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One of football’s longest lasting records will change hands on Friday night when Mick Malthouse passes ‘Jock’ McHale’s 714 games as a league coach.
It’s a record that has lasted since McHale passed Jack Worrall’s tally of 279 games during the 1927 season – the same year that the Magpies started their unparalleled streak of four successive flags.
But the one record Malthouse - or anyone else for that matter - is unlikely to take off McHale is the fact that he coached for a record 38 seasons.
He started coaching Collingwood in 1912 - the year the Titanic was sunk - and coached all the way through until the end of the 1949 season.
To mark that McHale milestone that is likely to last forever, here are 38 facts out of the book, Jock, that you may not know about the man with the most famous name in the history of the Collingwood Football Club.
38 facts about the legendary Jock McHale
1. He was born James Francis McHale in Botany Rd, Alexandria, New South Wales, on December 12, 1882, and incredibly his birth certificate was incorrectly listed as James Francis ‘McKale’ (McHale).
2. His parents, John and Mary, both came from County Mayo, in Ireland, marrying in Louisburgh before coming separately to Australia in the early 1880s.
3. His father would spend several years as a police constable in Sydney, Coonabarabran and Warialda, NSW, before bringing the ever-growing McHale family - including young James - to Melbourne in the late 1880s.
4. He attended Christian Brothers’ College (CBC Parade) in Victoria Parade when he was a teenager. One of the men who would became a teammate and friend at Collingwood, Bob Rush, recalled that McHale initially struggled to get a game with the school side, but would become one of the most durable footballers from the first 25 years of the VFL.
5. Football folklore has it that McHale was first spotted by a Collingwood committeeman Jack Duncan while kicking a ball around an inner-city wood yard. It prompted an invitation to training at Victoria Park, which was to become his second home for the rest of his life.
6. McHale always credited his decision to give up cigarettes at the age of 20 as the reason behind his success in making the Collingwood senior team in 1903. On his retirement as coach almost 50 years later,
The Argus wrote of him: “One of the best things he did for his football was to give up smoking at 20 in the days when cigarettes cost 3d for (a packet of) 25. He took his doctor’s advice and he hasn’t had a cigarette since.”
7. In his first five seasons with Collingwood, he missed only one night of more than 200 training sessions the club undertook.
8. To put McHale’s coaching longevity into context, the other VFL clubs (including University) had 175 different coaches during his 38 seasons, from 1912 to 1949.
9. He never had his driver’s licence. McHale used to frequently walk to training from his workplace at the Carlton Brewery in Bouverie St to Victoria Park, Abbotsford, and was a regular user of public transport.
10. McHale could never recall how he got his nickname 'Jock', though the first known reference was in Collingwood's annual report of 1912 - his first year as playing coach. It was popularised by
The Herald's leading sporting and political cartoonist Sam Wells, who often drew McHale in a kilt and a Scottish hat. The irony was that McHale's family background was Irish, not Scottish.
11. He lost his first three games as coach - and there was even talk of a "reform" group calling for change at the top. Eight premierships later, Pies fans were grateful the reform group lost momentum quickly.
12. He was the first VFL footballer to reach 250 games as a player, against Fitzroy, in 1916.
13. McHale and his wife, Violet, lost two of their three children in heartbreaking fashion. His eldest son, James Francis, 'Frankie' to his parents, died of pneumonia, when he was only six, in 1919. His only daughter, Jean, died aged 17, of meningitis, in 1934.
14. Having been retired, he was forced into making a one-off playing comeback in 1920 - when he was 37 - after one of the new recruits failed to show up in time for the Round 1 clash in 1920.
The Australasian said: "The veteran, who has been coaching Collingwood for years, deserves every credit for his prompt assistance in filling the gaps, though youth outpaced and outplayed him."
15. One of McHale's greatest strengths was his uncanny knack of judging his players' fitness, which he rarely faltered on. His decision to play an injured Albert Collier in the 1938 Grand Final was one such mistake, though his son, Jock Jr, would always insists the decision was forced upon his father.
16. Unlike Worrall, McHale had no issue with his players having a few beers after matches. As a cellarman and later a foreman at the Carlton Brewery, he often took his best players to the brewery for a few beers on the Saturday night after matches. He had the keys, quite literally, to the brewery. He even organised jobs for some of his players, particularly when the 1930's depression cut deep.
17. His coaching manifesto to young schoolboy players included: "don't eat more food than you can reasonably digest and be careful not to eat too quickly", "immediately after rising in the morning, and just before going to bed at night, it is advisable to drink a glass of cold water", and "take a cold bath every morning unless you are feeling unwell ... and a hot bath once a week is necessary."
18. Character was one of the most important aspects of McHale's assessment of players. He once wrote: "There is more to football than merely kicking a ball about. You will discover this as your training progresses. If played in the proper spirit, this game brings out the very best that is in a boy. It develops him morally and physically. It teaches him that to flinch spells cowardice. It teaches him, perhaps more than any other game does, the art of self-control. To be cool, with a level head, is absolutely essential. It teaches him to be unselfish and manly. All this may be summed up in the one word - character and if that is not worth developing, nothing is."
19. McHale was coach of the famous Machine, which won four consecutive premierships from 1927-30. But he did not like the moniker. He would say: "I did not set out with any specific intention of building a football 'machine. I never liked the term, because it suggested the side was a combination which worked to a rigid plan, and could not think. And if there is one quality we demand at Collingwood, it is the quick-thinking player with a dash of imagination."
20. Despite offers from other clubs, he never seriously considered leaving Collingwood. He also only wanted to be paid the same as his players, and he wanted his players to all received the same amount of money.
21. He was a believer in mid-season football trips to the country or interstate when a break in the VFL fixture allowed it. Famously, a trip to Western Australian in 1927 was the catalyst for the unity and the bond that would led the Machine to four straight flags, as did a trip to Brisbane and Sydney in 1935, which helped to set up back-to-back flags.
22. For two seasons, McHale coached Old Xaverians (at training, but not in matches) at the same time as he coached Collingwood. That was in 1928-29, and he did it as a favour to Collingwood's benefactor and his long-time friend John Wren. Wren's grandson, John, said years later: "They were close, grandfather and Jock. You would think that he would have gone to see Jock and put it this way - 'Old Xavs aren't going that well, so can you help them out?' I suppose he would have thought, let's just get the old icon down there, and things might improve."
23. He missed the crowning glory of the Machine - the 1930 Grand Final. He had pleurisy and influenza in the lead-up to the game, yet from his bedside in Brunswick he was still able to plot the tactics for the game. Bruce Andrew would say: "On the Sunday, he sent for some members of his selection committee to talk over the game ... Then, on the Tuesday, he sent for the secretary, Mr Frank Wraith. He gave Mr Wraith specific instructions that the team was not to use a ball at training on the Tuesday and Thursday nights. He said: 'I'm satisfied from what I've heard the players have had too much football and are leg weary." His insight was critical in the victory.
24. McHale co-authored one of the best skills books on football, 'the Australian Game of Football', in 1931, and also lent his name to one of the earliest football board games, the 'Jock McHale Table Football ‘game.
25. He was one of the first coaches to pioneer the importance of playing corridor football, instructing his men to get it long and direct into their great forwards - which at various stages included Dick Lee, Gordon Coventry and Ron Todd.
26. McHale's son, John, known as 'Jock Jr', would play 34 games for the Magpies during the 1940s. Jack Dyer's only suspension as a player came from striking McHale Jr. in a match at Punt Rd.
27. His tenure as coach took him through two cataclysmic wars, a Great Depression, and 12 Australian Prime Ministers, including one who was a close mate of the Magpies coach. McHale had played sport with John Curtin in Brunswick, and the pair kept in touch for many years. In Round 14, 1944, at the Collingwood-Footscray game, Prime Minster Curtin attended the game and even came into the rooms during the half-time break.
28. McHale coached during the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and it was only in the 1940s that he could not take Collingwood to a premiership.
29. He credited the passion of Collingwood supporters for his longevity, saying their support had been critical. He would say: "They have been wonderful to me. I've always been a good winner and a poor loser and I know that many a time when I have been down in the dumps, the warmth and sympathy of the rank and file club supporters helped raise my spirit to look forward to something better next time.
30. The only VFL team McHale had a losing percentage against was arch-rivals, Carlton, and even then it was almost 48 per cent record.
31. For much of his life in football, McHale said that Dick Condon - who played in the 1890s and early 1900s - was the best footballer had had seen at Collingwood. As he got older, and coached Bob Rose in action, he labelled Rose as the best footballer he had seen.
32. McHale coached Collingwood for almost 14,000 days.
33. Three future VFL premiership coaches grew up by watching McHale closely - Norm Smith (who would be selected as VFL team of the century coach ahead of him), John Kennedy and Tom Hafey.
34. His 714th and last game as coach was in the 1949 first semi-final against Essendon. The Magpies lost by 82 points. He was appointed coach for the following year, but quit before the start of the season.
35. The only known recording of McHale comes from the victorious Collingwood rooms after the 1953 Grand Final. He wasn’t coach at the time, but was the patriarch of the club as well as chairman of selectors. He stood up on the seats in the change rooms, saying: “I’ve never been through a season in my life as I have this year, particularly today. It’s been the most thrilling season I’ve ever had with the Collingwood team. Although I am not coach, (I’m) only helping out, and giving a bit of guidance, (its) the most thrilling feeling I’ve had in all the premierships. I’ve never been so much worked up as I have been this year, to get into the four, and for more reason than one to win the premiership for ‘Phonsey’ Kyne and all the players connected to the Collingwood Football Club.”
36. McHale died just over a week after that 1953 Grand Final, having taken ill the day the after the game. Mick Malthouse was less than two months old when McHale passed away, aged 70.
37. He passed away while the Collingwood team was on their end of season trip to Tasmania. Such was the respect the team had for him that they marked his contribution with a minute's silence on a roadside in Tasmania.
38. McHale never received any official recognition from the league while he was alive, and only received VFL life membership long after he died in 1977. Finally, the AFL honoured him in 2001 by naming the medal for the premiership coach after him.
