CSM: Chapter 17.
17. Contenders …? In 1990, the VFL finally became the AFL – the Australian Football League. With clubs in New South Wales, Brisbane, and West Australia, the game had gone truly national, and the league needed to represent that. Now there was talk about trying to found a club in South Australia, although the South Australians were resistant. The emergence of the West Coast Eagles had all but killed their WAFL competition, reducing it to the equivalent of what the VFA was here. Still, though, the game was growing (or being grown) to encompass all of Australia. Collingwood moved into this new era, and the new decade, quietly, as had…
CSM: Chapter 16.
16. Building. 1988 brought a lot of new things to my footballing life. One was a total lack of expectation. For the short time I’d actively followed Collingwood, there’d always been a sense of expectation attached to each season. Under Hafey, it was the expectation of a drought-breaking flag, (seemingly an inevitability when you keep making grand finals). In 1983, it was the expectation of success under a revolutionary new regime, new coach, and a new squad containing expensive recruits. In 1985, it was an expectation of putting it all together under club legend Bob Rose. At the beginning of 1986, when Matthews first succeeded Rose, it was the expectation…