Ando’s Shout: Brian Taylor reflects on missing Collingwood’s 1990 premiership team
Thirty years after missing Collingwood’s drought-breaking 1990 premiership, Brian Taylor reveals why coach Leigh Matthews left him out of the team and whether his published diary was the reason.
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It was 30 years ago that tempestuous full-forward Brian Taylor decided to diarise Collingwood’s 1990 season in Black and White, The Taylor Diaries.
It resulted in the most revealing football read of the modern generation in a year in which the Magpies won their first flag in 32 years.
The book is a concept that could never get off the ground in today’s sanitised AFL world.
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JON ANDERSON: What prompted you to do it?
BRIAN TAYLOR: At the time there weren’t many football books, apart from the typical biographies. I wanted to take readers deeper. Probably in some ways I wish I didn’t write it because it didn’t help my football career.
JA: But you had already decided it would be your last season?
BT: I’m speaking more from a selection viewpoint. I’m not saying I would have been picked for the Grand Final, but I made their decision easier. I think they were dirty about what they thought might be in the book rather than what was actually in it.
JA: Did you lose friends?
BT: I’ve always regarded playing footy as a game of necessary friendships to achieve success, and once it’s over you go off in your own directions. I moved on really quickly to the next part of my life rather than dealing with “what ifs”. I initially went to a couple of 1990 reunions and then realised I didn’t actually play so I shouldn’t be there.
JA: And your coach Leigh Matthews?
BT: I’m actually friendly with Leigh these days. We have never really spoken about the book other than once when he said in typically pragmatic style: “I wasn’t going to pick you anyway, so your book had nothing to do with it.”
JA: How did it sell?
BT: I reckon we sold around 30,000 with it coming out on the Wednesday after the Grand Final. And the Herald Sun, which had its first edition on Monday, October 8, serialised the book for three days and paid up a five-figure sum to do so. Different times.
MEDAL COUNT AN ENIGMA
And to think Greg Williams remains peeved that his 44 possessions in Round 10 of 1993 didn’t crack it for a solitary Brownlow Medal vote?
What about another prolific on-baller, albeit in a different level of football? I speak of Nick Pavlou from Old Brighton Grammarians, who set himself for a big one against St Kevin’s Old Boys at the windswept Brighton Beach Oval in Round 15 last year.
Needing to win to keep their finals hopes alive, Old Brighton held on by four points, with Pavlou named best player after a remarkable 54 disposals (46 kicks, eight handballs), 11 marks, 16 clearances, nine inside 50s and two goals.
For his efforts Pavlou was awarded two votes, the three going to Nick Wood (26 disposals) from SKOB. Go figure!
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LUCKLESS GREENING WAS REALLY THAT GOOD
I had a query during the week from a younger reader as to how good a player Collingwood’s John Greening was before his career ended in a behind-the-play incident in 1972.
I’ll let the stats do the talking.
As a 20-year-old in 1971, the kid from Burnie in northwestern Tasmania who could make the ball talk, had 50 disposals (30 kicks, 20 handballs) and 16 marks as a wingman against Geelong at Victoria Park. A year later at the same ground, he had 46 disposals consisting of 35 kicks, 10 marks, 11 handballs and six goals.
To prove this wasn’t a fluke, Greening — pictured, left, playing for Collingwood reserves during a 1974 comeback bid — picked up a lazy 45 “possies” with four goals the following week against South Melbourne at the Lake Oval.
Greening was still just 21. What a player he truly was.