CSM: Chapter 20.
20. What Could Be. We left the MCG and walked back to the Birmingham Hotel. There were people celebrating everywhere. Disconsolate Essendon supporters were nowhere to seen. Some would’ve left early. I don’t know about others. Maybe they simply became invisible. Or, possibly, they hid their colours to escape ridicule and even abuse – not that any discriminating Collingwood supporter would ever abuse an Essendon supporter, of course. I thought about that idiot Essendon supporter I’d argued with when Essendon had beaten us earlier in the year, how he’d said the only way Collingwood would win a flag was to return to the VFL. I wondered where he was now,…
CSM: Chapter 19
19. The Impossible Dream. I have an admission to make. Earlier during the season, we were gathered at the Birmingham Hotel (pub) pre-game – our usual meeting place for MCG games. I was talking to one of my brother’s friends, Mouse, and was adamant we wouldn’t win a flag under Matthews. At that stage, I just couldn’t see us taking the next step. There was something about Matthews’s coaching which troubled me. Part of it was the insularity. Once you were out of the klique (as Paul Hawke, David Cloke, and Brian Taylor found out), you were gone. Maybe that was part of cultivating a contender, but it also felt…