The ten best grand final celebrations

by PAUL DAFFEY

1. Collingwood 1990

According to Collingwood historian Michael Roberts, the Magpies were leading Essendon by eight goals with eight minutes to go before supporters finally allowed themselves to start celebrating their first premiership for 32 years. The first sign of celebration was a hesitant rendition of Good Old Collingwood Forever. Within a minute, the MCG stands were rumbling as Magpie fans serenaded the players to their triumph. After the siren had sounded, prompting Darren Millane to hurl the ball into the air with the same gusto he would show during several weeks of celebrations, every inner-city pub was bursting with supporters wearing black and white and singing at the top of their voices. At Victoria Park, fans crammed into any space available. Nearby Johnstone Street was gridlocked for almost a kilometre, right up to Smith Street. Towards midnight, the players were introduced to the crowd amid an atmosphere that was likened to a dozen New Year's Eves. Darren Millane and Denis Banks led the crowd in a raucous version of the club song while holding aloft the premiership cup. At midday the next day, players and crowd were still buzzing. For much of the next year they were buzzing. You would have to go a long way, to a place called Magpie Heaven, to match the Magpies' 1990 premiership celebrations.

2. Collingwood 1935

The excitement of Magpie players and supporters at Collingwood's effort in defeating South Melbourne in the 1935 grand final inspired them to wheel a piano on to Victoria Park and have a singalong. The next night, premiership captain Harry Collier was forced to stop singing when he drove his car into the front fence of Archbishop Daniel Mannix. The next year, after the Pies had again defeated South Melbourne to win the premiership, Collier's mother threw a party in her Northcote home. That way, her son was going nowhere near important people's front fences.

3. Geelong 1925

After Geelong had defeated Collingwood to win its first VFL premiership, the team made a triumphant journey home by train. All drivers in the Geelong railway yards sounded their whistles while fireworks and torches lit up Johnston Park. In all, 9000 fans gathered at Geelong's town hall to welcome home the victorious players.

4. Melbourne 1926

Melbourne's response to their victory over Collingwood in the 1926 grand final, giving the club its first flag for 26 years, was to have a party at Hughie Dunbar's milk bar in Bentleigh. A smoke night, sponsored by the MCC, was held two days later, followed by a theatre party at the Theatre Royal the next weekend. The players held a dinner for the MCC and football club committees before celebrations were concluded with a weekend at Portsea, an event that-according to the annual report-made for a "very jolly time".

5. Footscray 1954

Footscray's first and only premiership team walked into the rooms after their triumph and opened bottles of soft drink. Then they headed for the Mayfair Hotel in Elizabeth Street where a celebratory dinner failed to eventuate. Players were forced to sit on the carpet in the corridor, eating bowls of soup. At 9pm, the players appeared on the balcony of the Footscray Town Hall to be presented to supporters but, after the sound-system had broken, captain Charlie Sutton and the mayor were unable to be heard. The restive supporters made their way to the Western Oval, many of them carrying a glass, as was the requirement of licensing laws if they were to have a drink. Players were mobbed, forcing them to retreat to safety. At 10pm, with no beer having been served as promised in the newspapers, the lights were turned off and everyone drifted away. Several players retired to a vacant block near Charlie Sutton's home in Altona, where they enjoyed a few drinks around a bonfire. Recriminations over the botched celebrations lasted two months and affected the health of the Footscray president and secretary. Some supporters claim the debacle cost the Bulldogs further success.

6. Hawthorn 1961

Glenferrie Oval was packed with supporters after Hawthorn's breakthrough flag. The Bagpipe-players from the Hawthorn pipe band belted out the theme song and trains stopped behind the railway wing to toot their congratulations. Amid the cacophony, the players were introduced one by one from a vantage in what is now the Michael Tuck Stand. Barbecues sizzled around the oval and a bonfire blazed throughout the night. Premiership bonfires have been a tradition at Glenferrie. Until 1989, all were set alight on the oval towards the grandstand end. In 1991, the bonfire was moved over towards the boundary line.

7. St Kilda 1966

Soon after the Saints had defeated Collingwood by a point, Ralph Sierakowski, the publican at the Brighton Club Hotel and the father of premiership Saint Brian Sierakowski, went home, grabbed a delivery truck and ladder, and headed for the statue of Tom Bent, Victoria's premier from 1904-09, at a prominent junction on the Nepean Highway. Ralph climbed the statue of Bent and placed over its head a large cape that served as an equivalent of the St Kilda guernsey. The makeshift guernsey lasted until lunchtime the next day, when police removed it as it was creating traffic problems. Meanwhile, in order to get around the licensing laws on 6 o'clock closing, Sierakowski declared that all beer served at his pub during Saturday night's celebrations would be free.

8. West Coast 1992

On the flight back to Perth after becoming West Coast's first premiership captain, John Worsfold took the cup up to the cockpit and help steer the plane back to Premiership Land. Worsfold was later honoured when a room at Subiaco oval was named after him. Why can't a cockpit be named after him as well?

9. Adelaide 1997

A day or so after Adelaide had won its first flag, coach Malcolm Blight rounded his players on to a bus around 12.30pm for a pub crawl through five venues. To pass the time, several players played a form of Keno in which numbers were selected according to past and present players' guernseys. In order to avoid cliche (a novel concept in football), anyone who described the premiership feeling as "fantastic" had to skol a beer.

10. Essendon 1984

Away from the beer theme, Judge Frank Walsh of the County Court, an Essendon resident and the father-in-law of Essendon premiership player Frank Dunnell, celebrated the Bombers' flag by wearing Dunnell's premiership medallion on the bench during the week after the grand final. Permission to wear the medallion was easily won, as Chief Judge Glen Waldron was also an Essendon fan.

This article first appeared in The Sunday Age.

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