Every match that Collingwood plays feels like it's the most important game in the world.

But the truth is that some games matter more than others. And some have impacts that last for decades, even if that significance isn't always apparent at the time.

So here is a trawl through the history books to come up with the most significant games in Magpie history. These aren't just the biggest wins or the most memorable days, but the games that had a significant influence on the club's history.

We've excluded all finals, simply because otherwise the list would almost be completely taken up with premierships and a few painful Grand Final losses. But the home-and-away games covered in this series have had a huge impact on the club – sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. They've led to club turmoil, coaches being sacked, major changes in the game or sometimes set us on the path to a flag.

Whatever the outcome, these games represent major turning points in our club's story. And they're worth recalling.

How Collingwood landed McHale, 1903

Of all the auditions to wear the Black and White across more than 125 years, it can be argued no single pre-season game had the seismic impact on the history of the Collingwood Football Club - or was more fortuitous - than the one which occurred just before the start of the 1903 season.

As was the tradition of the time, a combined Victorian Junior Football Association team was selected to take on the reigning premiers. In this instance, that was Collingwood, just a matter of months after the Magpies had won the 1902 premiership.

A 20-year-old hopeful, overlooked when trying out for Collingwood a year earlier, was told to line up on one of the Magpies' best players, Fred Leach.

Few would have given the youngster from Coburg much hope of impressing against a player once described as "a football phenomenon". But those who knew him, and had seen him play, knew that playing on the best player gave him his best chance of proving himself to the point where he couldn't be overlooked again.

The youngster's name was Jim McHale, a brewery worker, who had just given up the smokes for the sake of his footy. He hadn’t given up the occasional amber nectar, mind you, which came as a perk of his profession.

History knows him as 'Jock', and for the next half century, he would become the most famous name at Collingwood – first as a footballer of note, and later as the best-known and longest-serving coach in the game.

McHale would recall his moment of truth in the Sporting Globe 20 years later, and how this non-descript, long-forgotten practice match changed his life - and changed the most famous football club in the land.

"I first came to Collingwood in 1902, but was hardly good enough for the team that year," he explained.

Undaunted, he vowed to make a difference when he was selected in the VJFA representative side for a second straight year. This time, however, the reigning premier was Collingwood, and he knew it provided him with the perfect platform to impress the Magpies.

"(In 1903) … I was down at training and had a good chance of gaining inclusion in the side," he said. "Playing for a combined junior team against Collingwood who were the (VFL) champions, I was placed in the centre against the famous Fred Leach.

"Ordinarily, I was placed (at) half-forward, but (former Collingwood player) Billy O'Brien, a shrewd judge of football, told me to play in the centre as he considered if I played well against Leach, I would be picked for Collingwood's training list."  

McHale, who had been doing some foot running at the time, outplayed and out-ran Leach, but modestly said: "I played well, being in good nick."

In fairness, Leach was not at his best physically during the game. He carried an illness into the 1903 season, and managed only six games that season, which proved to be his last at Victoria Park. Tragically, Leach would be dead within five years, after falling to typhoid fever, aged 30.

McHale knew he had played well, but hadn't countered on what happened as he walked off the ground, to the best wishes of teammates and opposition alike.

"The secretary, Mr E. ('Bud) Copeland, informed me that I was a certainty for the (squad of) twenty five," McHale recalled. "There was no happier man in Melbourne than myself."

Collingwood wasn't going to overlook McHale a second time. He would be a Magpie for life from that day forward, for the next 50 years, until his death just over a week after the club’s 1953 premiership success.

As a player, McHale represented the club in 261 games from Round 1, 1903 to Round 1, 1920. He showed a commitment and a resilience that saw him go almost 11 years without missing a single game, and he was a key member of the 1910 premiership side.

As a coach, he not only re-defined the role, he also changed the game like few others in history. His 714 games as coach or playing coach across 38 seasons from 1912 to 1949 spanned two cataclysmic World Wars and a crippling Depression. To put that into context, Australia had 12 different Prime Ministers during this time.

Importantly, Collingwood won eight of its 15 VFL-AFL premierships during McHale's tenure as coach.

He would also become a committeeman, a vice-president, a chairman of selectors and a patriarch of Collingwood.

All of that might have been a very different story for McHale and the club, but for the events of that practice match in 1903, when he played one of the most important games of his life – against Collingwood.

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Jock McHale coached a remarkable 714 games between 1912 and 1949.