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.

Whispers lead to coaching roars: Round 10, 1982

"Be prepared for interesting developments ..."

The off-the-record words from one unnamed senior club official to a handful of journalists smelling a sacking in the wind summed up the mood permeating Collingwood late on the afternoon of Saturday 29 May 1982.

The Magpies had just lost to Melbourne by seven points in a match at the MCG before 52,169 fans. But many of those supporters in the crowd sensed there was an even bigger game at hand.

Collingwood was on the verge of a Black and White civil war, with the much respected and the much loved Tom Hafey - the man who had narrowly missed delivering that long-awaited 14th VFL premiership for the Magpies – was cast in the image of a coach on borrowed time.

A petition calling on the Magpies’ committee to resign had been passed around during the match against the Demons; the players' confidence and belief in one another seemingly had been exhausted after only one win from their opening two and a half months; and the divisions within the team and the club were rife.

Even before the loss to the Demons that day, there had been great speculation that Hafey would be replaced.

Pre-game, one official believed some of the "frictions" with the club could be "smoothed over" if they could win the round 10 match, with potential wins against fellow cellar dwellers St Kilda and Footscray in the following two weeks.

Collingwood went into the game with seven players who had played less than 10 games - Murray Browne (third game), Chris Dalkin (fourth), Terry Domberg (seventh), Wes Fellowes (fifth), Wally Lovett (nine), Neil Peart (seventh) and Gordon Towan (second). Interstate recruit John Annear had only played 11 VFL games, too.

Fifty-year-old Hafey, who had taken Collingwood to Grand Finals in 1977 (twice), 1980 and 1981, was coaching his 138th game for the Magpies. It would prove to be his final for the club.

The pressure was evident, but Hafey tried not to show it, before the clash with sparring partner, Ron Barassi, in his first year back at the Demons as coach, after stints at Carlton and North Melbourne.

As Geoff Slattery penned in The Age, "It was yet another meeting of the great coaches Ron Barassi and Tom Hafey. Many times they have met in games more important, but there is always that tingle as they stride across the MCG before a large and enthusiastic crowd.”

"Hafey, inscrutable as even in his uniform of slacks and T-shirt, making his way to a new unfamiliar vantage point on the western side of the Smokers' Stand. And Barassi, in sparkling leather jacket, clipboard under arm, forever a picture of confidence."

Collingwood struggled from the outset, though remained in the game on the scoreboard, due to Melbourne's lack of finishing skills. The Demons led by seven points at the first change, though the Age maintained the Demons had been "clearly superior ... although every time it appeared as if an avalanche was imminent, Collingwood playing without (good) players or leadership somehow came again."

The difference was 17 points at half time, with the Demons "playing with as much enthusiasm as Collingwood was lacking ... They (Melbourne) had winners; Collingwood had none ... They had triers, Collingwood had few."

By three quarter time Melbourne's margin was 19 points, and it seemed as if Barassi's team would run away with the contest.

They didn't. Somehow Collingwood came up with the opening goal of the final term, before the Demons stretched it out to 29 points during the course of the final term. Against the run of general play, the Magpies slammed on a handful of goals with rovers/small forwards Tony Shaw (four goals) and Lovett (three goals) hitting the scoreboard, along with three goals from 20-year-old Peter Daicos.

A reprieve for Collingwood - indeed for Hafey – appeared possible when the difference was cut to only a point in the game before fifth-game Demon Dave McGlashan kicked his sixth goal. It proved to be the match winning goal, which partially quelled the fury of Barassi, who called it "a shocking performance ... we should have won by 10 goals."

Hafey looked a shattered man after the game, perhaps sensing what was to come in the following days. He told the media: “We were expecting a big year, of course. (But) it could not have been a worse year. Everything that has happened has just been wrong.”

Slattery described the mood in the Collingwood rooms after the club's ninth loss from 10 games in 1982: "Hafey said nothing to his players. About 40 minutes after the game, with hordes of Collingwood supporters inexplicably still hanging around the Magpies rooms, Hafey decided to call his working day over. He left, still managing a smile and a signature for those begging for his autograph."

By Monday afternoon, Hafey's time at Collingwood was cruelly ended. He turned up to the club and was given two scenarios by the man who had appointed him, president John Hickey. The first was to resign; the second was that he would be sacked.

As a matter of principle, Hafey chose the latter.

Hickey said Collingwood owed Hafey "a deep debt of gratitude ... that he failed to win a Premiership for Collingwood will undoubtedly be recorded as one of the greatest tragedies in football history."

That sacking - ranked later by Mike Sheahan as the third most significant in Australian football history - led to one of the biggest shake-ups in the history of the Collingwood Football Club.

Caretaker coach Mick Erwin was able to win his first two games in the role - against the lowly Saints and the Bulldogs - but won only one further game for the rest of the season.

Instead of easing the tensions, Hafey's dismissal, and the manner in which it happened, created more divisions within the club.

In time, Hickey and his board lost an election to a group known as the 'New Magpies', led by media proprietor Ranald Macdonald, with the incoming group promising to drag Collingwood into the modern world of football.

The seeds of revolution had been sown. The 'New Magpies' promised to find a new high-profile coach, foreshadowed the most aggressive (and expensive) recruiting campaigns in football history, and all but promised to do everything in its power to end the club's long premiership drought.

That the last piece of the puzzle - a flag - wasn't attained by the ‘New Magpies’ pushed the club almost to the brink within a handful of seasons.

Turning Points
Written by Glenn McFarlane and Michael Roberts

Turning Points: A game of belief.

Turning Points: The first game.

Turning Points: History's ugly repeat.

Turning Points: Honouring the greater good.

Turning Points: A turning point for football.

Turning Points: How we landed McHale.

Turning Points: Ending the Cat empire.

Turning Points: The practice match that led to a revolution.

Turning Points: Starting from the bottom.

Turning Points: Attacking the Cats.

Turning Points: The drama before the revival.

Turning Points: The loss that elevated Lethal.

Turning Points: The miracle of '58.