As far as the Carlton Football Club goes, we smashed the stigma and showed Collingwood how it was done in 1982 – the first Club to win their 14th Premiership – within 12 months of winning our 13th Flag.
You see, back in the late 70’s and 80’s, there were hundreds of young ferals running around the Carlton Commission Flats where I was brought up. The majority of us followed the “Big 3”; Carlton, Collingwood or Richmond, and in that order. There were other teams supported like Hawthorn, Fitzroy, North and Essendon but it felt like the top 3 accounted for about 75% of us. As you would imagine there was a lot of rivalry when these teams played, and even a few punch-ups.
I can just make out when we won the 1979 Grand Final over Collingwood - we seemed to have the support of all non-Pies supporters. Two years later and we still had them all on our side. The fights were endless, and the jokes pretty vicious - don’t forget that the Pies had been choking in Grand Finals since their last flag in 1958 with losses in 64, 66, 70, 77, 79, 80, 81 – which seemed like an eternity away for us young supporters. A good example of a joke was:
Q. How can Footscray win a flag?
A. Play Collingwood in a Grand Final
Another thing we used to stir the Pies supporters out at the time was their lack of premiership cups. In case you didn’t know, the first ever premiership cup was actually awarded in 1959, which meant that despite Collingwood having won 13 premierships they had NEVER had a premiership cup (since changed under intense lobbying). Hence why all fans talk to this day about ‘winning the flag’ as that is all you use to get! So another common joke went along the lines of:
'Even St Kilda has a Cup to drink from, you blokes wet your flag and strain it to drink from it.
Now back to 1982. The Pies had imploded by then, sacking Hafey and bringing in Mick Erwin. The Pies were gone and late in the season it seemed like we were following them. But like a punch drunk prize fighter we kept landing enough winning punches and winning matches to keep us in the hunt for the flag (note that term again - flag). We had already won 2 of the last 3 flags in 1979 and 1981, and in doing so had equalled Collingwood’s record of 13 and lost some of that neutral support we’d previously had. We’d already widened the gap between their Club and ours (and Collingwood), and it didn’t look like anyone wanted to see us move further ahead. In modern day language, it’s really no different with us not wanting to Essendon to win their 17th flag before us.
Come finals time, neutral support was swaying to Richmond (10 flags and last tasted success two years ago) or Hawthorn (4 flags and whose last success was 5 years ago). But at the time we also had those feral Collingwood supporters as scared as hell that we would overtake them as winning the most flags right at the time that the blood was running free down at Vic Park. This of course gave us a chance to stop the ferals from using the “at least we have won the most flags” line, you know the one that you probably use yourself these days!
So could you imagine the pain and anguish of the common Collingwood fan (and I do mean common):
- they would no longer be the leading flag winner
- they could no longer use “at least we have won the most flags”
- stop using No.13 as the reason why they been “unlucky” in Grand Finals
- if the Pies had to be stuck on 13 flags for 24 years (up to 1982) then everyone else has to pay penance at the number as well and do their time
Despite some poor late season form we’d managed to make it to the 1982 Grand Final, but it felt like there were a few things stacked against us:
- we had played 4 tough finals in a row (Tigers would be fresher after a weeks rest)
- the Tigers had touched us up in the Second-Semi,
- we had a lot of injury concerns over some players and we couldn’t field our best side
- our finals record against the Tigers is the worst of all clubs
- two of our worst finals defeats in the last 10 years were at the hands of the Tigers (73 GF & 80 Qual)
- we still had a reputation of being a quick, skilled but SOFT team
- showers were predicted for the game and this would be conducive to a big, physical Richmond team
So for most people it was a no-brainer we were GONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. The supporters that seemed to be rejoicing in this the most were the Collingwood supporters for some of the previously mentioned reasons plus that we had beaten them in 3 grand finals over the last 12 years.
They were saying that 13 is jinxed, will be stuck on 13 flags for many years to come, it was akin to walking under a ladder, or a black cat walking in front of you – it was superstitious and we were going to pay penance for this. They actually believed this because of the fact that they had, it meant that it was a given and it was now our turn to suffer what all Collingwood Supporters had suffered for so many years. It wasn’t like the 1981 GF lead-up, even though the Blues were the favourites it didn’t seem like we were a raging favourite like the Tigers were for the 1982 GF.
So come 5pm Saturday afternoon you could see the two supporter groups that were suffering the most were both Richmond and Collingwood. Who was hurting more, sometimes I wonder!!!! Then Essendon went from 12 to 14 flags in 84-85 just to rub more salt into the Pies wounds. Just proves the jinx wasn’t the number 13, but more so to do with that Club.
The irony is that loss started a poaching war between these two clubs over the next few years where players walked down the road (Punt Rd / Hoddle St) to the other club e.g. Cloke, Raines to Pies and Walsh, Stewart, Peart, Lovett etc to the Tigers. Both clubs imploded and whilst the Pies recovered to win a flag in 1990 and later 2010 the Tigers have only come back to the finals for two fleeting appearances in 1995 and 2001.
Meanwhile the Blues had won Flag number 14 and then proceeded to be the first Club to win their 15th and 16th Flags. Now the race is on for Flag Number 17…