Birthday presents don’t come much better than this.

On the day Eddie Millar turned 20, he made his senior debut for the Collingwood Football Club. Initially he had only been named as an emergency for the Round 3 game against Fitzroy at Victoria Park. But Bill Twomey was a late withdrawal, which elevated Eddie to the bench.

Further good fortune awaited him there too when Errol Hutchesson broke his foot in the third quarter, ensuring Eddie got some valuable game time on debut (it wasn’t uncommon in those days for players to stay on the bench for an entire game).

Eddie came to Collingwood from Parade College, having previously played with the Alphington YCW team. He started with 10 games in the Under-19s in 1957, then was elevated to the senior list for the 1958 season. He played played 16 games with the reserves and two senior matches in ’58 – the debut from the bench against Fitzroy, and another appearance from the bench against South Melbourne in Round 8. And while those appearances were enough to win him a spot in the group team photo celebrating the famous 1958 flag, they weren’t enough to cement his place in the side.

He was a solidly-built ruck-rover type who played most of his footy at Collingwood in the back pocket, on a half-back flank or as a ruck-rover. He was no star, but was regarded as an honest and reliable contributor.

Eddie’s luck finally seemed to have turned early in 1959, when he got his first start and first taste of back-to-back games. Named as a ruck-rover against Richmond in Round 5, he kicked his first goal and held his place for the following week. But by Round 7 he was back on the bench again, and this time didn’t even get a run.

That was, sadly, the end of Eddie’s senior opportunities at Victoria Park. He crossed to Preston in the VFA, and was in the back pocket when they won the VFA Second Division flag in 1963. A keen tennis player until late in life and possessed of a fine singing voice (he sang in the church choir for many years), he enjoyed a long marriage to wife Ann and had three children. He had been attending monthly lunches with the core of his YCW team until just weeks before his death in 2024.

Eddie Millar played only a bit part in the story of Collingwood’s 1958 Premiership season. But he was a more central figure in Preston’s flag five years later – part of an overall footy career of which he could be justifiably proud.