Since 1986, football supporters have looked up at Harold Freedman's striking mural on the main grandstand at Waverley Park and marvelled at the celebration of Australian football and the human form.
The grandstand which it adorns was thankfully saved from the wreckers in 2002 but these days the only fans who see it are those who watch the Hawks train at the former VFL-AFL ground.
It depicts a wonderful array of VFL legends and, appropriately, at the top are the legendary goalkickers such as Bob Pratt, John Coleman, Doug Wade, Royce Hart and Alex Jesaulenko in full flight.
Oddly, though, perched above them all, is a goalkicking genius who left his club for money at 23 in 1939, after just four seasons, and had so incensed club officials that, according to legend, his picture was turned to the wall in the clubrooms until 1964.
His name is Ron Todd, and even if his predecessor at Collingwood and VFL goalkicking record-holder, Gordon Coventry is, strangely, not there with the high-fliers in the mural, Todd deserves his place in this pantheon of legends.
He also deserved his place in Collingwood's Team of The Century, which was chosen in 1997. Sadly, though, this never happened, not because he wasn't deemed good enough, but because of a family grudge that had lasted almost 60 years.
The selectors - Kevin Rose (chairman), Eddie McGuire, Ron Richards, John McHale and myself - chose Todd at centre half-forward when we met in the musty rooms under the dilapidated Ryder grandstand early in the 1997 season. But the 1958 premiership captain, Murray Weideman, appears at centre half-forward while Todd is not in the team.
The reason is that the then 82-year-old John McHale, a former player, committeeman and, most importantly, son of the fabled Collingwood coach Jock McHale, had objected strongly to Rose after the meeting about Todd being in the team.
When I arrived back at my office after the selections had been supposedly finalised, I received a phone call from Rose telling me that McHale, who had said little at the meeting, wanted no part of Todd in the team. I was shocked but in the end any objection was useless. A Collingwood man carrying the name McHale was always going to have his way. I was informed that Todd had been replaced by Weideman.
This sentiment towards Todd was a family hangover from 1940 when Jock McHale was one of many Collingwood officials angered by Todd's decision to leave for a much more lucrative package at VFA club Williamstown.
Todd, who received £500 to sign for Williamstown, was understandably miffed that he received as little as £65 a season when he passed the century mark for Collingwood in 1938 and 1939.
What's more, the Collingwood committee refused to pay him any big increases once the Williamstown offer was known. I have approached McGuire, club president since 1998, about Todd's wrongful exclusion on a couple of occasions. The last time was at the MCG in November, 2011. He told me that everything had been ''fixed up'' because Todd had been admitted to the Collingwood Hall of Fame in 2011.
I do not agree. While Hall of Fame induction is certainly an honour, there is no comparison between it and selection in the Team of The Century. For example, worthy servant Paul Licuria was inducted on the same night as Todd. Licuria won two best-and-fairest awards but he could never be rated in the same league as Todd.
There will be many more players of Licuria's ilk make the Hall of Fame, as happened last week when members of the 1953 Magpie premiership team were inducted. But there will only ever be one centre half-forward in the first Team of Century, forever a reference point for Magpie greatness in those first 100 years.
Todd made his debut at 18 in 1935, warming the bench the entire game. He had to play second fiddle to Coventry, but stepped into the breach superbly, kicking four goals in the 1936 grand final victory while Coventry was suspended. Todd then kicked 62 goals from centre half-forward in 1937 - Coventry's final season.
Once given free rein at full-forward, he was unstoppable. He snared 120 and 121 goals respectively in 1938 and 1939 to win the VFL goalkicking in both seasons, averaging six goals a game. This included successive hauls of 11 goals in two preliminary finals.
The enduring Coventry (1299 goals in 306 matches) was the obvious full-forward in Collingwood's Team of the Century; almost as obvious was Todd (327 goals in 76 games) at centre half-forward.
Few VFL-AFL football historians have doubted that this pair were the greatest ever Magpie key forwards, and the Team of the Century selectors concurred.
Todd, who died in 1991, was deserving of better treatment from Collingwood in 1940 and in 1997.
It's time to admit the mistake and do something about it.
I have agonised about telling this story since it happened 15 years ago. Being involved in it makes it so much harder, even though I was under no confidentiality agreement.
I expect to be a target of criticism from Collingwood people for telling this story. But I have decided to do so - for the sake of Todd's reputation and his family, and because it is the truth; and the history of this great club deserves nothing but the truth.
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