Ron Barassi

1970 VFL Grand Final- September 26, 1970- Final Quarter

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• published: 27 Sep 2014
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The entire final quarter of the 1970 Victorian Football League (VFL) Grand Final, which was played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Saturday 26th September, 1970, between the Carlton Football Club (The Blues) and the Collingwood Football Club (The Magpies). The 74th VFL Grand Final saw an official attendance of 121,696 spectators. The commentators for this Grand Final were Alan "Butch" Gale, Ted Whitten, and Mike Williamson. The legendary Ron Barassi was Carlton's coach, and Collingwood legend Bob Rose was Collingwood's coach. The final score saw Carlton defeating Collingwood by 10 points, to hand Carlton its tenth Premiership victory, and Ron Barassi his second as a VFL/AFL senior coach. Recorded from the broadcast of the 2014 AFL Grand Final Marathon, September 27, 2014, on the Seven Network (HSV-7). Vaxfacts: This Grand Final is historic in many aspects. The attendance of 121,696 to this day remains the highest ever attendance of a VFL/AFL Grand Final (indeed, the highest ever attendance for a VFL/AFL match ever), having beaten the previous record of 119,165 from the 1969 Grand Final. Amazingly enough, as mad a footballing city as Melbourne is (the home of Australian Rules Footlball), this is not the largest attendance for an MCG event. That honour goes to one of the evangelistic crusades held by famous American televangelist Billy Graham, who had about 130,000 attend in 1959. Incidentally, during the 1956 Summer Olympics (held in Melbourne), an exhibition game of baseball was played between the Australian national team and an American Armed Services team at the MCG, and saw an attendance of about 114,000 spectators- this was the all-time record attendance for a baseball game until March 29, 2008, when 115,300 watched an exhibition match between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Redevelopments over the last four decades and occupational health and safety issues have limited "The 'G" to a maximum combined seated and standing capacity of 100,024, making the MCG the 11th largest stadium in the world. Carlton's victory was amazing in the sense that during the half-time break, Collingwood were leading the game by 44 points. This was the greatest half-time turnaround for a team in VFL/AFL Grand Final history. This game saw one of the most iconic moments of Australian Rules Football, when, towards the end of the second quarter, Carlton legend Alex Jesaulenko (better known by his nickname of 'Jezza') jumped onto the shoulders of Collingwood ruckman Graham "Jerker" Jenkin to take what became known as "The Mark Of The Century". The clip of this "speccy" mark, which featured commentator Mike Williamson's famous line "Oh Jesaulenko, you beauty!", can be seen at the following link: http://youtu.be/uaXa62iC2y8 Collingwood's loss in this Grand Final was its fourth loss in a Grand Final since its last Premiership victory in 1958 (1960, 1964, 1966, 1970). It was after this loss that the term "Colliwobbles" was coined by Collingwood legend Lou Richards, to describe Collingwood's inability to win Grand Finals, when they were either the favourite going in, or losing by small margins. The Colliwobbles would continue for another 20 years, losing the 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1981 Grand Finals. Finally, in 1990, Collingwood would put the Colliwobbles to an end, defeating Essendon in the first AFL Grand Final (the Victorian Football League officially became the Australian Football League in 1990). To celebrate the end of the Colliwobbles period, Lou Richards marked the occasion at Collingwood's then home ground of Victoria Park by burying a memoir of the period in front of a large crowd. Incidentally, Collingwood is the club that Vaxman80 is a supporter of.