Champions of Collingwood – By The Eras II
Between the Wars
With the forthcoming release of our 125th anniversary book Champions of Collingwood, we look at each era to see which stars might get a guernsey among our 125 greatest of all time.

If Collingwood ever enjoyed a Golden Era, it fell in the years between the First and Second World Wars.

This was the time of The Machine – the Collingwood teams that dominated football like no other team before or since. Everyone remembers the four successive flags between 1927-30, but it's often forgotten that there were two Grand Final appearances before that, then five more – for two flags – in the mid-late 1930s. This was a team that spent the best part of 15 years in contention.

March with us to the MCG on Saturday.

The years immediately after the First World War had been reasonably kind, with the club winning the so-called 'Peace Premiership' of 1919, then finishing runners-up the next year. The early '20s were tougher, but that was quickly forgotten when the Machine started to hit its stride.

This was a period dominated by two sets of brothers – Harry and Albert Collier, and Syd and Gordon Coventry. But there were lots of other supporting actors in the Machine who have rarely received the attention they deserve: which of them will make it into the Champions of Collingwood?

Champions of Collingwood: Part One.

And what of those who returned after the First World War? Or those who were just starting out when the Second World War hit? And how will we assess the careers of players like Des Fothergill and Ron Todd, who were sensational footballers but left prematurely to take up big money offers in the VFA?

Click here to pre-order your copy of Champions of Collingwood now.