Few have given more to the Collingwood cause than Alan Toovey.

In the afterglow of his newly presented Life Membership, Collingwood Media caught up with the recently retired defender to talk about his time at the Holden Centre and life beyond.

Luke Mason: Congratulations, Tooves. Describe the honour of receiving Life Membership. What does it mean to receive it?
Alan Toovey: It’s pretty nice to be a part of that kind of group. It’s nice to be valued for your time at the club and to be able to say that you’re a part of the club for a lot longer than the actual time you were at the club. It means you are there forever.

LM: When you arrived at the end of 2005, did you think you’d go on to play here for more than a decade?
AT: Not at all. When I first came across as a rookie, I hoped to be able to get an extra year on the list, and possibly get a game. It was just those types of things initially. You just want to get a game, to be able to say that you had played an AFL game. To go from there to this, it’s a huge difference. It’s nice to be able to think that I’ve achieved in spending such a long time with the club and am valued enough to be given Life Membership.

LM: What are your memories of your debut? It was against Richmond on a Friday night in 2007…
AT: Just how much fun it was! I was playing in the forward line next to Anthony Rocca. Straight after the game, Mick Malthouse came up to the three of us who debuted (Toovey, Shannon Cox and Brad Dick) and asked ‘What are your thoughts on AFL footy?’ All three of us were saying how much fun it was. It was so enjoyable, amazingly loud, so fast, and it struck just how different it was from any footy we had ever played before.

I had a kick for goal with my first kick, but I missed. I kicked another one in the first quarter, then missed snap – just missed – then kicked two more for the game.

LM: Who’d have thought you’d only kick another six goals in 158 games?
AT: I thought I’d kick a few more than that! I should have tried to sneak down forward a bit more than I did, but I never thought I’d be a forward. I was just in the right place at the right time. I managed to put couple through that night, but I never thought be a forward. I thought I’d go on to kick a few more in the next 150 games though!

LM: Who gave you the call to let you know you were receiving Life Membership? Whereabouts are you making the trip in from?
AT: Eddie McGuire gave me a call on Valentine’s Day, actually, and gave me the news. He said it was the club showing me some love on Valentine’s Day! I’m moving to New South Wales in couple of weeks with my fiancée.

LM: Now that you’ve had a few months away from the game, what are the memories that last for you?
AT: I’ve thought about it a lot. It comes up when you’re thinking about retiring. The main things I’ve reflected upon are how good it was to be at club in period we had ultimate success, how hard we worked for that and how much of a pay off it was. It’s about how enjoyable the experiences were, not just playing footy but the pre-season camps overseas, the chances to meet a lot of people, and to see a lot of things that any other job wouldn’t, where you might be in the same place doing the same thing every day. Playing footy, you get to travel and see a lot of different things, help out in community clinics with kids…

The variation of footy life is really big. You go from being a young guy with a heap of senior players, then all of sudden you’re a senior player, and then you’re an older guy. It changes really quickly. That was the main thing I took out of playing football.

I feel like it did go quickly but you’re also so busy and have so much happening, so it seems to go quickly but you look back and see the sheer amount of things you’ve done. When you think about the guys you played with and got along with, and at all the different characters who came in and out, it was a whole lot of fun and so well worth it.



Yes, it was worth it.

LM: What have you been up to in your time away from it all, and what’s to come?
AT: I’ve just been holidaying, really. I back to Western Australia to see friends and family, I went to Bali for a holiday and then did a road trip down the East Coast from Queensland to Melbourne. I also spent a bit of time in the USA (in Seattle and New York) and a bit of time in Canada (Vancouver and Toronto). I’ve also been in South Australia with my partner’s friends and family.

LM: Tell us a bit about your old teammate Chris Dawes, who also received Life Membership this week.
AT: Dawesy was not the typical footballer – he was a guy who actually went to school and passed it! He did really well at school, and was always good to chat to about things outside of football and he had a good perspective on life. I enjoy catching up with him when I see him now. He lived not far from me, and we always got on well outside of football.

What stands out for me was when the ball was going inside 50 and he was on the lead, he would always call out “Dawesy’s ball!” That carried on at the club for years afterwards whenever someone was on a long lead.

In 2010, when we won the flag, his year was massive. He helped out Trav Cloke and Leigh Brown as the big guys up forward. He had such a great season and was really strong at the ball. It was the perfect help Trav needed as a focal point. When I think of playing with Dawesy, I think of 2010.

LM: And on fellow Life Member Mick Malthouse? What are your memories?
AT: I can remember meeting him at the Draft Camp when I didn’t get drafted as a bottom aged player (2004). I was pretty intimidated by him. I was pretty flustered when I was in front of him.

I remember our first years’ camp in 2006 when we went down to Lorne. There were nine of us who all stayed with him down there, and he sat down and talked about what it’s like to play footy and the things to expect. We were all sitting there trying to take it all in. He was such a respected coach. It was like the wise old principal talking to the first year students coming into the school.

Mick was very important for me. He saw a role that I could fill in the team and got me to point where I could really do well in that role as a shut down defender. For Mick, it was like, ‘there’s a role for you, you’ve got to take it, it’s up to you to make that your role in the team,’ and that’s what I did. It was pretty simple for me in the early years where all I had to do was play on my guy and stop him from winning the game for them, it was pretty Black and White. The rules were there, and if you didn’t stick to the rules, you didn’t get a game and someone else would take your spot. As a young player, what you want is simple instructions, just a couple to focus on.

LM: Of those nine players who went on the first years’ camp, is it weird to think that many of you are now in retirement?
AT: It’s strange to think Pendles and I were the last two to be at Collingwood. Pendles and Thommo (Dale Thomas) were guys who really stood out and got games early. They played a lot of senior footy early on, but everyone from our draft played at least one game. Guys dropped off every couple of years. Some are playing elsewhere or not at all.

Pendles has been a superstar and it’s great to have been able to share my career with him and see up close how his career started and developed. He is still going, so it was great to be able to watch him get better and keep going. With Daisy it was the same. He has had a lot of injuries but hopefully he can get back to the best form he showed at Collingwood and in a few games at Carlton.

A lot of guys had good careers and have done well. It’s strange to think how young we were. So many guys were able to get out there and play and have a decent senior career. I lived with Sam Iles and Shannon Cox when I first arrived. Sammy went to Gold Coast and played up there for a few years. I haven’t heard from Coxy since he left but I bump into Sammy every now and again. He moved back up to the Gold Coast only recently.