Goodbye Buckley And None Was Better
The Age
Thursday June 12, 2008
JOCK McHale, 38 years coach of Collingwood, once said that Bob Rose was the greatest Magpie player he had seen. Rose, on his deathbed in 2003, told Collingwood president Eddie McGuire that Nathan Buckley was the greatest. McGuire told this last night to a fully-subscribed, $175-a-head function at Crown Casino to pay tribute to Buckley's career. So was a century of Collingwood history, glory and ill-fated, reckoned up.
Tony Shaw, captain of the only Collingwood premiership side in the last half-century, a teammate of Buckley's for one year and later his coach, affirmed that Buckley was the best Collingwood player he had seen. Graeme Allan, who with former president Allan McAlister engineered Buckley's move to Collingwood in 1993, said that Kevin Rose, also a former president, had regarded his brother Bob as Collingwood's finest, but now concluded that Buckley was his equal. So was Buckley's place in the club and game solemnised (with apologies to Peter Daicos, whose name still prompted the second most affectionate round of applause last night). These things matter at Collingwood. And they matter about Buckley, who until last night did not really get to say goodbye to the Magpies, nor they to him. Last night, 1350 did, and also St Kilda champion Robert Harvey, who insisted on being there to pass on his regards. Buckley's father, Ray, told of how he knew from watching his son play reserves for Port Adelaide one day on the Adelaide Oval that he was destined. Robert Walls, who coached him for his only year at Brisbane, told of how the 20-year-old's dedication had inspired the teenagers who would found later the Lions' trio of premierships. McAlister told of how they had whisked Buckley away from Brisbane and from under North Melbourne's nose, fighting all the way to the Supreme Court. Buckley said that in writing a book about his career, he had learned about aspects of his transfer previously unknown to him. He had wanted only to play football. Shaw told of how Buckley in his first year at Victoria Park had irritated him by kicking footballs in the changeroom in such a way as to make them bounce into the face of the ageing Shaw, face-down on the massage table. Scott Burns, long-time teammate and his successor as captain, told how Buckley's unprecedented drive for perfection had both annoyed and invigorated teammates. What emerged was a picture of a man so single-mindedly consumed with the need to realise his gift and the club's promise that he duly became its greatest player. Old feats were new again as they were replayed on big screens, none more than a crunching tackle on Carlton's Scott Camporeale, and they again won standing ovations. Always, said McGuire, the cry was "kick it to Bucks", as it had previously been "kick to Daicos", and before that "kick it to Rose". So Buckley became Collingwood's most decorated footballer, with at least one of everything except, fatefully, a premiership medallion. Ever Collingwood, forever Buckley.
© 2008 The Age
