Watching Collingwood win the AFL grand final was like seeing my club reborn | Dan Bray
It has not always been easy to support Collingwood. The club has a shameful history.
As the stoic glory of Nicky Winmar’s gesture in defiance of racist abuse belongs to him, the shame of that abuse coming from Collingwood supporters belongs to the club. So do Allan McAlister’s vile comments on Indigenous players and decades on, Eddie McGuire’s bloody-minded ignorance.
Watching the players’ jubilation at Bobby Hill winning – perhaps “earning” is a better word – the Norm Smith medal after the Magpies’ grand final win at the MCG on Saturday felt like a new era.
Coach Craig McRae has surely played a part in this transformation.
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If you love Collingwood, you love McRae. You have to. We finished 17th in 2021. He took us to fourth in 2022. He’s now taken us to our first flag in 13 years. McRae’s first words when asked what he’d said to the players were: “I just gave everyone a hug and told them that I love them very much.”
Jeremy Howe said his coach “makes you understand how valued you are”. Fighting back tears, Mason Cox said: “He’s a real father figure to me.”
I didn’t try to fight mine back. So much love. So much exuberant and public love.
Ignoring the premiership for a moment, if possible, it was just a beautiful spectacle. Love for each other, the sport, the occasion and the supporters. I think the word “fan” jars slightly in the AFL context. It is passive. It’s more common to hear: “I’m a Collingwood supporter.”
That said, those four words elicit a groan or eye roll from other followers of the game. None of the sympathy for a longsuffering St Kilda supporter or begrudging respect for a recently successful club. It can feel as though Collingwood plays their “traditional rivals” every other week. No doubt the new Tasmanian team’s first game will be against their old foe, the Magpies.
Craig McRae embraces Darcy Moore after the final siren in the AFL grand final. Photograph: Michael Willson/AFL Photos/Getty Images
Every Collingwood win can feel like a victory over not just that day’s opponent but also over every other club and their fans who delight in our misfortunes, or in our persecution complexes. To throw yourself into any sport as a spectator, to invest your hopes in one team and not the other is to take leave of logic and reason. I feel sorry for people uninterested and unmoved by the dramatic, unscripted theatre of sport.
The lead changed 10 times in this grand final. That’s too much, thank you. I’m not built for a close, hard-fought game played by two teams at their peak, though that’s exactly what this was. Give me a comfortable and relaxing feeding to the lions (or predator of choice) of the opposition.
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If it’s true that footy is 70% mental, then surely you can feel the moments that turn a match. Victory in the grand final replay of 2010 was secured early when Heath Shaw smothered Nick Riewoldt’s kick in the goal square, having “crept up on him like a librarian”.
Hill’s soaring mark over Brandon Starcevich must surely have been it for 2023. It felt like it at the time. But then along comes Joe Daniher and his perfectly timed contested marks and his stupid moustache.
He’d be great at Collingwood though.
A four-point lead at three-quarter-time. The agony of uncertainty. Give me elation or give me grief, not this anguish.
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That Daniher and his phenomenal athleticism and his silly pulled-up socks. The horrifying sight of Charlie Cameron celebrating a scrambling goal. It was all too much. I retreated to the kitchen to put the kettle on, only to dart back to the TV at each raise in a commentator’s tone.
Leave it to a veteran of 2010, and a man named Steele to all but finish off the Lions.
And to Nick Daicos, whose skills need no further exaltation. I must plea to both brothers Daicos to have at least 10 children each.
Collingwood clearly have room for old footy families, but maybe there’s room for the new too.
Bobby Hill takes a screamer during the grand final. Photograph: Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos/Getty Images
When accepting the Norm Smith, Hill thanked Collingwood for making him and his family so welcome at the club.
It is not for me to say, but it seems things are getting better. It felt as though Hill and his teammates have redeemed Collingwood, or are on the way to.
One thing is certain, Craig McRae loves Bobby Hill very much. He said so. Everyone loves Bobby Hill. It feels like everyone at, in and around Collingwood loves everyone else.
I love our beautiful and unique sport. I love Joe Daniher’s cool haircut.
I love Collingwood, for ever.
Dan Bray is a news producer at Guardian Australia