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.

Collingwood entered the 1953 season as the second best team in the competition. But nobody – not even the Pies themselves – gave them too much hope of finishing the year at the top of the VFL tree.

The simple reason for this was that Geelong was just too bloody good. The Cats of the early 1950s were an all-conquering powerhouse. Fast, skilful and spectacular, they had won back-to-back flags in 1951 and 1952.

Across 1952-53 they would set the longest winning run in VFL history, one that would eventually total 23 successive wins. The Cats had demolished the Pies in both finals in 1952, with a combined margin of exactly 100 points. Put simply, the Cats were one of the all-time great VFL teams.

And as 1953 began there were no signs that their era of domination was about to end.

But to Collingwood, at least, the foundations of the Geelong empire began to crumble when they visited Victoria Park in Round 3 of that year.

The Pies were missing five of their best players – inspirational captain Lou Richards, Bill and Mick Twomey, 1952’s leading goalkicker ‘Mocha’ Dunstan and star half-back Peter Lucas. But they almost produced a miraculous upset.

Initially, the home team unsettled Geelong with a fierce attack on the footy, and an equally vigorous approach to tackling. But as the game went on it became obvious that they were outpacing and outplaying their more fancied rivals as well.

Incredibly, the patched-up Pies led by 28 points at half-time.

Geelong, almost inevitably, finished over the top of the Woods and won by 25 points, though the margin would have been much narrower if not for some horrible kicking for goal (we finished with 1.11 in the second half and 9.19 for the game).

Despite the result, the game and gallant Magpies came away believing, rather than merely hoping, that the Cats could be beaten – and knowing they were the team to do it.

A Collingwood team missing five of its best players had completely outplayed the League’s best team for a half, and pushed them close through the rest of the game. If ever there was a defeat to provide hope, this was it.

Captain Lou Richards is chaired off the ground after leading Collingwood to the 1953 premiership

All of which set the scene for the return bout at Kardinia Park on the first day of August.

By this time Geelong had won 23 matches in a row, and had gone 26 without defeat (including a draw). They had broken Collingwood’s record of successive victories just a few weeks earlier and, though critics had started to detect signs of tiredness in their game, they were still unbackable favourites for the flag.

But this time the Woods, in the top four but locked in a battle for second, had a secret weapon – steak and eggs.

Up until now, the system on match days was for players to have their lunch when they arrived in Geelong.

Pre-match lunches tended to be heavy in those pre-dietician days, too – not the sort of thing that would have been digested two hours later.

So Magpie officials introduced early clubroom lunches of steak and eggs and cups of tea before the players set off for Sleepy Hollow. It was a system the club followed for many years.

And this day in 1953 it did the trick.

Early on it was all Geelong, and it was only their wastefulness in front of goal that kept their half-time margin to two goals.

The Pies edge closer in the third and there were just two points in it at the final change.

Lou Richards admitted afterwards that the players had “run ourselves into the ground" by then, but dug deep and, with Bob Rose, Des Healey and Thorold Merrett starring in the middle, stormed home with a four-goal last term to deliver a 20-point win that provided a huge psychological boost.

“That win was a turning point,” wrote Richards later. “We felt that if we could beat them down on their own ground we could beat them any time.”

Hugh Buggy, in The Argus, paid tribute to Collingwood’s game plan, and approach.

“Collingwood on Saturday applied with ruthless efficiency a plan of masterly frustration to crush Geelong’s deadly pace,” he wrote.

“That plan demanded that every Collingwood player should gallop along at his opponent’s elbow – bumping, jostling and blocking. Each Magpie applied himself to the task with such tigerish energy as to dislocate smooth teaming and stud the game with frenzied individual tussles for the ball.

“So it was that we saw an amazing reversal of what had come to be accepted as the 1953 football pattern. Instead of the fleet-footed Geelong rampaging away to victory, they saw an exultant Collingwood flashing the ball on to the open spaces with a flagging Geelong in weary pursuit.”

The optimism the players had drawn from the loss at Victoria Park earlier in the season had been vindicated, and the Pies were now right back in the hunt for second spot. As it turned out they would not lose again for the season, finishing second on the ladder, just one game behind the wobbling Cats.

And Lou Richards' confidence proved justified when September came along. Despite most observers and critics maintaining Geelong as firm flag favourites, the Magpies knew they had their measure.

In the second semi-final, the Cats led by four points at three-quarter time, but a barnstorming six-goal final term saw the Pies into the Grand Final by 30 points.

Two weeks later, the Pies dominated the game and led by five goals at the last change, then withstood a blue-and-white barrage to hold on by two goals.

Collingwood's 17-year flag drought had been broken, and the Cats' era of supremacy ended.

Despite a ridiculously ill-fated run with injuries, the Pies did not lose a game after they visited Kardinia Park, and any suggestions of a 'lucky punch' win were dispelled by beating Geelong three times in a row.

The belief the Collingwood players had gained from the loss at Victoria Park, and the confidence they'd taken from the win at Kardinia Park, had carried them all the way to a Premiership.

Turning Points: The first game.

Turning Points: A game of belief.

Forever Profile: Round 3, 1953.