What made us 'Collingwood people'? - Add your story

[TaZ_LuVs_EmIn3m]

yer same here alyssa i was born in sydney and it wasnt until 5 yrs ago i actually went to a pies game even thou me dad had gone to heaps but ppl go oh why arent u a syd fan??? im like coz to me there is only 1 team that is the pies no other team has the passion!!! or the pride!!! and we have all been here throu the hard times eg: the woodenspoon yr and the high times 1990 grand final and i know that this will not be our last but most of all i hope it isnt bucks or burns!

______________________________________________

*~Catch ya later luv always Tara~*

Wait in line for 6 hours getting a grand finals ticket: $120
Buying my train ticket to the 'G' on saturday: $11.00
Watching Nathan and Mick hold up tha premiership cup: PRICELESS!!!

I LUV YA NICK DAVIS AND BRODIE HOLLAND U 2 R THE BEST AND R THE SEXCIEST!!

[Greg J]

Now that gives me an idea, Magpie mad.

Rule 1. Barrack for Collingwood
Rule 2. See rule 1.
Rule 3. There is no rule 3.

CARN DE PIES!
Greg J

[Lorelei]

Basically because Dad did.

I had always 'kinda followed' the Roy boys (gasp horror) as a little gal as mum always did (even tho she went to all the Pie matches with dad, slept out for finals tix etc she feels she has to follow them as my pop had) anyyywayys for some reason they took my brother and I to Collingwood Vs Carlton, 1987. The one where Silvagni took that spekkie. That was it. I saw Black and White only from that day on. I think my reaction was "This is what it is meant to feel like to follow a football team" BT was my hero. (!) Although I was only 10, I can still remember sitting in the Northern Stand in awe and wonder at this huge game (after only being around local footy in the DVFL)

Until my brother became highly involved in his own footy and mum and dad went to watch him, instead of Collingwood, it was every match, altogether for us (with many a grouse time at Vic Park). Mum is a closet Pie still and I will never forget, as we all yelled and cheered at the GF in 1990 (and I feel now I was too young to really appreciate what happened that day) I remember seeing the tears down my dad's face as he'd been to all those finals we had lost in all those years beforehand and I'll never forget him say to us "Never forget this day, because it could be another 32 years until it happens again"

Even when I look back now, it is amazing how footy has grown and changed and whether some aspects are for the better, or some for the worse - nothing is more wonderful than supporting a team like Collingwood. All of us here know how good it is to support Collingwood - it is something that is with you for life.


--
http://www.jenelle.net/
Floreat Pica
Craig Kelly's number 1 fan!!!!

[couragous cloke]

its in the family!! when i was young i had black and white all Around me so i sorta was never gunna barrick for anyone else!! GO PIES!!!!

footy ROX!

[I@n S]

[Mike]

It's been a year or two since this topic's seen the light of day.

Time for a re-run.

[jeff corfe]

It's been a year or two since this topic's seen the light of day.

Time for a re-run.

You suffering insomnia Mike

[jeff corfe]

Wow...this topic goes back to 2001
Have a read of the lengthy passionate replies it really was and still is a passionate topic where we have all discussed unashamedly what collingwood means to us..the power of words have come together but still fail to fully explain what it is to be a collingwood supporter not only being a collingwood supporter but the joy that comes from within, the pride and the love all essential ingredients which i still believe sets the collingwood supporter miles above any other supporter.
Thanks for the reliving a wonderful memory on nicks board Mike
cheers mate

[jeff corfe]

As most of you know, I come from S.A. and I grew up there at a time when the S.A.N.F.L. attracted a lot more attention than the V.F.L. I grew up in a family that was half Port, half Torrens. And for a couple of years I fluctuated between those two teams (the Magpies and the Eagles). Torrens had a pretty good team in those days and some great players. Lindsay Head, Bob Shearman, Neil Hawke. And I was drawn to them. But Dad was a wharfie, and a Port barracker (of course) so most of the games he took me to were Port games. There was also the fact that Port was more consistent than Torrens, so gradually the black and white won out. By the time I was 9 I was a committed Port barracker.

Back in those days they used to show V.F.L. replays on T.V. Collingwood was struggling in those days (the early 60s) so they hardly ever got on T.V. I was barely aware of Collingwood's existence. Clubs like Essendon, Carlton, Melbourne and Geelong got most of the exposure. Then Collingwood started to come good again and I started seeing them on T.V. a bit more. But I couldn't really make up my mind who to barrack for. I sort of changed teams every week for a while there.

One day I went to a S.A. v Victoria match at Adelaide Oval, and I remember seeing Bob Skilton kick a goal on the run from the scoreboard pocket and I thought that was pretty cool. So Skilton became a bit of a hero of mine for a couple of years and so I took a bit of an interest in South Melbourne. But they were such a shit club ... and from folllowing Port I was getting used to the idea that a footy team should be successful. And besides that, South Melbourne were hardly ever on the T.V.

Then, when I was 10 or 11 I joined the Port Adelaide Cheer Squad and started to come under a bit of peer group pressure. Most of the P.A.C.S. barracked for Collingwood in the V.F.L. And they were pretty serious about it. It definitely wasn't cool, fab or groovy to say you barracked for South Melbourne, so I started sort of pretending to be a Collingwood barracker. A case of "fake it till you make it".

Then came the 1966 Grand Final. I watched the replay on T.V. already knowing the result. But it was still an incredibly exciting game even when you knew who'd won. And I think it was the sight of all those Collingwood players so utterly devastated when the siren went. One player just fell to the ground totally shattered. I found that profoundly moving. Basically, I was won over by the tragedy of it all. I decided there and then that this was the greatest football club of them all. And I became a committed Collingwood barracker from that moment.

Strangely, it was Collingwood's lack of success that made them all the more compelling a Club to follow. All those near misses. 1970 was in the bag at half-time. I was listening on the radio in Adelaide. Then the disbelief as Carlton whittled the lead away and eventually over-ran us.

The longer the premiership drought went on, the greater the attachment to Collingwood became.

As a Port barracker, I experienced a lot of success. Premierships are almost an annual event at Alberton. The fact is, Port barrackers are spoiled rotten. And the more thoughtful among us know that. Our loyalty has never been put to the test.

That's why, in many ways, I'm grateful to have experienced these last few years as an active Collingwood supporter living in Melbourne. Since I moved to Melbourne we have never played in a finals series, and we've lost a lot more games than we've won.

So, why is this a good thing, you might well ask.

Well ... it's not. It's totally f*cked, actually.

BUT ... I now know ... beyond all doubt ... that my allegiance to Collingwood is genuine. I'm not a front-runner (as I possibly was when I followed Port). I am a genuine supporter of what I still believe to be the greatest Club of them all. That's why I can stand there, as proud as punch, when we're getting our arses kicked, and chant louder and louder the further behind we go. Because I'm celebrating my love of The Club. And that's why, when the opposition hecklers start pointing to the scoreboard and calling us "losers", I can point with pride to the sea of black and white around me and tell the hecklers to get stuffed. Because THEY are the losers ... because they're not Collingwood.

That's what I love about Collingwood ... you can feel like a winner ... even when you lose.

And when you win ... well ... a Collingwood win is the greatest drug known to humanity.





floreat pica
**************
My Ph.D. thesis, "Football: the People's Game?" is now available for viewing and/or downloading at http://alf.magpies.net

I know first hand Alf you've copped some crap over the years because of your Port connections, i'd like to add we've all become better for knowing you.
You are on many ocassions a greater collingwood person than the rest of us, i'll never forget our first meeting at the very new telstra dome when the kangaroos played in an orange jumper ?
Did you bring oranges that day ALF ?

[uey]

Yes - thanks Mike. Thats an absolute corker from Dr Alf Andrews. Lucky theres tissues here at work.

[lethalburns]

I remember a certain uncle buying me a Dees pitchfork after they beat us in a final. He thought the novelty would secure my allegiance.

I ran around the house as little kid with my pitchfork screaming DAICOSSSSS!

Not the intended effect I bet.

Alf pretty much summed it up though. In my case the attachment to Collingwood became stronger after we lost to WC in a final post 1990.

Watching Woosher give it to MickM after that final, and watching TonyS play his last game in tears had a significant effect on me.

I felt it was my duty for that point on to defend our reputation(maybe in a way to defend the reason that caused Tony Shaw to cry), so I made it my obligation to convince my friends that despite being at the bottom end of the ladder Collingwood were in fact the best team in the AFL and simply victims of bad luck.

I did this to great effect and to this day wonder if I am some sort of a con man (I hope not ahha).

I dont support front runners. Collingwood brings out the same feelings in me that Braveheart did as a movie.

I guess I am a sucker for victims of misfortune. However I am also a very passionate/dedicated and attracted to other people who have similar characteristics.

Collingood supporters, at least the core group, have this in common, they bleed black, suffer considerably when we lose and feel massive relief/elation when we win.

[Dark Lord]

My mum barracks for Collingwood, my dad barracks for Carlton.

Mum brought me up right...

As far back as I can remember, I've always been a passionate Collingwood supporter.

Yep, as boring as that. No epiphany on the road to Damascus or anything, just a Collingwood fan born and bred.

[fan4collingwood]

Love Kristin's poem, sums it all up!

[Troppo]

That's why I can stand there, as proud as punch, when we're getting our arses kicked, and chant louder and louder the further behind we go. Because I'm celebrating my love of The Club. And that's why, when the opposition hecklers start pointing to the scoreboard and calling us "losers", I can point with pride to the sea of black and white around me and tell the hecklers to get stuffed. Because THEY are the losers ... because they're not Collingwood.

I became aware of my Collingwood roots when my mother told me around 1956 that my second uncles on her side of our family were Syd and Gordon Coventry and told me some tales of their legendary status in the game. This explains why I have always felt that I have got black and white blood in my veins! I never met them but felt their presence when I would curl up by the bakelite radio on a Saturday afternoon to listen to the Collingwood games and record the progressive scores on a torn off bit of butcher's paper and get involved by yelling out with every Collingwood goal.
After the game I would go out in to the street (Housing Commission area of South Box Hill in Melbourne) and kick around a footy made from rolled up newspaper held together with string to emulate some of the game plays I had just listened to. I remember the 1958 Grand Final where we put paid to Melbourne's dreams of emulating our four-peat of our golden days and thinking then that Collingwood would always protect that hard-won heritage.
I went to State School at Bennettswood (Melbourne) and played in the school 1st 18. Next door to our school was Mt Scopus College whose footy team was coached at the time by none other than Thorold Merrett. I well remember us thrashing their side one day and seeing Thorold with a "Why am I here?" look on his face!
Later I played Centre in a Melbourne High School team coached by Laurie Mithen (yes, that detestable Demon full forward of the time!) and would often feel compelled to advise the coach that he wouldn't kick anything against Collingwood next time they played. I didn't get picked often after that. Rene Kink is an old MHSOB too.
I was driving along Punt Road when I heard an almighty roar from the 'G' to herald St Kilda's last gasp win against us in the 1966 Grand Final and promptly went to the pub to secure plentiful liquid succour.
In 1970 I was working at the Australian Embassy in Vienna in Austria and had been given the task to set up a short wave radio to receive broadcasts from Australia. You can imagine my howls of lamentation when I listened to the demolition of our half time Grand Final score by the detested bluebaggers that year.
I met Fabulous Phil after his 1977 2 week holiday cost us the GF and replay GF when I saw him with his wife Betty at a horse show in Lilydale (she used to show Quarter Horses and breed St Bernard dogs). Phil's view of his behaviour that caused his rub-out was that he was just playing 'keenly contested footy' and the umpires were out to get him because he had nutted one of them earlier. Fair enough Phil, still can't abide your white boots though!
Later I managed the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street in 1990. This was the pub where, in the upstairs room, the Collingwood Club was formed in 1895. Knowing this history, I went to Collingwood and saw Craig Kelly who was working in the marketing area at the time and suggested the Club and the Pub get together. Craig agreed and I had the team down several Thursday nights after training for drinks in the upstairs bar - closed off to the punters. I well recall little Tony Francis celebrating his 21st one night upstairs with all the boys and seeing him leap on to the bar to present his brown-eye to all present. A cultured lad was our Tony but he went on to be an AFL All Australian in 1991! On another occasion as the boys were descending the stairs after a 'good' night, BT gave Daics a bit of a nudge and the Macedonian Marvel somersaulted down the stairs still holding his pot landing at the bottom with the broken shards of the glass an inch from his eye. Good one BT. But they all laughed knowing that Daics would get his own back on BT sooner rather than later. 1990 was a stellar year. I remember Tony Shaw was on the Collingwood Council's outdoor team and one Sunday afternoon I went along with 20-30 others to help him plant trees in one of the Council's reserves. Tony was just plain salt of the earth and would happily chat Black and White all day. The streets of Collingwood on the night after our demolition of the bombers late in September were the place to be. I know Dr Alf Andrews talks about community, gemeinschaft and communion to describe the strength of support for elite AFL teams but I have to tell you the overall feeling of Collingwood bonding in the old town that night was plain palpable.
Years went by and I have lived and worked in WA and Queensland and everywhere I've been in Australia I find plenty of Collingwood supporters - either ex-pats like me, or long range fans who see value in getting behind such a wonderful team. I play competitive darts in Queensland and some of my best mates are indigenous TI players who idolise Collingwood and reel off historical Magpie details constantly. Recent dart games have featured full lunged renditions of our famous Dolly Gray air to the bemused and confused reception of the predominantly thugby supporting onlookers. I don't have pay TV but listen to the Collingwood games on internet radio and that brings back many memories of my childhood beside the bakelite! And watch the (mainly) twaddle that Nick's carries each match day and sometimes put in my tuppensworth.
What has Collingwood meant to me? Simply it's been and remains my life. What other AFL team has had a successful play/movie (The Club) written about it (thanks JCW). What other team has had a book written about it like 'Kill for Collingwood' (which I'm sure Choppa would love to do a sequel for!). What other team has spawned such an everlasting media marvel as our Lou and his 'Kiss of Death". What other team can boast the great runs of Gabbo and Magro. Look, I could just go on, but previous BB posts cover it all and more.
I understand the corporate transformation that our team and all others has necessarily undergone in the past 2 decades but none of this bottom line emphasis will ever replace the depth of heart and soul felt attachment we Collingwood supporters have for our rich history (players, coaches, premierships, home ground ++) and our undoubted continuing success.
As Willy writ in Henry V,

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

He couldn't have a written a greater song of praise about Collingwood's faithful! Although Jock and Phonse may never have waxed so lyrical in their many last games in September while exhorting their boys to "Kill for Collingwood", I think we get the message!

Love the Mighty Magpies.

[Mike]

Great post and good memories Troppo and a slightly belated welcome to the site.

Your cousin hung about here (at Nicks) for a couple of years, but we didn't get on too well and he was eventually encouraged to wander off. He has the distinction of being the first, and for many years the only, Collingwood supporter to get the boot from Nick's.