It was just a few days before the 2018 AFL grand final and Collingwood Football Club was the toast of Melbourne after a sparkling season in which it recovered from 13th position on the ladder a season earlier to the cusp of the premiership.

If ever Eddie McGuire, the club’s president since 1998, had an excuse to trot out his well-worn line about Collingwood being the biggest and best football club in the country, this was it.