Heavily fined and hit with draft penalties in late 2002 for under-the-table payments to a number of stars,Carlton had won their first wooden spoon that year and finished in the bottom half of the ladder in 15 of the ensuing 20 seasons.
Former club presidents John Elliott (Carlton) and Eddie McGuire (Collingwood) ensured the rivalry stayed strong.Artwork:Bethany Rae
One effect was to mute and dilute the Carlton-Collingwood rivalry,the oldest and fiercest in footy. As Collingwood dominated,dependable crowds of 80,000-plus dwindled to fewer than 70,000,recovered and then fell away again. Sympathy for the Blues was in short supply.
“There were times when we had to say,much as we at Collingwood enjoy Carlton’s suffering on the bottom of the ladder,it’s probably costing us a million bucks a year as well,” McGuire said this week.
“I said,the best thing you can do,at some stage,is to get your foot off Carlton’s throat and get them going again.
“If we can get Collingwood,Carlton,Essendon and Richmond up at one time,with the interstaters,that’s going to be best. The salary cap and the draft will make sure that everyone rolls through,but you’ve still got to have the big games. As someone who makes a living out of getting shows to rate,I know how important big games are.”
Collingwood champion Scott Pendlebury could land at North Melbourne in a playing or coaching role,if the Pies don't choose to extend his contract.
Footy sometimes feels like geopolitics and often reads like fiction. At the end of Alistair MacLean’s 1963 novelIce Station Zebra,it suits both sides of the Cold War for vital intelligence to be destroyed so neither can be tempted to use it in a way that might prove ruinous to all. Similarly,while Collingwood and Carlton are sworn enemies,equilibrium benefits most.
The boot was on the other foot when McGuire took over Collingwood in 1999 and. Elliott was notoriously chauvinistic,but cunning. “He’d say,we’ve got to get your mob back up,” McGuire said. “That’s why we did the New Year’s Eve game that year. That’s why we mugged it up onThe Footy Show. We all knew how important this was.”
Carlton and Collingwood are the oldest of frenemies. They’ve played each other 264 times,more than any other pair of clubs. As recently as 2002,Carlton led the head-to-head by 14,but Collingwood have won 22 of their last 26 encounters and now lead by two. The quirk is in grand finals,in which the Blues prevail 5-1. But they haven’t met in any final since 1988.
High-flying forward Craig Davis is one of few players to appear for both clubs. He played in a losing grand final with Carlton in his debut season in 1973,then after a stint at North Melbourne played for Collingwood in grand finals losses to Carlton in 1979 and 1981. He is the only player to have topped the goal-kicking at both clubs.
This was at the zenith of the rivalry. “The thing is that every game was a blockbuster,” he said this week. “If it wasn’t at Victoria Park or Princes Park,we’d have had 80,000 at every game.”
Davis remembers that competition between fans was intense. The players felt the edge. “We always knew when a Carlton game was coming up,” he said. “It wasn’t the old bullshit about one week at a time. We knew four weeks down the track when we were playing Carlton.”
Then Pie Craig Davis flies with Carlton’s Wayne Harmes for the ball in the 1981 grand final.The Age
But neither on the field nor off did it often descend into violence. Davis said the hallmark between the clubs at least was mutual respect.
In 1979,Carlton beat Collingwood in another grand final epic. The next morning,Blues captain-coach Alex Jesaulenko rang Davis to say that the gas bottle had run out at the team barbecue at his house and asked if he could drop his over. “I said yes,of course,” said Davis. Two weeks later,he and Jesaulenko drove together to Noosa for a holiday,and in time,Jesaulenko became a godfather to Davis’s children.
Victoria Park and Princes Park were neighbourly suburban redoubts. Each club won three-quarters of their matches at these fortresses,and two-thirds of matches against each other.
The dynamics changed as each club eased their way to bigger homes,Collingwood to the MCG and Carlton to the new Docklands stadium. Since 1993,all bar two of their clashes have been at the MCG. It has been very much advantage Collingwood.
Midfielder Heath Scotland played in losing Collingwood grand finals in 2002 and 2003 before leaving for more game time at Carlton,where he gave yeoman service and won a best and fairest. His peculiar distinction is to have played in the last-ever game at each historic venue.
Both were funereal. Collingwood at Victoria Park finished with a round 22 thrashing from Brisbane in 1999. Carlton signed off at Princes Park with a beating from Melbourne in a one-off game in 2005.
Talk of the town:Eddie McGuire and John Elliott spruik the rivalry at a Carlton-Collingwood press conference in the early 2000s.Vince Caligiuri
“We were focusing on a game of footy,but I remember it being a really emotional day for people externally,” Scotland said. “It was like a divorce. Those grounds meant so much to a lot of people. The memories. Duffle coats,eskies,standing on cans. I heard a thousand stories. I could feel the emotion.”
Collingwood emerged sooner from their wilderness than Carlton from theirs. Davis,by then living in Sydney,ached to watch,albeit that it was self-inflicted. “The old players felt hurt,” he said. “Our reputation as a fair,honest tough footy club was taken down,and it took a bloody long time to get it back.”
The rivalry became nearly defunct. The Blues lost their once famous clout,too. McGuire said that at one point,the AFL told him they would make Carlton wear an away jumper against Collingwood. He demurred. “No,under no circumstances,” he said. “They’re the navy blue and we’re the black-and-white. They’re the only outfits we want to see out there on the green baize. That to me is what football looks like.”
In an ever-expanding competition,it is many decades since footy’s old powers were strong contemporaneously. But Collingwood are the reigning premiers,Essendon are emerging and McGuire notes that a gathering Carlton have much of their old swagger back. Unsurprisingly,crowds and memberships are bursting at the seams.
Eighteen months ago,. It was the nearest they have played to a final in nearly 40 years. Everything old was Blue again.
On Friday night,they go again,these reheated cold warriors. McGuire said his childhood mixture of excitement and dread about these days had never left him. “There’s nothing better in life than beating Carlton,” he said,“but there’s also nothing better in life than the feeling of going to the footy to play Carlton – and beat them.”
For Davis and Scotland,memories will abound. Scotland says he is a Carlton man,but with a dash of Collingwood. “Some of my mates at Collingwood can’t stand Carlton still,” he said.
Davis identifies mostly with Collingwood,but with no animus. If,as form suggests,the Blues win,he knows his phone will light up with texts from old Carlton mates,all saying the same thing:“Dah,de dah,de dah …”
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