IT was the premiership that was almost 12,000 days in the making, and yet even when the result was a fait accompli, no one seemed to be willing to believe the scoreboard.

Twenty-five years ago this month, Collingwood ended football's most humiliating run of Grand Final experiences, and so much about the most famous sporting club in Australia changed forever in the space of two hours. After eight Grand Final losses, a dramatic draw in 1977, and after being the butt of September jokes for more than a generation, the Magpies finally won their 14th flag - and the AFL's first - in the 1990 premiership playoff.

But the pathway to that famous '90 premiership - the club's first since 1958 - was fraught with nervous possibilities, fears of a dose of deja vu, and countless 'surely it can’t happen again' thoughts from Pies fans.

There had been the drama of a drawn qualifying final against West Coast and then an emphatic win in the replay, followed by a second semi-final thrashing of Essendon.

The nervous tension of potentially going into another Grand Final - the club's first playoff since 1981 - was not something that sat easily with long-suffering Collingwood fans so desperate for a win.

There was even tension at the final Thursday night training session, watched on by thousands of Magpie fans, eager to get a look at the boys, especially those who had missed a ticket to the actual Grand Final.

For a start, much of the focus settled on Alan Richardson, who had cracked his collarbone against Essendon in the second semi-final and who hoped he could prove his fitness for the big game. He had been a key member of the team that season, and for the most part, he seemed to get through the session without too much discomfort. In fact, the next day's paper carried the headline "She'll be right, coach" above a photo of Richardson and coach Leigh Matthews testing out his collarbone.

But what club insiders knew was that in a 10-minute "man-on-man combat with his coach on the outer wing at Victoria", just two days out from the big game, Richardson felt a sharp jab of pain after Matthews crashed into him unexpectedly at the end of the session. He knew when he woke up the next morning - with his collarbone again unravelled by the Matthews impact - that he was never going to play.

Richardson remembered years later: "He (Matthews) wasn't going to give me something that was predictable; he was going to give me something which would come in a game. He is a powerful man and I was pretty unaware."

He would become one of Grand Final day's hard-luck stories, eventually being ruled out, with Shane Kerrison taking his place. Ron McKeown was left out again, a shattering moment for a player who had seemingly been assured of a spot only a month earlier.

The other part of the tension came when Matthews ordered 10 of Collingwood's players not being considered for Grand Final selection off the track early in the last training session. It was the last time Brian Taylor, overlooked since the qualifying final draw, left Victoria Park as a player, and he was furious, lashing out in the final edition of the The Sun News-Pictorial on the day of the Grand Final.

Taylor said: "It was the most disappointing part of my football career, it was the ultimate insult. I've already said I was going to retire, and considering it was my last training night ever, I think it was very poor."

In the same newspaper, which was merging with The Herald to form The Herald Sun on the Monday after the Grand Final, Magpie legend Lou Richards forecast that it was finally going to be "the year of the Pies."

He wrote: "If I had a dollar for every football joke told against the Magpies, I'd be a billionaire. I've cried tears of blood for more than three decades. But they'll be tears of job because 1990 is without doubt the year of the Magpie. The champagne is already on ice, and the caviar has been ordered."



A delighted Lou Richards (left) and Norm Smith Medallist Tony Shaw celebrate in the MCG change rooms post-match.

Collingwood fans tried everything to score themselves a ticket. One placed a public notice in The Sun pleading: "Wanted, woman with a view to marriage, and a Grand Final ticket." The ad went even further, adding: "Please send a photograph - of the ticket."

Only Essendon, 120 minutes of football, and the tide of history stood between Collingwood and the end of a 32-year drought had become a millstone around the club's neck.

Matthews had spurred his whole team on to believe that the football world almost expected them to lose, and that there was no way in hell this was going to happen. Shane Morwood recalled that the coach had shown the players "a video of (boxer) Sugar Ray Leonard before a fight. He had his back to the wall. And that's how I felt. I really believed that no one really thought we could do it. I kept telling myself that there were 100,000 people who didn't believe in us, and I just wanted to stick it up them."

Tony Shaw, who watched the match again on the 20th anniversary with teammates Denis Banks, Doug Barwick, Damian Monkhorst, Gavin Crosisca and Kerrison, recalled: "I had played in a few losing Grand Finals. (This time) there were no streamers or balloons. We were in the (old) Richmond rooms and I remember Leigh (Matthews) didn't even cover up the big Tigers' sign on the wall."

Kerrison was on standby and hoped he would be playing, but admitted later: "I didn't know I was playing until I walked into the rooms. I looked to see who was on the bench and couldn't see my name. So for a few seconds I thought I wasn't playing. But my name was in the (back) pocket."

In an emotional pre-game, Matthews revealed on the documentary The Final Story about the 1990 flag that Shaw stood up in front of the group and said: "I played in two losing Grand Finals and I am not playing in a third."

Kerrison, the last man into the team, gained the first kick of the match driving the ball long, as his coach had instructed the team.

But in a sign that looked ominous Essendon's big men threatened to cause the Collingwood defence real problems. Paul Salmon evaded his opponent Michael Christian, accepted a handball from Paul Hamilton, and kicked the first goal of the game. Then, Salmon took a mark and kicked his second goal. It prompted Matthews to momentarily move Christian off Salmon, replacing him with Craig Kelly before reserving the move soon after. He would back his team in for the rest of the game.

Crosisca said: "I was a bit worried when that happened." But then he added: "(Salmon) was unsighted after that."

Salmon would not kick another goal. Incredibly, Essendon would muster only another three for the remainder of the match.



(From left) Graham Wright, Gavin Crosisca and Damien Monkhorst celebrate their 48-point victory with a lap of honour on the MCG.

Collingwood attacked the ball aggressively, but it wasn't until Peter Daicos kicked a miraculous angle goal from the boundary line that almost defied science that got the ball rolling for the Magpies. It was a true team lifter.

Shaw said: "We really needed it. We had gone inside 50m so many times; we needed to get reward for effort." Banks joked: "The two blokes you would never lead to were Daicos and Dougie Barwick, as you just knew they would be going straight for goal."

Just before the quarter-time siren Gavin Brown, who had started at full-forward, found a clear passage towards goal and slotted through the club's second major, to secure a three-point lead.

Then all hell broke loose.

A spark of aggression started on the outer flank as players prepared to move to their respective huddles, and it burst into a flood of anger and fists.

It started with Banks who "ankle tapped" Kieran Sporn and "then he (Sporn) pinged me. That's what Browny (Gavin Brown) saw when he came running in."

Brown made heavy contact with Sporn in retaliation, and then Terry Daniher felled the Collingwood forward. As Brown lay knocked out and motionless on the ground, Collingwood players went in to retaliate as a wild brawl on one side of the ground and then on the other side a quick fight broke out between officials of the two clubs.

Order was finally restored, but only after several minutes, and six players would be reported on 13 individual charges from one of the most memorable melees in modern Grand Final football.

SECRETS OF THE 1990 BRAWL: Watch Team Manager Eddie Hillgrove reflect on the quarter-time fight.

Shaw recalled: "At quarter-time Leigh got the big blokes (Monkhorst and James Manson) up the front, and said that we needed to get our heads over the ball. He said the umps would get involved at some stage." Monkhorst said Matthews' words "calmed everyone down" with Barwick saying: "He just kept saying: 'Just play the ball'."

Then-North Melbourne coach Wayne Schimmelbusch was writing a column from the game for the Sunday Age and he deduced: "The quarter-time fracas, in which Brown went down, prompted almost entirely opposite responses from the teams. It was exactly what Collingwood wanted and Essendon didn't! It was no surprise to see Collingwood come out after quarter time and attack the ball that much more ferociously."

Collingwood went "on the rampage" in the second term, kicking six goals to one to change the entire focus of the game. It was the quarter that, in hindsight, secured the premiership, though none of the Collingwood supporters would have been bold enough to suggest that at the time.

Shaw said a spate of 50m penalties against Essendon - rattled by what had happened - proved that Matthews' call for calm had been critical. He explained: "We got three 50m penalties that resulted in goals … I should send Rowan Sawers a thank you. A few were soft ones, but the pressure was amazing." Banks added pointedly: "I reckon they (Essendon) looked over their shoulders all day. I reckon they didn't go all that hard at the ball and you can see a few examples (on the DVD)."

Craig Starcevich had kicked two of those six goals in the second term, as did Scott Russell. By half-time the difference was out to 34 points.

Then followed a moment no one would ever forget. Matthews grabbed a groggy Brown near the two respective player races and yelled at Daniher as he left the ground: "He'll be back to you." It could have boiled over into something worse, but fortunately both sides made their way up into their rooms.

Shaw said: "I was near Leigh when he was going up the race at half-time. He grabbed Browny over and really gave it to TD (Terry Daniher)."

The confidence was high in the Collingwood rooms, but it wasn't overconfidence. After all, the Magpies had led by 10 more points at the same juncture of the game in the 1970 Grand Final - 20 years earlier – and had lost.

The supporters were still on edge. This time the champagne that Lou Richards had talked about in his preview remained uncorked and even the fans watching on television were not counting their chickens. There was still an hour of football to go - anything could still happen, they believed.

But if the Magpies needed any further inspiration, it came when Brown came back onto the ground at the eight-minute-mark of the third quarter. Immediately, he ran up to Daniher as if to say he was going nowhere.

It was courage personified, just as Darren Millane had shown with his broken thumb throbbing, and the never-say-die attitude of the likes of Shaw and Monkhorst.

Mick McGuane put the Pies 40 points ahead, which had again been made easy by a relayed free kick after Daniher had crashed into the busy Starcevich. More boos came for Daniher after this incident.

Essendon momentarily steadied, but could not get the scoreboard happening for them. Enter Daicos with another extraordinary goal. A banana kick from the forward pocket at the 17-minute-mark brought the crowd to its feet, producing his 97th and final goal for the season.

The Bombers cut the difference back to 34 points before Brown intercepted a poor handball from Mark Thompson to kick a team-lifting goal.

That made the margin 40 points with 30 minutes of football left. One newspaper said: "A Collingwood flag was a foregone conclusion at the start of the last term." Well, not in the eyes of the Magpies' faithful. Those how had been tempted and teased into believing Collingwood would win a flag in other years only to be disappointed were not about to jump the gun just yet.

This writer, covering his first Grand Final for the Sunday Sun, waited until 20 minutes into the last quarter to ring his mother to congratulate her. Her father had played in the famous four-in-row- Machine side, winning flags in 2927-30, and again in ‘35.

That phone call from the press box came just after Doug Barwick had kicked a goal from 30m out. A chant of 'Coll-ing-woood, Coll-ing-wood" broke out across the MCG.

Barwick remembered: "I thought we were home, but Banksy kept saying 'pull your head in, it's finished yet'. He probably didn't relax until I kicked that goal to put us 40 points up, or when Monky (Monkhorst) kicked the next one (not long after)." As Shaw ran back to the middle after Monkhorst's goal, Tim Watson turned to him and said: "I think you've got us."

Fittingly, Millane had the ball when the final siren - sounded by Collingwood timekeeper Tom Benjamin, whose father, Eric, had done the same thing in the 1958 one - declared the drought to be over.

The margin was 48 points. The 14th premiership - and the first under the AFL banner - was secured in the easiest possible manner, even if it didn't feel like it for some.

Shaw's reaction was "simply relief"; Kerrison was "exhausted - mentally and physically"; Banks would never forget the Millane moment: "It was fitting 'Pants' (Millane) had the ball when the siren went, he was incredible."

WATCH: Hear from Darren Millane's mother Denise and brother Sean as they reminisce about the No. 42's contribution to the club's 14th premiership.

Millane grabbed the Sherrin, put it under his jumper and declared to anyone who dared to try and take it off him: "I have the football, and no one, I repeat, no one, is going to take it off me."

One year and one day later, Millane was dead.

In the afterglow of the premiership win, Matthews gave his players all the credit for their performance - "The players go out there and do it on the day - they are the heroes. I'm just happy for everyone that is happy."

The black and white army was happy, and that extended across Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and the far reaches of the world.

Shaw was announced as the Norm Smith Medal winner: "Monky still reckons he should have own it." Monkhorst added: "I got best on ground from 3AW and got a little Makita drill."

When the club's theme song blared over the MCG to the roars of Magpie fans, there was a particular emphasis on the words 'Oh, the premiership's a cakewalk, for the good, old Collingwood."

There were wild scenes in the Collingwood rooms, then at the Australis Ballroom of the Southern Cross, and later still at an absolutely packed Victoria Park.

President Allan McAlister said the win was the "club's greatest hour in 98 years" and virtually guaranteed Matthews had the coaching job for life, even though that would change within five years.

Former Magpie captain and then board member Wayne Richardson declared of the players: "As far as these guys are concerned, they will be written up at Collingwood in letters of gold. They are going to be gods."

Not much has changed in 25 years.

The men who unlocked football's most embarrassing drought are still considered that by so many grateful supporters who will never forget October 6, 1990. No amount of time will ever change that.