y separately published work icon Collingwood : A Love Story single work   biography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Collingwood : A Love Story
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A multi-generational saga of football, love, war, forgiveness and, most critically, identity.

'Every year when Collingwood plays Essendon in the AFL s annual Anzac Day match, Collingwood president Eddie McGuire carries an old horseshoe into the team's changing rooms and passes it around. The players examine it as he relates the great footy club story behind it.

'It's early in the twentieth century and Doc Seddon, a Collingwood player, introduces his childhood sweetheart, Louie, to his dashing team mate, Paddy Rowan. Paddy sweeps Louie off her feet and they marry. But war intervenes. Doc and Paddy go off to fight, leaving Louie to raise Paddy's baby. When Paddy is killed, Doc promises that he will always look after Paddy's wife and child. Just before the 1917 Grand Final, he sends a horseshoe back from the Somme, where he continued to serve. It brings the Magpies luck - they win.

'It is a lovely story. Except, of course, that fairytales didn't come true in Collingwood, the biggest slum of Melbourne.

'What really happened to them is a much grittier tale.' (From the publisher's website.)

Notes

  • Dedication: For my mother, Margaret Daley, and for her father - my grandfather - William Meskill Bourke, a lifelong supporter and patron of the Collingwood Football Club and top Richmond goal kicker (1908-1909).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Carlton, Parkville - Carlton area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: Victory Books , 2011 .
      Extent: 274p.p.
      Description: illus., ports
      Note/s:
      • Includes index.
      • Publication date: October 2011.
      • Foreword by Eddy Mcguire.
      ISBN: 9780522860450 (electronic document), 9780522858808 (pbk.)

Works about this Work

Of Mateship, Love and Service Peter Crossing , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 October 2011; (p. 28)

— Review of Collingwood : A Love Story Paul Daley , 2011 single work biography
Love, Football, War, Tragedy, Set against a Rich Black and White Tapestry, Is a Tale Worth Telling Carolyn Webb , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 17 September 2011; (p. 6)
Of Mateship, Love and Service Peter Crossing , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 15 October 2011; (p. 28)

— Review of Collingwood : A Love Story Paul Daley , 2011 single work biography
Love, Football, War, Tragedy, Set against a Rich Black and White Tapestry, Is a Tale Worth Telling Carolyn Webb , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 17 September 2011; (p. 6)
Last amended 14 Jan 2014 15:29:06
Subjects:
  • Collingwood, Fitzroy - Collingwood area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,
  • 1910s
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