Grand Final day in 1958 has gone down in footy folklore as one of THE great days in the history of the Collingwood Football Club – the day that produced ‘The Miracle of ‘58’.

But just before the senior team pulled off the greatest Grand Final heist in VFL/AFL history, our reserves team was also playing in its own Grand Final, against Hawthorn. Unfortunately that result didn’t quite go as well as the senior game’s, and the Hawks won what was their first flag in any grade.

At the end of that game, Hawthorn’s Norm Maginness – father of Premiership player Scott and grandfather of current player Finn – swapped his jumper with his Magpie opponent, a player called Ron Booth.

Nearly 65 years after it happened, both jumpers were returned to their rightful owners recently, when a ‘reverse exchange’ took place outside the MCG. And current Collingwood VFL player Jacob Booth was at the heart of it.

Jacob, it turns out, is Ron’s grandson – a piece of family connection that was unknown to us until we received a request from Hawthorn Football Club a few weeks ago.

Norm Maginness, now 92 and in a nursing home, wanted to see if he could get his old Hawks jumper back. He still had the Collingwood #36 he’d taken home with him. It seemed the longest of long shots. He couldn’t even quite remember the name of the guy he’d been playing against that day in 1958.

But Hawks Museum curator Peter Haby reached out to his Magpie counterpart, Michael Roberts, who was able to confirm his opponent that day had been Ron Booth, who played 31 under-19 games and 27 reserves games for us between 1954 and 1958. But he’d never played senior football, so the club had lost contact with him.

Enter Archives researcher Phil Taranto, who suggested – as a last resort – asking the VFL-listed Jacob Booth if there happened to be any connection. It turned out to be a brilliant idea.

Jacob revealed he was indeed a grandson to Ron Booth, who had died back in 2006. Jacob put us in touch with his father, Darren, (Ron’s son, who had himself played with Carlton Under-19s), who told us how they’d given the old Hawthorn jumper to a Hawks-supporting cousin around 25 years ago.

Suddenly, all the pieces were in place.

The cousin who had kept it safe all those years, Brian Keogh, readily agreed to return the jumper (he was compensated with some current signed jumpers from the Hawks). Norm was brought out of his nursing home to meet Jacob and Darren, and the two 1958 jumpers were exchanged once again, in the shadow of the Leigh Matthews statue at the MCG.

Both families were overjoyed.

“It is extremely special for us after 65 years to have dad’s jumper in our hands,” said Darren.

“The jumper is a legacy for us, as he missed out on the team photo in 1958 due to national service duties, so the jumper becomes a precious item from his time at Collingwood.

“The past few weeks have been filled with many emotions. To think that 65 years ago two players swapped jumpers in a grand final, and now those jumpers have been returned to the families. It’s amazing.

“We’d like to thank everyone at Hawthorn and Collingwood who were involved, especially Phil and the Maginness family for pursuing the jumper search. And also to Brian Keogh, who has been the custodian of Norm’s jumper for the past 20 years.”

Darren also pointed out that Ron had a set shot for goal late in the game that narrowly missed. Had it gone through, the Magpies would almost certainly have won.

“If he had have kicked straight in the last minutes of the game, it could have been a premiership jumper we were getting back,” Darren said.