total) UNDER 19S - 1960, 1965, 1974, 1986 (4 total) OTHER PREMIERSHIPS - VFL Night Series 1979 (1 total) Dr. Wm. C.McClelland Trophy 1959-60, 1964-65-66, 1970 (6 total)
Brownlow Medallists: Syd Coventry 1927; Albert Collier 1929; Harry Collier 1930#; Marcus Whelan 1939; Des Fothergill 1940; Len Thompson 1972; Peter Moore 1979; Nathan Buckley 2003 (8 total)
All Australians: D.Healey 1953; R.Rose 1953; T.Waters 1969; R.Watt 1969; P.McKenna 1972; L.Thompson 1972; P.Moore 1979; M.Richardson 1983; G.Raines 1985 (9 total)
AFL All Australians: Gavin Brown 1991 & 1994; Tony Francis 1991; Mick McGuane 1992; Nathan Buckley 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001 & 2003; Chris Tarrant 2003; James Clement 2004 & 2005; Alan Didak 2006; Paul Medhurst 2008; Leon Davis 2009; Nick Maxwell 2009; Dane Swan 2009 (18 total)
V/AFL Top Goalkickers: A.Smith (31) 1898; E.Rowell (33) 1902; E.Lockwood (35) 1903; C.Pannam (38) 1905; W.Lee (47) 1907, (54) 1908, (58) 1909, (58) 1910, (66) 1915, (48) 1916, (54) 1917, (56) 1919 & (64) 1921; G.Coventry (83) 1926, (97) 1927, (89) 1928, (124) 1929, (118) 1930 & (72) 1937; R.Todd (120) 1938 & (121) 1939; I.Brewer (73) 1958; P.McKenna (130) 1972 & (86) 1973; B.Taylor (100) 1986 (25 total)
Collingwood's Official 'Team of the Century': Click here
Highest Score: 32.19 (211) vs. St Kilda in round 17 1980
Most Games: 313 by Tony Shaw from 1978 to 1994
Record Home Attendances: 1. MCG - 94,825 in round 4 1995: Collingwood 17.9 (111); Essendon 16.15 (111) 2. Victoria Park - 47,000 in round 2 1948: Collingwood 18.17 (125); South Melbourne 10.12 (72)
Record Finals Attendance: 121,696 for 1970 grand final at the MCG: Carlton 17.9 (111); Collingwood 14.17 (101)
Overall Success Rate 1897-2009: 60.9%
# indicates awarded retrospectively by the VFL in 1989 after having initially been lost on a countback of votes.
Collingwood supporters at Victoria Park during the 1909 season.
Few Australian organisations, sporting or otherwise, polarise opinion as sharply as the Collingwood Football Club. Former Richmond legend Jack Dyer's opinion - the 'case for the prosecution' - is pungently illustrative of what might be termed the majority view:
Whenever I have a nightmare it isn't in colour. It's always black and white, the colours of the meanest, toughest club ever to run on to a football field. Collingwood. I've laboured the point of my hatred of Collingwood and it isn't a friendly dislike - as a club they rankle me. You couldn't like them, they think they are God's gift to football, they shun all outsiders and the only time I like to think of Collingwood is when they lose, because it hurts them so much. I've always been a bad loser, but I'm a good sport compared to Collingwood. If they win they gloat, if they lose they hide themselves away and sulk. When they lose they never visit your rooms or congratulate you and they'll send you round hot beer to have a drink. I wouldn't drink anything they offered, you wouldn't know what they had done to it. (See footnote 1)
Not that Collingwood supporters care a jot about such vitriol; indeed, they thrive on it. After all, any club capable of inspiring such loathing must have something special about it. According to Peter Mckenna, one of many great full forwards to have pulled on a Collingwood jumper over the years:
I know now that more people who follow football in Melbourne hate Collingwood more than any other League club. And I now know why. It took me about thirty seconds to work it out on the day I first walked into the famous Victoria Park ground. That's about the time it takes to walk through the foyer of the Collingwood Football Club Social Club where every visitor, friend or foe gets a first glimpse of why Collingwood has, is, and always will be a great club in Victorian football.
There is probably more tradition in that foyer than in any other football club in Australia, and that is the secret behind the great Collingwood success story, tradition. Those very early black and white colours take on a new dimension at Collingwood. They are not just the club colours. They are a way of life. You don't go out onto the field every Saturday just to win for the sake of premiership points, you go out to win for those colours, the club, the long tradition. (See footnote 2)
Both Dyer's and McKenna's words were written many decades ago, at a time when, other than in terms of player recruitment, Collingwood's football universe barely extended beyond the Melbourne metropolitan zone. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the stage is now appreciably bigger, and the onset of professionalism has arguably provided players with more tangible inducements and motivations than the 'simple' need to maintain and enhance their clubs' traditions, Collingwood remains, in a sense, a club apart. The emotions generated at Victoria Park are somehow more intense, far-reaching and indeed life-shaping than almost anywhere else in the football universe. As staunch Collingwood supporter Michael Roberts observed, "In all ways, Collingwood is football writ large" (see footnote 3).
Such status was not achieved overnight, of course, but many of the ingredients of greatness were present right from the start, which in a perverse way might be viewed as occurring in 1883, the year in which not Collingwood, but the Fitzroy Football Club was formed. The Collingwood and Fitzroy municipalities lie adjacent to one another, and the rivalry between them was intense; if Fitzroy had a senior football club, Collingwood residents reasoned, why not Collingwood?
Football was already being played in Collingwood, of course, and the strongest of the municipality's several junior clubs was Britannia, which ironically boasted fairly strong links with Fitzroy. Despite the Fitzroy connection, however, Britannia was strongly involved in an application, submitted in 1889, for the admission of a senior Collingwood Club to the VFA, but the timing of the submission was poor. By the end of the 1880s the VFA was popularly perceived to have compromised its integrity and standing by failing to attach stringent quality criteria, both in terms of playing standard and financial credibility, to its conditions of membership, and in 1889 it responded by effectively closing the door to any new membership applications. Two years later, however, the VFA amended its rules, and a newly formed Collingwood Football Club, based at Victoria Park, was admitted in time for the 1892 season. Britannia officially disbanded at this time, with many of its members and players conferring their allegiance on the new club, although a few were disgruntled by the move, and instead transferred to Fitzroy.
Collingwood already had a ready-made home ground at Victoria Park, which had been used by Britannia since 1882, but because Britannia's colours of red, white and blue had already been claimed by Footscray it was necessary for the newcomers to come up with an alternative combination, which proved to be the now famous black and white.
Although superficially inauspicious (3 wins and a draw from 18 matches consigning the team to equal last place on the ladder) Collingwood's debut season in the VFA contained the seeds of future greatness. At a public meeting in the Collingwood Town Hall prior to the start of the season a local MP predicted that "The very name of Collingwood would strike terror into the hearts of opposing players" (see footnote 4), and if this was scarcely the case in 1892 the club nevertheless earned respect for never surrendering the points without a fight. A late season victory over Carlton was the highlight of a year in which gradually improving performances made the Collingwood Football Club the talk, if not quite yet the pride, of the municipality.
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Charlie Pannam senior |
The pattern of gradual improvement continued over the next few years. By 1895, Collingwood had risen to 4th place on the VFA ladder, and the following year it tied for 1st place with South Melbourne, both teams finishing with the identical record of 14 wins, 3 losses, 1 draw (between themselves), 86 goals for, 55 goals against. In order to decide the destiny of the premiership, the VFA arranged a play-off, which took place at the East Melbourne Cricket Ground on 3 October 1896. Unknown to most of the 12,000 spectators at the ground, decisions which would comprehensively alter the face of Victorian football had been taken just the previous day, when representatives of several of the VFA's most prominent clubs had met at Buxton's Art Gallery, Swanston Street, and agreed to establish a breakaway competition, the Victorian Football League, to commence the following year. Both Collingwood and South Melbourne were members of the rebel group, but first they had to address the somewhat more immediate issue of what was effectively the VFA's first 'grand final'. |
Collingwood's main strength in 1896 was the remarkable fitness of its players, which was a testimony to the efforts of head trainer Wal Lee, a former Britannia player whose almost obsessive devotion to Collingwood provided a template that many others would later come to copy. Fortunately for Collingwood, grand final day turned out to be unseasonably hot, with a firm, dry ground all but ensuring that it would be the fitter team which prevailed. In the end, predictably, that proved to be Collingwood, but not before the two teams had engaged in a vigorous, closely contested, crowd-pleasing affair (reviewed in detail here) that almost certainly made a marked impression on those protagonists of the VFL venture who were watching. Right from the outset, the VFL premiership would go to the winner of a finals series, with the intense drama that this format generated adding enormously to football's appeal, as well as reinforcing its uniqueness.
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For much of the last quarter of the grand final scores were deadlocked at 5 goals apiece before Collingwood's Danny Flaherty clinched the premiership for his club with a goal from a free kick just minutes before the end. The officially recorded line scores were Collingwood 6.9 to South Melbourne 5.10, but at this stage in the game's history, only goals actually counted. Among the many sterling contributors to Collingwood's first flag were captain and ruckman Bill Strickland, "spry as a colt" (see footnote 5) at the age of thirty-three, high-flying centre half back Jack Monohan, redoubtable full back William Proudfoot, clever full forward Archie 'Snapper' Smith, who would go on to top the VFL's goal kicking list in 1898 with 31 goals, "noted wet weather footballer" (see footnote 6) Hugh 'Harry' Dowdell, dazzlingly skilful centreman Dick Condon, and the irrepressible wing pair of Charlie Pannam senior and Charlie 'Buffer' Sime. |
Don Fraser, a half back flanker in Collingwood's losing challenge final team of 1905. |
With all of these players still wearing the Collingwood colours when the club took its bows in the eight team VFL in 1897 it is scarcely surprising that the next few seasons saw perennial flirtation with the flag, although it was not to be until 1902 that the side finally managed to break through for a win, and by that time many of the old VFA brigade had been replaced. Indeed, after Collingwood lost the 1901 grand final to Essendon, wholesale changes were made, and the side which lined up against the same opponent on grand final day twelve months later contained no fewer than seven first year players. Part of the key to Collingwood's success over the years has been the way in which newcomers have become quickly infused with the club's spirit and raison d'être, and in 1902 a mid-season trip to Tasmania probably constituted a key element in the process. Whilst in Tasmania, the team engaged in two challenge matches, the first of which, against a northern Tasmanian combination in Launceston, has entered football folk lore. Allegedly, the standard of the opposition was so poor that Dick Condon began toying with them, passing to team mates close by - sometimes over the heads of encroaching opposition players - with an abbreviated version of the drop kick. By the end of the match he had thoroughly mastered the new kick, which was quickly christened the 'stab pass', and so had team mates Charlie Pannam and Ted Rowell. Paradoxically, although the stab pass would ultimately die out largely because the increasing speed of the game made it harder and harder for players to execute it correctly, when it first emerged it's primary impact on the game was to make it appreciably faster. With field umpires finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the play, in 1904 the VFL introduced boundary umpires to at least alleviate their lot in one respect.
Back in 1902, although a report in 'the Tasmanian Mail' on the second game of Collingwood's tour, against a southern Tasmanian combination, contains no mention of an embryonic stab pass, when the side resumed in the VFL against Geelong at Corio Oval the new kick was apparently implemented to good effect, and was a key reason for the still sea-sick Magpies' 40 point win.
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from Collingwood's Famous 1902 Tour of Tasmania
[All images, which are from 'The Tasmanian Mail' of 12 July 1902, are clickable.]
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Collingwood ultimately won the minor premiership with a 15-2 record, thereby securing the right of challenge should the side lose at any stage during the finals. As it happened, there was immediate need for this safety net, as the side performed dismally in losing to Fitzroy in a semi final, its first defeat since the Tasmanian interlude. With a week's respite to lick their wounds and focus their thoughts, the players returned for the challenge final meeting with an Essendon side that had narrowly overcome Fitzroy in the final, in no mood to capitulate. Such fortitude was necessary too as, watched by a record VFL crowd of 35,022 (see footnote 7), most of the first half saw the 'Same Old' in the ascendancy. However, by using two men to stymie Albert Thurgood, arguably the greatest player in Australia at the time, the Magpies were able to minimise the damage, whilst their happy knack of making the most of every opportunity to come their way enabled them to sneak in front by a point at the long break, 3.2 (20) to 2.7 (19). After half time, Essendon seemed demoralised, and Collingwood was able to take full advantage, adding 6 goals to 1 to win in the end by the unexpectedly luxuriant margin of 33 points. Everywhere you looked in the Magpie line-up there were good players: from the 1st ruck combination of Fred 'Charger' Hailwood, Len 'Lardie' Tulloch (who skippered the side), and Dick Condon, through the centreline of Pannam, Allan and McCormack, defenders Fred Leach, Bob Rush and Matthew Fell, and forwards Rowell and Edward Lockwood, both of whom snared 3 goals to be the game's top scorers.
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Bob Rush |
The Magpies were just as dominant in 1903, topping the ladder with a 15-2 record, and this time they did not require the fall back of a challenge final, although 2nd semi final opponents Carlton did provide stern opposition before going down by 4 points. The final pitted Collingwood against Fitzroy, which had probably come closer than any other club to emulating the crisp, short passing style with which the Magpies had become associated. Earlier in the season these two sides had broken new ground by engaging in a match, for premiership points, at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Watched by a crowd of around 18,000, Fitzroy had triumphed on that occasion by 17 points, with Collingwood gaining revenge by 20 points when the sides next met at Victoria Park just over a month later. The Collingwood-Fitzroy rivalry which, largely for geographical reasons, had been intense right from the outset, probably reached its peak during the early 1900s when the two sides were repeatedly vying for supremacy (see footnote 8). When the Maroons went into decline later, however, the focus of the Magpies' hostility shifted, with, at various times, Carlton, Richmond, Essendon and Melbourne all occupying the 'enviable' position of Collingwood's arch nemesis. |
The 1903 challenge final meeting was considerably closer than either of the minor round clashes. On a hot, dry day the two sides engaged in a veritable war of attrition, with seldom more than a few points difference in the scores. Collingwood led narrowly at every change, by 1, 5 and 4 points, but Fitzroy saved its best until last, and was the stronger side for most of the final quarter. The Magpie back line, however, in which key defenders Proudfoot and Monohan were outstanding, refused to buckle, and although the Maroons outscored the Magpies 1.3 to 1.1 it was not enough to bridge the gap, and Collingwood - to many people's disgust - had won a second consecutive VFL flag.
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The source of the widespread public disgruntlement was the belief that some of the Collingwood players were actually being paid to play, but if the contention was almost certainly true, it could equally be applied to a number of clubs. Collingwood's triumphs in 1902 and 1903 were attributable to professionalism, not of a pecuniary kind, but of overall approach and method, as evidenced for example in the fact that, under the stringent supervision of Wal Lee, the team was almost universally acknowledged as being by some measure the fittest in the league. Fitzroy gained its revenge over Collingwood in 1904 when it ousted the Magpies from premiership contention at the semi final stage, 9.7 (61) to 7.8 (50). In 1905, the Magpies won the minor premiership but had to resort to the right of challenge after being overwhelmed by Carlton in the semi final. The challenge final, against Fitzroy, was closer fought, but again the Maroons proved to have Collingwood's measure, winning 4.6 (30) to 2.5 (17) after just a solitary behind (to the Magpies) was registered in the final term. |
Jack Monohan |
Collingwood remained a force in VFL football for the next four seasons, but was unable to rise above 3rd. In 1910, most pundits rated Carlton, which had contested every premiership play-off since 1906 for three flags, as a strong flag favourite, but the Magpies came good when it counted most. After qualifying for the finals in 2nd spot, they annihilated semi final opponents Essendon 14.11 (95) to 5.7 (37) in one of the most consummate all round displays of intense finals football seen up to that point. Reigning premiers South Melbourne provided stiffer opposition in the final, but the Magpies managed to keep their noses - or beaks - in front for the majority of the game en route to an 11 point triumph.
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Ted Rowell |
The challenge final brought Collingwood
up against the team which was rapidly emerging as its most detested foe,
Carlton. Although the Blues had lost their semi final by 12 points to
South there were mitigating circumstances that rendered the result almost
meaningless (see footnote 9). A more telling statistic
was felt to be the fact that Carlton's winning run against Collingwood extended
back 12 games to 1905, and included two substantial victories earlier that same
season.
A premiership decider is a game apart, however, and Collingwood defied both the odds and the sometimes over-vigorous approach of the opposition in leading from the start to win comfortably by 14 points, 9.7 (61) to 6.11 (47). Full forward supreme 'Dick' Lee was best afield, starring not only at the goal front, where he booted 4 goals, but also on occasion in the back lines where captain-coach George Angus habitually moved him when the need arose. The superlative form of the Magpies' half back line of Joe Scadden, James Shorten and D.McIvor was another key to their win, while centreman James 'Jock' McHale, full back Ted Rowell and half forward flanker Richard Vernon were among many other Collingwood players to stand out. |
The 1910 season was still not quite over as Collingwood journeyed across the border to confront the challenge of SANFL premier Port Adelaide in the championship of Australia decider. In front of a crowd of about 8,000 at the Adelaide Oval the Victorian Magpies were seldom in the game, and eventually lost by 61 points. The standard of South Australian football was at an all time high at this point in time, with the state side scoring a comprehensive triumph at the following year's interstate championships, and South Australian clubs winning six of the seven Australian club championship matches held between 1907 and 1914. Nevertheless, it is doubtful if anyone at Victoria Park really cared.
The 1911 season saw Collingwood qualify for the finals for the 15th consecutive season since the inception of the VFL, but the side had to be satisfied with 2nd place after a 1 goal loss to minor premier Essendon in the final. Before the onset of the 1912 season, the club would entrust its on field destiny to a man for whom 2nd place was never acceptable, and the proudest, most illustrious era in the history of the Collingwood Football Club would commence.
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Footnotes
1. Captain Blood by Jack Dyer and Brian Hansen, page 113. Return to Main Text
2. My World Of Football by Peter McKenna, pages 29-30. Return to Main Text
3. The Clubs by Garrie Hutchinson and John Ross, page 72. Return to Main Text
4. Cited in ibid., page 74, and numerous other sources. Return to Main Text
5. Kill For Collingwood by R.Stremski, page 19. Return to Main Text
6. The Encyclopedia of League Footballers by Jim Main and Russell Holmesby, page 103. Return to Main Text
7. This figure had, however, been exceeded in the old VFA, with the all time record standing at 37,200 for a clash between Essendon and South Melbourne in 1891. Return to Main Text
8. During its first fifteen seasons in the VFL competition, Collingwood enjoyed the best win-loss ratio of any club, and won more games than it lost against every one of its opponents - except Fitzroy. Return to Main Text
9. Carlton had entered the match with a weakened side after dropping three of its key players for alleged match-fixing. Despite this, the Blues had enjoyed the vast majority of the play, and only poor kicking for goal prevented them from winning. Return to Main Text
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