Hello again Magpie Faithful members – and welcome to our mid-season newsletter. We hope you find something interesting in what follows.

Remember to stay in touch with us via [email protected] and also keep spreading the word, by encouraging your friends and Magpie mates to join our little group here: 

It's been an encouraging start to the season and we've built a solid platform. Fingers crossed for the rest of 2019!

Carna Pies!

Michael Roberts
Collingwood Historian

Crispy & Pendles

Jack Crisp played his 100thgame for us against Carlton in Round 8, on top of the 18 he'd played for Brisbane previously. All 100 of those games in black-and-white have come in succession: Crispy has not missed a single game since coming to the club. As of the bye weekend he's played 104 in a row for us, and 110 overall (he played the last six of 2014 with the Lions), placing him third overall among current AFL players. Steele Sidebottom is our next best with 79 in a row.

If Crispy keeps going he'll soon have Tarkyn Lockyer  (136 consecutive games) in his sights – though Jock McHale's remarkable 191 in a row (the seventh longest streak of all time) remains a fair way off.

Scott Pendlebury, meanwhile, continues to set new records just about every week. He's now at 289 games, and rapidly closing in on becoming just the third Magpie to break the 300-game barrier.

Even more interestingly, according to AFL Tables he's now amassed 7672 possessions in his career. This makes him officially the most prolific Magpie of all – he moved past Tony Shaw's tally of 7632 during the game against Fremantle in Round 11. This places him ninth on the overall all-time list of VFL/AFL players, and he's a decent chance to break the 8000 barrier by the time the season ends.

Pendles' career average of 26.55 possessions per game has been bettered by only one other player in the top 30 – and that was former teammate Dane Swan. Current coach Nathan Buckley sits in 29thspot on the overall list with 6887 possessions.

2019 highlights

A few bits of trivia from the first half of the 2019 season, courtesy of AFL statistician Steve Rodgers:

  • For those who like omens, it's worth noting that the scores in our game against the Bulldogs earlier this year – 11.12 (78) to 9.10 (64) – were exactly the same as our game against them in Rd 10 1928 – a Collingwood Premiership season. And the last time we beat the Bulldogs in a Round 4 game was in 1990 – another Magpie flag year!
  • We're always interested in our win-loss ledger against the old enemy, Carlton. Following our win in Rd 8 the current VFL/AFL tally sits at 126 wins for us, 127 for Carlton and 4 draws. But if you include our pre-VFL games then overall we're leading 134-131.
  • Our Rd 10 game against the Swans followed what is becoming a familiar pattern. The scores in our last three games against them at the SCG are:
  • 11.13 v 11.14
  • 11.7 v 10.11
  • 11.7 v 11.14 
  • Collingwood went into the bye with 9 wins and 3 losses. That is the 18th time in our history we've had nine wins after 12 rounds. We've gone on to make the finals in every one of those years bar one (the exception being 1954). And in five of those seasons we ended up winning the flag - including 100 years ago in 1919.
  • When the Giants played North Melbourne in Rd 13, former Magpie Heath Shaw experienced the unusual sensation of having his brother, Rhyce (another former Pie), coaching the opposition team. While this is rare (this was only the second instance since 1949), it has happened once before for the Magpies – when Syd Coventry coached Footscray from 1935-37 against his brother Gordon.

Peter McKenna function

Thanks to all who turned out on a Sunday morning to pay tribute to Peter McKenna at the unveiling of a new display cabinet in his honour. This was an exclusive event for members of the Magpie Faithful, and we thank you for supporting it. Read the report here.

There will be a new player featured around November/December and we'll let you know more details as we get closer.

Hafey's Heroes Function

As previously flagged, this year's Forever function will celebrate Tom Hafey's heroic teams from 1977-82. This function now looks being held late in August, so keep your eyes out for the club email advertising it that should arrive mid-late July. In the meantime you can still check out the Hafey's Heroes display next time you're in the foyer at HQ.

Murray Swinton's Scrapbooks

Murray Swinton, the former firefighter who was struck down with Motor Neurone Disease, has remained an influential figure at the club despite succumbing to the disease late last year. His family was heavily involved in this year's Queen's Birthday game, and earlier in the year they donated his extraordinary collection of scrapbooks – more than 240 books covering more than 40 years – to the club. Read the full story here:

If you’d like to follow suit and donate something to the Collingwood collection, contact our Archives team at [email protected]

Vale Tom Wanliss

The Collingwood Archives lost a great friend and valued contributor when Tom Wanliss passed away in May at age 93. Read our tribute here:

Do you collect Magpie memorabilia?

We know many of you keep collections of treasured Magpie mementos. And while we don't have lots of surplus stock at the Archives, we do sometimes have spares of items such as club newsletters/magazines and membership medallions, which we sell to help raise funds to support our ongoing work, or to fund new acquisitions.

So if you're looking for anything in particular, drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll see if we can help.