I never personally knew Darren, and I wasn’t old enough to see much of him play, he debut for Collingwood in 1984, which was the same year I was born, he won the Best First Year Player at the club that season, in 1986 he was selected to play for Victoria, he was also selected another 2 times (1988, 1989) in his footballing career.

If it wasn’t for the 1990 Grand final, and for the Road to Victory, I wouldn’t have seen many games of Darren Millane’s, one thing I will always remember about Darren would be him playing through the finals series and the grand final of 1990 with a broken thumb, the pain he must have been feeling that day would be unimaginable.

But once that final siren sounded the pain would of subsided for just that one moment as he held the match ball above his head which is why he deserved, and won the most courageous player of 1990.

Watching the Road to Victory over the years, I’ve seen what an absolute champion Darren was. There are only a few players that can lay claim to the title “Champion” and Darren was one of those players that had earned that title.

But Darren was a champion not only on the field, but off of it as well, of course we remember those antics the stolen bus, and the trouble he would get into. But we rarely heard about the side of Darren that wasn’t shown that often.

Millane would spend time with handicapped kids, at first he was made do this, as most players are, and he may not have actually wanted to do this, but in the end, did it often, giving the kids tickets to games.

At the end of the 1991 season Darren Millane would sadly pass away, in a car accident, leaving a lot of people shocked, and saddened at the news of his passing. At that time the football world had lost a tremendous footballer, and human being.

Darren played 147 games for Collingwood and kicked a total of 78 goals over his career which started in 1984 and would end prematurely in 1991. Millane would be honored with being named in the Collingwood Team of the Century, and would have his number retired.

I feel saddened that I hadn’t been able to see much of Darren Millane, but I will always remember what a great player he was for the club, but what if he hadn’t of died? I’d like to think we would have had a better shot during the finals of 1994, maybe would of made the finals before then as well.