The club has heard thousands of wonderful stories from Collingwood supporters recounting their favourite memories from the 2010 season.
Collingwoodfc.com.au is highlighting these stories in a new segment "Tell us YOUR story".
Supporters can submit their memories from the 2010 season and Collingwoodfc.com.au will collate and publish them.
Email your 2010 story to mystory@collingwoodfc.com.au.
The story below was entered by supporter Donovan Badrock describing the journey of a friendship over season 2010.
Click here to read the first story published '12 months in the life of...'.
Hathalie Cherry and I, Donovan Badrock, sat side by side as best friends for the 2010 grand final. A year earlier we hadn’t met. This is the story of how we got there...
Towards the end of the 2009 season, Hathalie (@cherryeleven) wanted to follow some fellow Collingwood supporters on twitter. She chose five followers of Harry O’Brien at random. I (@dgen717) was one of them.
When twitter notified me that Hathalie was following me I checked her profile, saw that she was a Collingwood supporter so I followed her back. I sent her a tweet saying that she could add the Collingwood logo. I created it for her twitter pic.
Hathalie and I would tweet a lot about Collingwood but a bit about other things going on as well, and every now and then we’d comment. Regardless of what was going on, there was always Collingwood. It was clear that we were getting along well, whilst still being ‘twitter’ friends.
Then at the start of November Hathalie tweeted that she had gone into an AFL store but walked out with a Boston Red Sox cap. I have been a Red Sox fan for many years so this piece of news surprised me. I asked Hathalie about it and she confirmed she was a Red Sox fan, but just learning. It was another thing that drew us together.
We met for the first time ever at the Westpac centre. We both decided at the same moment that’s where it should be. We were Collingwood people so where better to meet than Collingwood’s current home. That day we shared a couple of beers and several conversations. We would talk online and occasionally catch up over a beer before the footy season started.
When the season started I was overseas on holiday so Hathalie would keep me updated with all the news from the Collingwood website. Anything related to our beloved Magpies would end up in my inbox thanks to Hathalie. Hathalie would also SMS the scores at each break when the boys were playing (the one-point win over Melbourne gave me a heart attack at long distance!). She also sent photos of the boys training. It was awesome to have someone keep me updated while I was away.
I’ve still got the messages where Hathalie said she felt different this year. That she sensed a kind of hunger in the group and she highlighted that Dale Thomas had improved greatly.
When I got back my friendship with Hathalie grew stronger and we would meet before games and at half time when we could. As I’m an MCC member and Hathalie sat in the Ponsford stand, we weren’t always able to sit together. But there were quite a few times when we did.
Hathalie started developing a friendship with my two daughters as well and would look forward to the times when I was able to bring them to the games and have us all sit together. I met Hathalie’s family, who go to each and every game, and Hathalie met my mates who I go to games with. It was wonderful for us to meet more and more Collingwood people and just helped our bond grow and grow.
Fast forward through a year that saw our friendship grow with strength just as the Collingwood team grew stronger.
On preliminary final night Hathalie and I met in a big group of my friends and her friends at Young and Jackson before walking down to the ‘G as a great group of Collingwood friends.
That prelim was when the long slow Collingwood chant enveloped the MCG totally for the first time. It was probably the best half of football I’ve seen the Collingwood team ever play.
After the game Hathalie and I met up. I embraced her with the joy that only two Collingwood fans can muster when they’ve just seen their team win their way into the grand final. At the end of the game I tweeted ‘We’re in the grand final baby!!!!’ Hathalie told me that she had seen this on the MCG scoreboard.
My girls and I met with Hathalie and her family at the Grand Final parade and for the Grand Final training sessions. It was a real bond developing between two families of great Collingwood supporters.
Unfortunately Hathalie didn’t have a membership that was able to secure her a seat in the first grand final. I was lucky enough to gain a standing room ticket through my Collingwood social club membership. I sent text messages to her while she sat with her family at the Myer Music bowl and she sent messages back describing what was happening there.
Of course we all know that that game was a draw. After all the effort, all the build up and all the excitement, there was no result. But there was one massive silver lining -suddenly Hathalie and her friend that she sat with week after week were going to be able to go to the grand final.
So there I was sitting in the Great southern stand at the MCG on the 2nd of October 2010. I was side by side with my best friend. And Collingwood had just won the grand final. It was the very best moment of my life.
Donovan Badrock
Supporter
