Collingwood is never far from the headlines.

As any decent news editor knows, if you can get the Magpies onto the front or back page, on the TV or as a lead online item, you'll get readers and viewers.

That results in a lot of Collingwood stories being overhyped. But there's also no denying that we've been involved in plenty of genuinely massive news stories down the years – from sackings, injuries and board coups to player revolts and internal squabbling.

So, to help mark Collingwood's 125th anniversary season, we're counting down the 25 biggest, most explosive news stories in Magpie history, as judged by historian Michael Roberts and the Herald Sun's Glenn McFarlane.

We've ignored Premierships and on-field results, and have instead concentrated on the other elements that have so often seen our club making headlines. It's a fascinating way to look back at our often colourful history.

Each of these stories will be published by Collingwood Media on #125Wednesdays, as part of our mid-week celebration of Collingwood's 125th Anniversary.

Headliners No. 10: Pies in strife
Glenn McFarlane of the Herald Sun

Collingwood has always felt slighted over suspensions handed out to a number of its stars in visits to the tribunal over the years, including bans which cost Gordon Coventry, Harry Collier, Phil Carman and Anthony Rocca the chance to play in Grand Finals.

All of those came from on-field incidents.

But what happened in 2008 to Heath Shaw and Alan Didak, and again to Shaw three years later, was something altogether different.

Those moments were as much friendly fire as anything else.

The first two bans related to club-imposed suspensions. The second was for an off-field gambling infraction. Both became significant news stories in the Magpies' history.

The 2008 incident started with a messy night, a drunken car accident and an issue of broken trust resulted in a club ban for Shaw and Didak for the last four games of the home-and-away as well as the finals. It was a crushing scenario for the club's premiership aspirations to lose two of its best players for the rest of the season, but one that the administration felt it needed to make.

Shaw and Didak had been out drinking at a hotel a few days after the round 18 loss to Hawthorn. On the way home to Shaw's house, he crashed his ute into two parked cars only 500 metres from the hotel, and when breath-tested he registered 0.144.

That was bad enough. When Shaw was quizzed by President Eddie McGuire and Chief Executive Gary Pert, he insisted it was a mate - not a teammate - who was his companion in the car. As those discussions were taking place, several witnesses to the accident were coming forward and suggesting they had seen a person who looked like Didak at the scene.

As it turned out, Shaw had lied to protect Didak, because his teammate had been recently involved in a few off-field issues, and he didn't want more strife for him. In sticking to his story though when others were contradicting it, the lie because bigger than the drink-drive incident.



Alan Didak, Heath Shaw and Dale Thomas train during 2011.

Finally, Shaw had no option but to confess. At a press conference, Pert said: "When you have two of your key players looking at the president, the coach and their own teammates in the eye and actually lying to them, it really destroys the essence of the club ... it was decided by the leadership group that these two players actually don't deserve to wear the Collingwood Football Club jumper, and that's they're not playing for the rest of the season."

It was a significant decision, and few gave Collingwood a chance of winning the following week. Yet without Shaw and Didak, the Magpies downed St Kilda, and even if few people gave them little hope of winning the flag after the bans, they carried on to record a significant interstate elimination final win over Adelaide.

Some people, including Magpie great Peter Daicos, urged the club to lift the ban through the finals. But it was deemed that preserving the club's culture was always going to be more important, and Shaw and Didak watched from the sidelines as Collingwood's 2008 season ended with a 34-point loss to St Kilda in a semi-final.

Just three years later Shaw was back in the headlines for the wrong reasons once more. This time it wasn't a lie, but a $10 bet which caused the problem.

Shaw had been picked up by the AFL's integrity unit for placing a $10 bet on Nick Maxwell to kick the first goal of a round nine game against Adelaide, knowing that the defender would start the game in attack. For his part, he would be suspended for eight weeks as well as being fined $20,000 – which was deemed a tough call.

He would say: "I thought it was something minor and that nothing would come of it. Looking back, it was a stupid thing to do. I didn't really think of the consequences."

Maxwell, too, was dragged into the controversy. He hadn't waged anything himself, but had told his family that he would start forward. Without the skipper knowing it, two of his family members gambled $85 on him to kick the first goal, which was a part of the plunge that saw his price plunge from 100/1 to 25/1. He was fined $10,000, with half of it suspended.

While Maxwell was able to carry on with his season, Shaw sat out his suspension and returned for the 2011 finals. He did so with a 30-disposal performance in the club's Qualifying Final win over West Coast. He also played reasonably well in the Preliminary Final win over Hawthorn and in the Grand Final loss to Geelong.

The Shaw ban was costly, but ultimately not catastrophic for the Magpies' season. But it was yet another distraction in a year littered with them for Collingwood, particularly in the second half of the 2011 season, that didn’t help the cause.