But there has never been anything like a Collingwood-Carlton rivalry between the Magpies and Hawks.
They've had their moments, the Pies and the Hawks, and a bit of shared history as well; but despite the massive stakes up for grabs when the two sides clash at the MCG on Friday night, this is not a heated rivalry.
How could it be? It took the Hawks 17 years after joining the Victorian Football League before registering their first win over Collingwood. It came in the middle of World War II, so interest, not to mention space in the newspapers of the time, was minimal.
The first dramatic clash between the sides came at Victoria Park in 1960 when John Peck marked after the final siren, then kicked the goal to give Hawthorn its first-ever win at the home of the Magpies.
The victorious Hawthorn players remember going back to the Collingwood Social Club after the match and being greeted with thinly-veiled hostility. "They sat in the corner with their backs to us, and drank their beers with scowls on their faces," recalled one member of the side.
But one loss to Hawthorn at Vic Park in 35 years wasn't enough for the Pies to start taking the Hawks seriously. Or to care. They were too obsessed with Melbourne.
The first big Hawthorn-Collingwood game came at Waverley in 1973. It was the day Peter Hudson, hopelessly unfit and still nursing a dicky knee, landed at Waverley in a helicopter to help the Hawks make the finals. He kicked eight goals in his comeback game and beat four opponents in a fabulous display, but the Pies still won by 18 points in front of 48,312 fans.
"He had the Collingwood defenders spooked that day," recalls Leigh Matthews, a Hawthorn teammate of Hudson's at the time, who was injured and what that match from the stands. "He looked like (musician) Andre Rieu with his long hair but it was a remarkable day given the circumstances."
The two clubs met in September for the first time in 1974 and then again four years later in the second semi-final at the MCG. The Hawks were the reigning premiers in their first season under David Parkin, while also in his first season in charge of crossing from Richmond, Tom Hafey had taken Collingwood from bottom to top of the ladder.
Collingwood won by two points, a result that still irks Parkin. "We should have won the premiership in '77," he wrote in The Golden Years: Stories from Hawthorn's Greatest Era, which was released last month.
"We were the best team, but 'Scotty' (Don Scott) stuffed it up by belting Len Thompson, I think it was, in the third quarter, which fired up Collingwood and we got beaten."
Scott probably riled the Pies just a bit too much, with Magpie superstar Phil Carman booked for striking Michael Tuck, and then being suspended for two weeks. Carman, Collingwood's best player that season, missed the drawn Grand Final and the replay and it is generally felt that had he been available for either match, the Magpies would have won the premiership.
Hawthorn thrashed Collingwood by 56 points in the qualifying final the next season, but the next match of consequence was on the Queen's Birthday public holiday in 1981. It was a big game between two clubs entrenched in the top five, but nobody foresaw that nearly 93,000 fans would turn up, or that Hawthorn would win by 46 points.
The Pies had lost the previous two Grand Finals and were again accused afterwards of not having the stomach for big games and big crowds. Matthews was Hawthorn's best, while ruckman Ian Paton took advantage of Peter Moore's absence to play his best game yet for the Hawks.
"All I really remember is the size of the crowd," said Matthews this week. "There were people sitting everywhere and standing everywhere."
The crowd was about 16,000 larger than the stated capacity of Waverley. Basically, the League kept letting people in until about 2pm when finally, they started turning people away.
It was after this match that the State Government stepped in and required the League to be more stringent in terms of controlling how many people went through the gates.
Friday night's clash is unquestionably the biggest to be played between the two clubs even though the expected 85,000 crowd is a bit less than that of the 1981 clash.
The stakes are incredibly high, and if the Hawks do spring the upset, they can make the claim that they welcomed Malthouse in as Collingwood coach, and they saw him out.
The two clubs met in round 1 of 2000 at the MCG, with the Pies opening the Malthouse era with a 46-point win.
But it's still not a massive rivalry, not even with Jeff Kennett and Eddie McGuire at the helm of the respective clubs. Both are national figures, even without their football affiliations and both have been relatively mute all week.
"You'd be really stretching things to call this a rivalry," said Matthews, who as Hawthorn's greatest player and Collingwood's 1990 premiership coach, knows both clubs intimately.
"Everyone sees Collingwood as a big rival because of its sheer size but Hawthorn had Essendon in the '80s because of the three Grand Finals and North Melbourne because of all those finals in the '70s [are Hawthorn's main rivals].”
"I'm sure Hawthorn would love to beat them, but I'm not sure the edge between the clubs is there.
