THE LIBERAL and Labor parties have been going against each other for 70 years. Carlton and Collingwood for considerably longer. Yet this weekend marks the first time these great rivalries have taken place on the same day.
Vote counting on Saturday night will start around Australia at around the same time as the opening siren sounds at the MCG as the Blues and Pies do battle.
And the battle lines are clear. Liberal and Labor clash to take charge of the government; Carlton and Collingwood, sadly for bragging rights only, with both well out of finals contention.
Carlton has no formal links to the Liberal Party, but the ties run deep. Carlton is the club of former Prime Ministers Sir Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser.
In the 1930s, before Canberra came calling, Menzies was the Blues’ legal adviser. He followed Carlton closely during his two stints as Prime Minister and, after he stood down in 1966 and his health started to wane, he watched games at Princes Park from the front seat of his Bentley, parked on a purpose-built, elevated ramp near the Robert Heatley Stand.
Former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies watching his beloved Blues from his Bentley.
Fraser was a regular at big games in the 1970s and after the 1981 and 1982 premiership wins, the Blues were invited to The Lodge to celebrate with him. Former premiership rover Alex Marcou tells one of the funniest football stories ever about his date, known only as ‘Fabulous’.
But enough of the Blues. Collingwood’s ties to the Australian Labor Party run just as deep. John Wren, who was a key ALP powerbroker, also helped finance the Magpies’ rise to power in the late 1920s. Two Labor Prime Ministers, Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating, were also Collingwood supporters.
The link between the Magpies and the ALP continues now. Labor leader Bill Shorten is a fan and even juggled his campaign schedule a few weeks back so he could be in Brisbane on the same night the Pies were playing at the Gabba. But he has had to explain his Collingwood fandom, having only jumped on the Pies when his first love – South Melbourne – decamped to Sydney in 1982.
Collingwood has twice played at the MCG on the same day as the federal election. It lost the 1946 preliminary final to Melbourne by 13 points as Ben Chifley’s ALP was re-elected against Menzies’ newly formed Liberal Party. In 2013, the Pies crashed to Port Adelaide in the elimination final. To compound a miserable night for many of their fans, Kevin Rudd lost the election to Tony Abbott.
Carlton supporters looking for an omen might want to hark back to preliminary final day in 1999 when the Blues upset the Bombers, held on the same day as the Victorian state election.
The most notable clash between football and the federal election came on May 18, 1974. On the same day Whitlam’s ALP was re-elected, fists flew at half-time of the Essendon-Richmond clash in what became known as the Windy Hill brawl. It was one of the ugliest skirmishes in League history.
The result of the election ended up hanging in the air for a few days, as did the result of the VFL investigation and subsequent Tribunal hearing, which meant that in Melbourne the political writers and their footy counterparts fought their own battle for the front pages of the newspapers.
A similar battle will rage on Saturday night as TV remotes are switched between the battle for the Sherrin and the battle for the nation.
Channel Seven has the rights to both and in Melbourne and Adelaide the footy will be on Channel Seven, with the election on 7TWO. Elsewhere the footy will be on 7mate, while the election is on Channel Seven.
