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.

John Greening's comeback game: Round 9, 1974

Every Collingwood fan over a certain age will remember where they were when they saw, or heard about, the sickening incident that all but ended John Greening's career.

Most of those fans are still outraged by it. Greening was a crowd favourite – young, brilliantly skilled, and full of daring and bravado in the way he played.

In July of 1972 he had the football world at his feet. After four years in the VFL, he was just hitting his peak as a centreman or ruck-rover. Thirteen rounds into the season he led many media awards and was, we'd learn later, polling well in the Brownlow too. All this and he was still only 21.

But two minutes into the round 14 clash with St Kilda, Greening lay prostrate and unconscious on the Moorabbin turf, the victim of a behind-the-play incident that shocked the football world. His injuries were probably the most serious ever suffered by a Collingwood footballer during a game. Doctors feared for his life: he was comatose for 24 hours, and it was days before he regained full consciousness.

This was obviously the major turning point in John Greening's career, and it also had a huge impact on the Collingwood Football Club. But perversely it was his comeback game two years later that finally sealed his footballing fate.

Greening had suffered cerebral concussion in the initial incident and was initially expected to be permanently disabled. But the prodigiously talented youngster was having none of that. First he woke up, then he moved, then he walked and left hospital, then he began to rehabilitate and even run.

Remarkably, just sixteen months later – in October 1973 – he pulled the boots on again in a social game at Hurstbridge. He returned to cricket that summer, and had a training run with Collingwood in March 1974. That went OK, so he played in an exhibition game in Canberra on 27 April.



John Greening was inducted into Collingwood's Hall of Fame in 2011.

As the 1974 season got underway, Greening eased himself back into things by playing a few reserves games. His first ended with him triumphantly raising his arms high as he left the Victoria Park oval. By round nine, with Max Richardson and Len Thompson on State duty, Greening felt he was ready for a return to the big time.

Greening’s comeback game, against Richmond, was one of the most stirring and emotional sporting events of the year. He received dozens of telegrams, was besieged by well-wishers and before the game spent some time with six blind boys who had been brought to the dressing rooms to draw inspiration from him.

He led the team out that day in front of a huge crowd and booted a goal with his first kick. He finished with 24 possessions and seven marks (one of them a beauty), being one of the day’s best players. To top it off, the Pies trounced the highly-favoured Tigers (who were reigning premiers and on their way to back-to-back titles) by 69 points. No Collingwood fan who saw that game will ever forget it.

But, in a strange twist, that comeback game was the beginning of the end. Ever since the incident at Moorabbin, he had been forced to live with the stigma of being labelled “brain damaged”. He was so determined to prove to everyone that he was “normal” that he probably rushed his return. And he had built himself up so much for it that the letdown was huge.

Greening told The Sun in 1990: “If I hadn’t come back, people would have said he is RS because that’s the picture which was painted publicly. I had to prove to me and the thousands of people that I was okay and there was nothing wrong with me. It was satisfying to get there and say to those 66,000 people ‘Hey I ain’t got brain damage, I’m A1’.

“But once I got back, the motivation to stay in League football had gone. I wanted to prove I was good enough to play again and then I just thought, ‘Well, that’s enough’. It took me 18 months to get back to League football and I was satisfied. I shouldn’t have been, but I was — it’s silly isn’t it?”

In his second game back, Greening tore a hamstring. But it was when he regained fitness that he realised the motivation had deserted him. He lost interest, confidence and touch and, by his own admission, “just couldn’t be bothered”. He meandered along for a couple of years, playing only nine more senior games, before finally leaving VFL football for good at the end of 1976.

Although the primary concern was always Greening's health, it's impossible to ignore the huge impact his disappearance from the game had on the club as a whole.

Don't underestimate how good he was. He was 21 when he went down: he could well have won the Brownlow that season, and if not then seemed a likely candidate for future years. Even then he was, along with Wayne Richardson and Thompson, probably the best player in the team. You throw him back into that Magpie line-up and it's highly likely that we at least get to a Grand Final in 1973.

But project further: think of the mid-70s Magpie teams with Greening and Phil Carman together. That would have been worth seeing. Or Hafey's Heroes. Greening was a magnificent athlete – lean and lithe and naturally fit. He once said he felt he could have played til he was 40. He would have only needed to be make it to 31 and he would have played in all those Hafey-led Grand Finals. It's impossible to believe he wouldn't have made a difference in ‘77 and ‘79, at least.

These are just some of the ‘what ifs’ everyone is left with after such a promising career is so cruelly cut short. There are personal ones, of course: how good would he have become? What would he have achieved? But they exist for the club, too. And any way you look at it, losing John Greening was a seismic event that cost Collingwood dearly in the 1970s – and potentially beyond.

Turning Points
Written by Glenn McFarlane and Michael Roberts

Turning Points: A game of belief.

Turning Points: The first game.

Turning Points: History's ugly repeat.

Turning Points: Honouring the greater good.

Turning Points: A turning point for football.

Turning Points: How was landed McHale.