Almanac Footy: Magpies Footy Clinic 2002

 

 

 

 

 

Collingwood sits on the fringes of Melbourne’s central business district and outer northern suburbs. With its derelict factories and boarded-up businesses; there’s a dilapidated feeling I get when I visit the suburb of Collingwood.  I can’t quite pinpoint it, it feels decrepit, or perhaps it is echoes of Collingwood’s working-class past. Graffitied streets and red-bricked buildings share space with modern apartments. The walk ways and alleys are over-shadowed by large multi-storey housing commission units but in recent years, this has given way to a different demographic.

 

Today, you will also find there’s an eclectic mix of trendy cafes and alternative shops. As over the last 16-20 years, Collingwood has become a bit of a magnet for goths and similar sub-cultures. And also younger fashion types. But it still maintains its, to use Marxist terminology, proletariat roots. Of struggles and of being the underdogs, much like its name-sake football team, the Collingwood Magpies. And of the club’s original home ground, Victoria Park.

 

Victoria Park, as a stadium, was in a state of disrepair long before hosting its last AFL game back in 1999. Its old, outdated stands and facilities were a blemish on the shiny, new corporate image of the Australian Football League.  I would be visiting this ground in the future.

 

When I was very young, I was in a car accident and was injured, with an Acquired Brain Injury. Because of this, in 2001, when Collingwood announced the Transport Accident Commission as their new sponsor, and a launch of a road safety campaign, they chose me as their poster boy and gave me the opportunity to toss the coin in the middle of the MCG. It was for the Federation Match, between Collingwood and Carlton. When I did this, Nathan Buckley personally gave me an official Collingwood AFL guernsey with his autograph on it as well as other players.

 

When I was 12 in 2002, I received an invite back to Collingwood. I was to be a special guest, at one of the club’s footy clinics, that AFL teams usually run exclusively for members. It was held at Victoria Park, Collingwood’s now former training/playing venue and administrative base. As part of my invite, a camera crew were going to film me at the clinic as part of a documentary. Some months after the clinic I received that footage on a video cassette in the mail.

 

Recently, in 2026. I got down on my hands and knees, and opened the doors of our old TV unit. I fumbled around at the back, behind some old video tapes. Looking for an all-white case, with the Collingwood Football Club logo on it. I picked it up, dusted it off and switched on the old VHS player and turned it on. I was greeted by that familiar and nostalgic sound of the tape adjusting and bringing up the image. The picture quality is fine, though unfortunately, the audio is gone, so what I’ll be recalling being spoken is by memory alone.

 

It begins with the camera panning across groups of kids and their parents. They are waving, and smiling, outside the Jack Ryder Stand at Victoria Park. Then a narration starts:

 

From these images you could be forgiven for thinking these fans are queueing to buy finals tickets, they are, instead, lining up to participate in a footy clinic. Which is run by Collingwood’s players.

 

The footage then switches to inside the ground, showing a sea of kids in black and white. They are all wearing numbers of their favourite players. Most are wearing number 5, of the Captain Nathan Buckley.

 

The kids are running, jumping, there are individual shots of groups yelling Go Pies! to the camera. Then the footage changes to showing football drills. Such as kicking and handballing to a target. There are various Collingwood players in the footage as well, such as Nathan Buckley, Leon Davis and Anthony Rocca. It then switches to showing the gym inside the stand. A chaotic scene of kids using various treadmills and exercise bikes ensures. On the wall behind is written The Darren Milane Memorial Gym, and there is a photo of The Raging Bull from Victoria Park himself.  

 

Towards the end of the tape, maybe the last half of it the footage focuses exclusively on me. It shows me grabbing and handballing a football to one of the other participants. As well as showing me kicking the football. My reactions and movements are a bit clumsy, nowhere near my more precise and accurate displays, I would develop in later years. At one point it shows Simon Prestigiacomo, leaning in and signing my guernsey that I had at the time, right over my left collarbone. My mother and sister are also shown on the footage, but as the audio doesn’t work, I don’t know what my mum is saying to the camera.

 

Lastly it shows Nathan Buckley and he is talking about me. From memory he is speaking about my injury, how it has impacted me and the fact that it is a great thing to be able to get on with my life. He signs the back of my guernsey, right on the number 5.

 

The final shot on the video is of Nathan Buckley leaning down next to me and I’ve got a buck-toothed grin smiling back at him.

 

I’m glad I still have this video, though it is a shame about the audio. I’ll have to contact someone at the Collingwood Archives to see if they can track down the documentary.

 

Read more from RagingBull HERE

 

 

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