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1994 – Mick McGuane’s seven-bounce goal v Carlton

This day was building into something special from the start. A sun-kissed Easter Monday blockbuster before more than 85,000 fans, with the Magpie Army having bade an emotional pre-match farewell to the mighty Peter Daicos. The stage seemed set for something out of the ordinary.

Initially, the game spluttered along, the Blues with the edge. But then, in the shadows of half-time, Mick McGuane stood up. He took a handball from Damian Monkhorst after a centre square ball-up and took off.

He edged his way past Fraser Brown, then took his first two bounces as he worked to make his way out of the centre square in a mad dash to the outer wing. It was here that Mark Fraser came into the picture. He came within a few metres of the zig-zagging McGuane and Brown, now desperately chasing. Fraser laid a near perfect shepherd.

It allowed McGuane to find space. It was enough to allow him to take three more bounces as he streamed towards Collingwood’s attacking zone, Fraser still riding shotgun. The sixth bounce came on the 50m line.

Then Blues defender Michael Sexton emerged to confront McGuane. Mick just feigned, baulked and went on to take a seventh and final bounce, before steadying and slotting home from 20m.

Seven bounces and a goal in just on 19 seconds. It inspired the Magpies to a six-goal third term and eventual 34-point win. Mick McGuane grabbed the three Brownlow votes, the Goal of the Year – and the most memorable moment of a magnificent career.

1995 – The first Anzac Day game

Collingwood had played footy on Anzac Day before 1995, of course. But this was something different and deliberate – and the start of one of the great traditions of football’s modern era.

The brainchild of Essendon’s Kevin Sheedy, it seemed to all and sundry like a good idea. But nobody had any clue just how well received the first game would be.

A picture perfect day drew 94,825 fans to the ‘G. That alone made it the second highest home-and-away crowd on record. But lines snaked around the ground well after the opening bounce and it is highly likely many more fans simply gave up and went home.

The crowd was one thing. The game was quite another. It was a high-scoring, see-sawing affair highlighted by Sav Rocca’s nine goals, and it soared to new and increasingly pulsating heights every minute.

Rocca’s ninth drew scores level with just minutes left, and Nathan Buckley had the chance to win it late on with a kick from inside the centre square. But he unselfishly chose to instead look for Rocca, who had about 14 Bomber defenders on him, and the siren went soon after with scores tied at 111 apiece.

A draw. Nobody knew what to say or do, but in time all agreed that it was the perfect result on a day that was less about football than most AFL matches.

In the years since, the Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day match has become the biggest day on the football calendar outside of preliminary and grand finals. It has also played a major role in reinvigorating the commemoration of Anzac Day itself. And that is no small thing.

2002 – Ben Johnson’s match-turning tackle in the Qualifying Final

Nobody gave the Pies much of a chance going into the first Qualifying Final of 2002 – our first final since 1994.

We were up against table-topping Port Adelaide on their own Football Park turf, and we were without skipper Nathan Buckley. But with Paul Licuria playing the game of his life, we’d somehow managed to eke out a nine-point lead by three-quarter-time.

We extended that early in the last quarter, but then Port came charging home in front of their fiercely parochial crowd. Peter Burgoyne had been dangerous all night, and when he outmanoeuvred Ben Johnson to mark Stuart Dew's long bomb to the tip of the goal square with 12 minutes to play, the margin was set to close to a nailbiting seven points.

But Burgoyne inexplicably decided to play on. Johnson, only just having risen from his knees, threw out a desperate left arm, then added his right and clung on for dear life, swinging Burgoyne off his kick just enough that the ball slewed off the outside of his right boot, dribbling towards goal where it was cleared by Shane Wakelin.

Nobody could quite believe what they had seen. Johnson’s lunging tackle not only saved a goal, but also the match. Port did get their goal a few minutes later, but the Pies defended grimly through the dying stages before a late Leon Davis goal sealed a famous 13-point win.

Johnno was just 21 at the time, and would go on to enjoy a magnificent career, but that was a moment that wrote him into Collingwood folklore.

2010 – The Didak Shimmy is born

This was one of those magic moments that happened almost entirely by accident.

Dids was already a hugely popular figure with the Magpie Army, but July of 2010 was a month that propelled his popularity to new heights. It started early that month when he famously kicked three goals in about two minutes of playing times against West Coast at Docklands. A few weeks later he kicked a superb solo goal in a big win over Richmond, sashaying through and around two Tigers, shimmying first one way, then the other, to leave defenders clutching at thin air in their vain attempts to stop him.

It was pure Didak Magic at its absolute best. And he couldn’t resist a cheeky little wiggle of the hips by way of post-goal celebration.

Almost instantly, ‘the Didak Shimmy’ became a thing. It even had its own Facebook page. But on the Monday after the game, Dids vowed to put it away until – perhaps – we were deep into a Premiership winning final quarter.

We didn’t have to wait quite that long. Midway through the third quarter of the Grand Final replay, Dids pulled off a brilliant smother and kicked a sensational curling right-footer to all but seal our big win. He then delivered a slightly more stilted version of the shimmy, but a shimmy nonetheless. Cameras showed fans in the crowd doing their own versions. And it came out again during the Premiership celebrations that night, and again the next day.

The Didak Shimmy has gone into Magpie folklore as one of the highlights of a magical season.

2010 – Maxy’s dive and save in the drawn Grand Final

Any drawn game is full of ‘sliding doors’ moments – those little incidents which, had they worked out differently, would have changed the result. And the 2010 drawn Grand Final was no exception.

Most famously, of course, there was the errant bounce late in the game that eluded Steven Milne and bounced through for the tying point. But that was just fortune. Earlier in the quarter there were two other huge moments that required direct action – and they both involved our skipper, Nick Maxwell.

The first was when Nick Riewoldt’s rolling kick snapped out of a pack from half-forward seemed almost certain to trickle through for a goal. But Maxy ran and ran and then dived full stretch to just get a fingernail on the ball before it crossed the line. It was an act of inspirational desperation – and exactly the kind of thing we’d come to expect from our skipper.

Then, with just four minutes left and the Pies trailing by five points, Maxy flew for, and grabbed, a fine intercept mark at half-back. Halting the St Kilda attack was one thing, but he then took off as soon as he hit the ground, starting the passage of play that would lead to Travis Cloke’s goal that put the Pies back in front.

If we had held on in that game, instead of having to wait an extra week, then both those passages of play would be given the same sort of reverence today as Heath Shaw’s famous smother – brave, desperate acts that led to a flag. But because they happened in the draw, they’re less celebrated. Maxy’s teammates, and all Magpie fans, know better though.

2010 – Heath Shaw’s smother of the Millennium

Twenty minutes into the 2010 Grand Final replay and we had controlled the early going. But now Nick Riewoldt was strolling into an open goal to post St Kilda’s first, and send our anxiety levels soaring.

But as he went to take his kick from just near the goal line, a speeding bullet in a Collingwood jumper appeared from nowhere. Heath Shaw, having sprinted from 30m away, launched a full-length dive that ended with him knocking the ball over the line just after it left Riewoldt’s hand but before it could reach his boot.

Riewoldt initially had no idea what had happened. As Dennis Cometti’s famous commentary told it. “He came up behind him like a librarian. He never heard him.” Geelong skipper Tom Harley, then in the commentary box, was even more impressed: “That was as good a play as I have ever seen.”

Even better, the rushed behind led to a passage of play that resulted in Brent Macaffer kicking a goal at the other end, helping the Pies to a three-goal lead at quarter -time. We never looked back from there, and would go on to record a 56-point win.

In the years since, Heater’s smother – which he himself branded ‘the smother of the millennium’ – has become one of those grand final moments that are etched in footy folklore forever. And it has become the symbolic moment of our 2010 flag.