Magpies seal flag with a KISS and earn begrudging respect ... but the rest of us still hate them

Back and forth. Highs then lows. This, but that.

Such was the storyline of the epic 2023 AFL grand final, yes, but also what basically became a single match referendum on the Collingwood Football Club, and whether we – the neutrals – still hate them.

Beau McCreery holds the premiership cup while Bobby Hill kisses it.Credit: Joe Armao

We’ve heard the opposite for some time now, you see, told time and again by members of the commentariat how likeable these new Magpies have become. How their organisation is filled with great people, and inclusivity. How they play with verve and desire. How they’re exciting to watch. Becoming likeable was, they told us, the dirtiest trick the dirty rotten mudlarks ever pulled.

There’s their coach, Craig McRae, with his Ted Lasso puffer jacket and guileless charm, who revealed his wife Gabrielle gave birth to a baby girl - named Maggie - at 7.45 that morning. Their captain, Darcy Moore, who reads books and dyes his hair and speaks with eloquence and empathy. Their veteran champion, too, Scott Pendlebury, maybe headed humbly towards the AFL games record.

But is that enough to really turn the other cheek? I think not.

The late afternoon sky above the yawning maw of the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, September 30, was deep blue, lit by bright spring sun, and yet by 5.27pm the place was already darkened in the mind’s eye of many by a big brewing black-and-white cloud of rumbling thunder. They’re back, with a 16th flag, and a hunger for more.

Collingwood captain Darcy Moore brandishes the cup to the Magpie army.Credit: Getty

We should have seen it coming, of course. Before the first stoppage was even contested, the centre square was occupied by a famous band, whose name is an acronym for Knights In Satan’s Service, and they wore black and white and played surrounded by the belch of flames, while acrid smoke from pyrotechnics filled the nostrils and fireworks launched skyward like missiles. This day was Armageddon from the get-go.

Football scribes tend to forget (or at least underestimate) how much spite and animosity there is in footy fandom, and how much delirious schadenfreude there would have been, for instance, if the Lions had rolled this Collingwood side.

It’s not their fault. Such writers cover all clubs, speak regularly to players and coaches, face to face as people, and therefore prosecute the case for Collingwood with clear eyes, too often forgetting that the rest of us are one-eyed. They barrack for “the story” when most of us – juvenile as it sounds – are barracking to see the evil empire trip and fall.

Just jealous? That’s fair.

In our hatred for this club, we find so many silly, middling reasons for complaint.

We moan about the unfairness of their three (count ’em, three) father-son All-Australian stars, but not-so-secretly pine for our own legacy champs.

We loathe the posturing and puffery of their bull backman Brayden Maynard, but quietly wish our own enforcers were as frantic and mad.

We’ve had more than enough of their run of close wins – which now, quite horrifically, includes the season decider – desperately telling ourselves the statistical truth that close games are random, while being all too covetous of whatever infuriating voodoo sees them finish in front so often.

We tire of the overwrought hyperbole around the Magpie Army, too, and the wall of sound they create, as if Collingwood somehow invented noise, but most of the competition would be envious of their hoarse hordes.

We’re sick most of all of that droning chant that went up and around the ground all afternoon – “Collllll-ing-woood” – which is not so much a cheer as it is a taunt. It’s basically the barracking equivalent of trolling, yeah, but how good would it feel to be part of it?

This all sounds awfully petty, yes? Fair. But we’re fans, illogically and immaturely hardwired from an early age to love our own and to hate the black and white. It’s elementary stuff, taught to us in beribboned cots by our parents. Call it the ABC of barracking. (Anyone. But. Collingwood.)

Alas, this Saturday the neutrals lost, and as the crowds started slipping away, filing out into the seasonal warmth, and celebrations raged across the city, a final thought came to mind.

My dad was a longtime beat cop, monitoring the most mean-spirited inner-city pubs and back alleys for many, many years, and he said the worst nights of the year for coppers always had one of two things in common – a full moon or a Collingwood win.

In that light, it’s hard to imagine what a Magpie premiership under a supermoon might unleash, but we’re about to find out.

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