Collingwood president Eddie McGuire says he's happy to share Anzac Day with games outside Victoria. Picture: Wayne Ludbey Source: Herald Sun
COLLINGWOOD president Eddie McGuire is passionate about Anzac Day and believes football has played a crucial role in saving the day from "the annals of history".
Essendon and Collingwood have played an Anzac Day clash every year since 1995; this year the AFL will add to the fixture with St Kilda and Sydney playing in Wellington, New Zealand, in the first AFL match played for points outside Australia.
McGuire backed the move, saying Collingwood had no qualms sharing the day with a game outside of Victoria, with the commemoration more important than any club's perceived ownership.
It was a view that McGuire said stemmed from a family history in the military and from himself experiencing the decline in public sentiment for Australia's armed forces and Anzac Day itself in the wake of the Vietnam War.
"My father served in the British Army in the Scottish Rifles in World War II and I lost my father in late 2011," he said.
"It's again become more important to me as we stand there and we think of the Anzacs, but we also think of all those people in the wars.
"I must admit, it's a different game for me in its preparation and the whole solemnity of the day just takes over, then eventually we clear the deck and a game of football breaks out.
"I used to march in Anzac Day in the school band and, in the late parts of the '70s and the early '80s, there were protesters and we'd get bombed with flour bombs and various (objects).
"Anzac Day barely rated a mention and was dying off and people were really concerned that, within 20 years once all the Anzacs had possibly passed on and the World War II veterans had died off, that people wouldn't care anymore and it would be subjected to the annals of history.
"There's no doubt that football has added another layer. We're getting record crowds at the Dawn Service, record crowds at the Anzac March and that continues throughout the day with the national commemoration on television of Anzac Day."
McGuire said he did not mind sharing the Anzac Day fixture with another side, particularly with the significance of a presence in NZ, but that a second game in Victoria would not be appropriate.
Fremantle is the only club outside of Collingwood and Essendon with an Anzac commemoration clash and this year will hold its Len Hall Tribute game on Friday night against Richmond. The Dockers' marquee game has only twice been scheduled in standalone fixtures alongside the Magpies-Bombers, in 2000 (Tuesday) and 2011 (Monday).
"I think we have to be careful not to lose the impact that the day brings in the commemoration of Anzac Day," he said. "We can do that, sometimes, because too much of a good thing is not the right thing.
"Fremantle has worked it really well; the way they commemorate it with the solemnity of the day and then the football is tremendous. It's not against us; it's not one or the other.
"The Collingwood-Essendon game is sold out; it's a commemoration of Anzac Day in the best possible symbolic tradition of two teams being able to play a game of football to commemorate the freedoms that were given to this country by those who served in our armed forces.
"That's what it's all about."
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