SUCH was Collingwood’s dominance [in 1929] that one bored supporter came up with the idea of running a sweep on which team would be the first to knock them off. But when he tried to sell tickets at a training session at Victoria Park, he found no takers. Without a doubt, this was largely because of the parochial nature of the barrackers, but there were many people – not just Collingwood supporters – who believed it was likely the Magpies would go through the season undefeated.
Some within the club began to believe this to be a realistic goal. Kickero, from the Herald, said after the Round 6 win over North Melbourne, “It is now the aim of Collingwood to go through the season undefeated.”
Other clubs might have begun to feel the pressure of an extended run without a loss. But Collingwood revelled in the attention it was receiving from within the suburb and from admirers and critics across the country, especially from football teams who carried the same colours.
The Magpies wrote a letter of support to the Acton team in the Australian Capital Territory “in support of brothers in black and white”. They also sent 20 Collingwood jumpers to Yeronga State School in Brisbane to “encourage” the growth of the sport up north.
A freak piece of play
Some critics pointed to the St Kilda match at the Junction Oval as the game in which Collingwood might be tested. The conditions were bleak and the ground was caked with mud. Almost 30,000 people turned out to watch a “gloriously sustained struggle on a horrible day”.
St Kilda led by five points at half-time, the Magpies by one point at the last change. Late in the match it appeared as if the home side would become the first to knock the Magpies off their perch in 1929. Then, just when all looked lost for the Pies, a freak piece of play made it seem as if fate was playing its part in the Collingwood streak.
Gordon Coventry, well held for most of the day, gathered a loose ball just before the final bell. Almost simultaneously he copped a bump from St Kilda’s full-back Ernie Loveless, and tried to kick the ball in the direction of goal. The bump “shook Coventry to his foundations”, while the ball miraculously made contact with the side of his left boot and trickled through for a goal, to give the Magpies the game by four points. Ever the gentleman, the self-effacing Coventry all but apologised to his opponent, saying, “It was one of the flukes of the game.”
Is this the team that's going to beat us?
When the Magpies defeated the Blues by 29 points, the black and white fans howled in delight, goading their opposing fans by chanting: “Is this the team that was going to beat us?”
One newspaper wrote: “This combination is a great one, worthy to be bracketed with many great teams of the past, and one to be admired … it is proficient in all branches that makes the perfect machine … each man helping the other at every opportunity. There was an understanding between them that was thrilling, making it a combination so decidedly superior to Carlton that it caused surprise, even to its enthusiasts who regard Collingwood as invincible.”
In keeping with [club president Harry] Curtis’s pre-season pledge to aim for records, Gordon Coventry booted an individual record of 16 goals in a game against a hapless Hawthorn before a deliriously happy Victoria Park crowd. He bagged four goals in the first five minutes and an astounding eight in the first quarter, to set him up to break the decade-old record of 14 kicked by South Melbourne’s Harold Robertson. ‘Nuts’ broke the old mark in the last quarter and was then congratulated off the ground by friends and foes alike. Even the umpire shook Coventry’s hand. Another to shake his hand in the rooms was John Wren, the club’s occasional benefactor, who slipped a 50-pound note into Coventry’s enormous palm. That was a huge sum of money in those dark times.
Vigorous debate
With Collingwood’s unbeaten run extending, there were some external critics who believed their sustained success was not good for the game. Even Syd Coventry admitted later that he had thought the standard of VFL football may have degenerated. Coventry said: “I thought the game had slipped, as we were beating everybody.”
Numerous experienced football writers claimed the Magpies were simply unbeatable. One headline screamed: “No Victorian team is capable of beating Collingwood.” Another, more mischievous, headline in the Australasian read: “Collingwood defeated”. Only on closer inspection did it reveal that the Collingwood Rifle Club, not the Collingwood Football Club, had suffered a loss.
Kickero concluded late in the season that “the public agreed that the premiership was won two months ago, and there was not a team which could stop Collingwood’s run of success”. He added that the finals had the hallmarks of being “a fizzer”, with yet another procession likely to see the Magpies acclaimed as the only side in VFL history to be undefeated in a season.
Others claimed that Collingwood had “killed interest in the competition”. Jack Worrall, the former Carlton coach who had led the Blues to three successive flags three decades earlier, said in the Australasian: “There is no use denying the fact that Collingwood’s undoubted superiority over its rivals has not been in the best interests of the game, as to thousands the premiership has already been won … not for many years has there been such a dominant side.”
A vigorous debate was waged in the sports pages of the Herald between those who believed the Magpies were “lucky” to be in the position they were in and those who believed the club deserved full credit. One claimed: “That the Magpies are unbeaten at present, no one can dispute; but other teams might be likewise with similar luck. I sincerely trust that the remaining matches are decided on merit.” Another was more insistent that good fortune rather than good form was the reason for Collingwood’s success, saying “Wake up, Magpie. Look ‘Through Two Eyes’ and if you are a fair sport you should surely see that Collingwood have been a distinctly lucky side this season.” There were just as many writing in support of the club. One penned by ‘Through Two Eyes’ claimed “their record [is] due to their trainer [Wal Lee] and coach and management of the team”. Another, from ‘Magpie’, said, “We have won through. Not like some other teams who, when certain players are out of their team, become disorganised and can do no good. Everyone can see that they [Collingwood] are certainties for the premiership, and that all their victories are full of merit.”
Rumours abounded about Collingwood players supposedly being offered 500 pounds if they could go through the season undefeated. It is not known whether there was any truth to this speculation, or who was going to foot the bill if the feat was achieved. The only fear for those within the club was that the team could “go stale” late in the season, as they had in the previous year.
There were, however, no signs of staleness when the club ended the regular season with an emphatic 56-point win over Melbourne in front of 41,316 fans. It was the first and only time a team has gone through a home-and-away season undefeated, and seemingly the perfect entrée into the finals.
The Machine, by Michael Roberts tells the inside story of the great Collingwood side of 1927-30. It can be purchased at all good bookstores and from the Collingwood Football Club.
