Best Collingwood players you have personally seen.

[5 from the wing on debut]

[Neil Appleby]

[Neil Appleby]

1. Peter Daicos

2. Phil CarmAn

3. John Greening

4. Gavin Brown

5. Dane Swan

6. Nathan Buckley

7. Scott Pendlebury

8. Len Thompson

9. Peter Moore

10. Barry Price

[King Monkey]

[uncanny]

7 of the best...

Dane Swan Peter Daicos Peter McKenna Len Thompson Nathan Buckley Scott Pendlebury John Greening

[PyreneesPie]

[PyreneesPie]

[PyreneesPie]

[PyreneesPie]

Lost Magpie comes home

Mike Sheahan
Herald Sun
June 30, 2007 12:00AM


HE WAS football's poster boy of the time, the forerunner to the generation that gave us Hird, Buckley and Harvey.

John Greening had played 94 games in a row for Collingwood when he was cut down mid-season in 1972 at the age of 21.

He debuted at 17 and didn't miss a game in five seasons, playing in the 1970 Grand Final at 19 in front of a record 121,696 people.

Greening's career was halted and effectively ended when he was knocked out behind play against St Kilda at Moorabbin in Round 14 of 1972.

He had polled 14 Brownlow Medal votes in 13 completed games in a team that included ultimate medal winner Len Thompson (25).

Greening was unconscious for 24 hours and St Kilda's Jim O'Dea subsequently was disqualified for 10 weeks.

Both of them victims of a bygone era, a period when the culture decreed the best players in the opposition were fair game.

But that story has been told often enough. This is about Greening in his mid-50s, a Gold Coast bookmaker who has finally agreed to come home to Collingwood.

He and wife Bev will be the club's special guests at a dinner before tomorrow night's huge encounter against Hawthorn at Telstra Dome.

He says it is at least 15 years since he has seen a Collingwood game in Melbourne.

"You must remember it's a very depressing place for me because of the incident, what happened years ago," Greening says.

"I find it very hard to cope sometimes down there. I love Melbourne, but just generally the environment . . .

"I work Saturdays at the races, but this one's a Sunday game.

"I thought I better go down and see one game; it won't hurt.

"With time, I suppose it waters down a bit.

"I haven't been to Melbourne for a long time. It'll be great. Great to be there."

Collingwood has persisted in vain for years to reclaim him.

Greening, 56, says he has moved on - "Yeah, I've moved on; I've got to move on. Geez, I'm bloody 56, and I was 21 when it happened."

Yet there is scarring.

Not only has he stayed away from Melbourne, there is the occasional hint of bitterness.

"I was hoping to play about 500 games at Collingwood," he says.

"I wanted to just be there: captain, coach, be there at the top of the tree, premierships forever and a day.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't born with eyes in the back of my head."

He loves the modern game, and for good reason.

"It's fabulous. I was trying to play it 30 years ago. Nearly cost me me bloody life," he says.

"You don't stand still. You move, you run. You must have possession, simple as that."

Thompson raved about the young Greening in a newspaper interview 12 months ago. "We hadn't seen anyone really play that way before," he said.

"I think Johnny was on that path to be a champion like (Robert) Harvey. He had magnificent balance, he used both sides of his body and he had this big ticker to run and cover ground."

Another former teammate, Wayne Richardson, termed him "the James Hird of his day".

Greening said this week: "Hirdy's a wonderful player. I don't think he's the same type of player, but it's a compliment.

"I went to Collingwood when I was 15 and I had more to give, but the incident just knocked the wind out of the sails, you know what I mean."

His world spun out of control in retirement, for a combination of reasons.

"I lived in the world of depression for a long time and didn't know it. I was having troubles in my private life. The publicity, everything, was hemming me in and I couldn't handle it. That's why I left Melbourne and went back to Tassie," he says.

"I lived a very nomadic life after the incident.

"First marriage down the drain, but that might have been inevitable anyway.

"Then I got remarried and got into the horses and settled down a bit."

He has been a bookmaker for 26 years and married a second time about 20 years ago.

Bev Greening is the former Bev Holman, a former Australian junior 100 and 200-yard record-holder.

Greening, who moved to the Gold Coast nine years ago, enjoys his life: the mild winters, the weekly battle with punters, bowls Tuesday and Thursday, football on the telly.

He describes himself as a run-of-the-mill bookie.

"I'm not the biggest bookie there, but there's a lot of big bookies in the graveyard, mate, that thought they were too good," he says.

"I don't go silly."

He handles more than $50,000 on Magic Millions day. "That's cash; I don't like credit punters."

He looks healthy and fit, although his weight has crept up to 97kg (from 87kg in his playing days).

There is an occasional hint of a slur in his speech, but he seems relaxed and cheerful.

He follows Collingwood from afar and cherishes the catch-ups with former teammates such as Richardson, Thompson and Des Tuddenham, who occasionally head north on the big racing days.

Ross Dunne also lived on the Gold Coast for a time, but has returned to Melbourne.

Greening says the highlight of his career was the 1970 Grand Final.

"That was fabulous. I know we got beaten, but I was only 19. I knew there was more in store, more to come for us," he says.

Greening made a comeback in 1974. Despite a triumphant first-up appearance against Richmond, he was never the same again.

"It was all right, OK. Lovely to stitch up Richmond. Played all right, but could have done better," he says.

"Then I lost the drive, the motivation. That was it, that was enough. I just wanted to prove I could still play."

Play, he could, but not at the level that had Collingwood people believing a year or two earlier there was more than the No. 22 guernsey in common between the legendary Bob Rose and the kid from Tasmania.

As we signed off, Greening had warmed to the prospect of seeing a game live in Melbourne.

"In actual fact, I might enjoy the game, it might be all right," he says.

He wants to run his eye over several players, particularly Hawk Lance Franklin.

"Nice player," he says keenly.

"If he can improve his right side, he might be a complete footballer."

You? "It didn't matter. I could do either hand, either foot. Didn't worry me."

Greening said he had never crossed paths with O'Dea since that fateful day 35 years ago. "No, and I don't want to," he says.

Two men's lives changed forever in a split second.

[Jezza]

I'm only 22 so my list is quite limited compared to others but the three obvious standouts are:

1. Nathan Buckley
2. Dane Swan
3. Scott Pendlebury

[inxs88]

B: Michael Taylor Greg Phillips James Clement

HB: Mick McGuane Billy Picken Shane Morwood

C: Darren Millane Scott Pendlebury Gavin Brown

HF: Peter Daicos Phil Carman Craig Davis

F: Ray Shaw Brian Taylor Alan Didak

F; Peter Moore Nathan Buckley Tony Shaw

ICH: David Cloke, Scott Russell, Dane Swan, Steele Sidebottom

EMERG: Chris Tarrant, Anthony Rocca, Dayne Beams


(Started watching the Pies "live" in 1977 and saw the end of Wayne Richardson, Len Thompson, Ross Dunne and Max Richardson. Just missed Peter McKenna. Scotty Burns and Crosisca very close too)

[CarringbushCigar]

[stui magpie]

[CarringbushCigar]

[RudeBoy]