Every match that Collingwood plays feels like it's the most important game in the world.

But the truth is that some games matter more than others. And some have impacts that last for decades, even if that significance isn't always apparent at the time.

So here is a trawl through the history books to come up with the most significant games in Magpie history. These aren't just the biggest wins or the most memorable days, but the games that had a significant influence on the club's history.

We've excluded all finals, simply because otherwise the list would almost be completely taken up with premierships and a few painful Grand Final losses. But the home-and-away games covered in this series have had a huge impact on the club – sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. They've led to club turmoil, coaches being sacked, major changes in the game or sometimes set us on the path to a flag.

Whatever the outcome, these games represent major turning points in our club's story. And they're worth recalling.

Playing the Blues: Round 22, 1971

When Collingwood lost the 'unlosable' Grand Final against Carlton in 1970, after leading by 44 points at half-time, the solitary consolation for Magpie fans must have been that they'd been the victims of a freak, once-in-a-lifetime event. At least they'd never have to witness another humiliation like that again.

How wrong they were. Less than a year after that disaster they watched on in a queasy mixture of horror and disbelief as history repeated itself to a sickeningly uncanny degree.

And while that second loss didn't cost them a flag, it confirmed that Collingwood was truly a club in crisis. Within a week they'd be out of the finals, and soon after that had lost their coach Bob Rose, inspirational heartbeat Des Tuddenham and were heading to a bitter board challenge. Worse still it confirmed the Magpies' capacity for bizarre second half fade-outs – a key component of the dreaded Colliwobbles.

This black day took place in the final round of the 1971 season, against Carlton – of course, it had to be Carlton – at Princes Park. And it came amidst one of the most strife-torn months in the club's history.

The 1971 season had initially gone well for the Pies, as they bounced back after the previous year's demoralising Grand Final loss. After 17 rounds they had won 14 games, lost three and were equal flag favourites. But then everything went to hell in a handcart.

They lost three of the next four games, their only win coming against bottom-placed South Melbourne. To make matters worse, captain Terry Waters was struggling badly for form, and his misery was complete when he was dragged from the field in the third quarter against St Kilda in Round 19. He quit as captain two days later, and did not play again for the year.

It had been a difficult year for Waters. Coach Rose had wanted the captaincy returned to Tuddenham, after he'd been stripped of the honour in 1970 when he and Len Thompson went on strike in the search for better pay. But the Collingwood board refused, still incensed by Tuddy's actions the previous year.



He may have smiled for the photographers, but Terry Waters endured a difficult 1971.

So Waters had to play the year knowing his coach would have preferred one of his teammates to have been captain. Worse still, Tuddy had a good year, while Waters struggled: Tuddy was even named Victorian captain mid-year, despite not captaining his own team.

Still, none of that had mattered early. It was only when Collingwood's form – and that of its captain – fell off a cliff, that it became an issue. Just one of many.

By the time of the last home-and-away game of the season, the club really was in turmoil. So much so that, on the Thursday night before that game against Carlton, the players took the extraordinary step of meeting alone after training to produce a statement supporting Rose and the committee.

That statement said the players had become increasingly "disappointed" with rumours that the playing group was split, and with "stories from outside sources that have been harmful to the club itself". "We hope this short statement will discredit the rumour mongers and assure our supporters that the players are completely united," it concluded.

So this was the atmosphere in which the round 22 game against Carlton was played. Collingwood was grimly hanging on to the last finals spot, but the Blues couldn't make it. They had plenty to play for though, with this being Ron Barassi's last game in charge.

None of that seemed to matter initially, as the Pies piled on seven first-quarter goals in a breathtaking display of brilliant football that suggested they'd suddenly returned to their best. John Greening in the centre, Wayne Richardson on the ball and Graeme Jenkin in the ruck all starred.

Turning Points: A game of belief.

A solid second quarter saw the Pies' lead blow out to 49 points late in the second quarter, before settling at 42 points at the long break.

Of course the events of 11 months earlier were still fresh in everyone's minds. The half-time margin being so close to what it had been in 1970 was a spooky coincidence, but it couldn't happen again. Could it?

It could. Barassi made a number of positional changes at half-time, and once again every one of them worked. The Blues piled on five goals to one against the wind in the third quarter, then ran over the top of the rattled Magpies with an eight-goal-to-two final term to cruise home by 19 points

"Tell me how players can burn in the first half then disappear in the second?", asked a broken Rose rhetorically after the game. Fans had been asking the same thing for nearly a year.

Age journalist Peter McFarline sat with Barassi in the coach's box that day, and reported that, as the Pies began to creak, he told his runner to tell all his players to 'remember the Grand Final'. The Magpies, McFarline wrote, "fell down a deep, dark pit".

It was a pit from which the club couldn't free itself. The shattered, humiliated players were again steamrolled against Richmond a week later, managing only three behinds in the final term as the Tigers piled on seven goals. Waters then publicly dumped on the club in the week after the game, and the beloved but desperately unlucky Bob Rose resigned. Des Tuddenham also left, appointed captain-coach of Essendon.

Turning Points: The first game.

But the bloodletting wasn't confined only to the field. There was, almost inevitably, a challenge to the administration of President Tom Sherrin. And although that Frank Galbally-led charge failed, it added to the bitterness.

Most, if not all, of those things might have happened anyway, even without the Carlton result. But the spookily familiar second half collapse against the Blues had confirmed in many people's eyes that the team was mentally fragile – the Colliwobbles had become real. The players, too, lost all remaining confidence. And it absolutely confirmed the signs of a club spiralling out of control, adding to the downhill momentum that would engulf Victoria Park in the weeks after the game.

Today, the final round game of 1971 is almost forgotten. It certainly has never achieved the lasting fame – or infamy – of the 1970 Grand Final debacle. But it was big in its own way, and played a significant part in one of the club's most tumultuous periods.

Forever Profile: Round 22, 1971.