WHEN WE WERE KINGS (LET'S RUMBLE) by Whispering Jack

The death last week of the great boxer Muhammad Ali brought to mind the documentary film about the "Rumble in the Jungle", the famous world heavyweight championship match between Ali and George Foreman. Although that fight, held in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) took place in 1974, I have often associated the title of the movie with another set of champions from an entirely different sport and in a slightly different time frame: one that began two decades earlier right here in Melbourne.

I refer to the champion football team that dominated this nation's leading sporting competition and won six premierships in the decade to 1964. When the Demons were kings, like Ali they tormented and dominated their adversaries and their main rival during that period was Collingwood.

The football world was in awe of the Demons of the time. They were admired for the way they pulled themselves off the mat in the early 1950s and rose rapidly with a young team to make the grand final in 1954 (the year in which Cassius Clay, as Ali was then known, made his amateur boxing debut) which they lost to Footscray before going on to win five of the next six flags, beating the Magpies in three of those season deciders. Like Muhammad Ali however, they were not infallible - they lost the grand final of 1958 (at about the time when Cassius Clay was graduating from high school) to Collingwood who thereby prevented them from equalling the Magpies' record of four premierships in a row.

Clay won the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics and in that year the Demons destroyed the Magpies on a wet grand final day, keeping them down to a record low two goals on that one day in September. It took them another four years to win their next premiership - the 1964 flag came in the same year that the "Louisville Lip" won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in an upset. An Australian lip, the great Magpie Lou Richards, compared the champion boxer with Melbourne's own champion skipper Ron Barassi, once dubbing him "Cassius Barassius".

But after 1964, everything changed. Clay converted to Islam and officially took on the name, Muhammad Ali. Here in Australia, Barassi accepted an offer to coach Carlton and soon after ... the Demons stopped being kings. Their reign was over. By 1966, they were close to rock bottom.

Ali's career also went into decline at that stage but not because he had lost his power. In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, he antagonized the establishment by refusing to be conscripted into the U.S. military on the basis of his religious beliefs and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War. Ali was eventually arrested and in June of that year (in a week or so, it will be exactly 50 years ago) he was found guilty of draft evasion charges, sentenced to five years in prison and stripped of his boxing titles. 

Years later, he was exonerated on appeal to the US Supreme Court and it took another three years before he would regain his title in the "Rumble in the Jungle". Ali boxed on until he finally did lose his power and he retired in 1980. 

Meanwhile, the Melbourne Football Club languished, the hard times continued and despite some better days and an intermittent return to finals football, its fortunes again spiralled downwards for the past decade - perhaps, in line with Ali's declining health as he struggled with the effects of Parkinson's Disease?

The Demons are slowly showing signs of recovery but sadly for Ali, it's all over now.

In a few days’ time, he will be laid to his final resting place in his home town of Louisville and fittingly a few days after that, the old football rivalry will continue on the other side of the world. Like Melbourne, Collingwood has also been struggling of late. Times have changed since the glory days of the fifties and sixties when we were kings. Having grown from twelve clubs to eighteen, the competition is intense. It's a jungle out there.

Let's rumble!

THE GAME

Melbourne v Collingwood at MCG Monday 13 June 2016 at 3.20pm (AEST)

HEAD TO HEAD

Overall Melbourne 81 wins Collingwood 146 wins 5 drawn

At the MCG Melbourne 61 wins Collingwood 79 wins 3 drawn

Last Five Meetings Melbourne 2 wins Collingwood 3 wins 

The Coaches: Roos 2 wins Buckley 2 wins

MEDIA

TV Channel 7 Fox Footy Channel (Live at 3.00pm)

Radio Triple M 3AW SEN ABC ABC Grandstand

THE BETTING

Melbourne $1.59 to win Collingwood $2.35 to win

LAST TIME THEY MET

Melbourne 16.6.102 defeated Collingwood 9.13.67 at MCG in Round 4, 2016 

The Demons, inspired by the great ruck/roving partnership of Max Gawn and Jack Viney, shot out to a five goal lead with a pulsating opening quarter and were never really troubled. They went on to win by 35 points 

MELBOURNE

B: Jayden Hunt, Tom McDonald, Neville Jetta
HB: Billy Stretch, Oscar McDonald, Josh Wagner
C: Tomas Bugg, Christian Petracca, Bernie Vince
HF: Jack Trengove, Jack Watts, Aaron vandenBerg
F: Sam Frost, Jesse Hogan, Chris Dawes
FOLL: Max Gawn, Nathan Jones, Dom Tyson
I/C: Ben Kennedy, Dean Kent,  Clayton Oliver Jack Viney
EMG: Jack Grimes, James Harmes, Viv Michie

IN: Ben Kennedy Jack Viney

OUT: Jeff Garlett (omitted) James Harmes (omitted)

COLLINGWOOD

B: Brayden Maynard, Ben Reid, Jeremy Howe
HB: Marley Williams, Jack Frost, Josh Smith
C: Tom Phillips, Adam Treloar, Steele Sidebottom
HF: Jordan deGoey, Jesse White, Travis Varcoe
F: Ben Crocker, Mason Cox, Jarryd Blair
FOLL: Brodie Grundy, Scott Pendlebury, Jack Crisp
I/C:  Levi Greenwood, Jonathon Marsh, Ben Sinclair, Jarrod Witts
EMG: Nathan Brown, Matt Goodyear, Alan Toovey

IN: Jonathon Marsh, Tom Phillips, Marley Williams, Jarrod Witts

OUT: Nathan Brown (omitted), Travis Cloke (omitted), Matt Goodyear (omitted), Adam Oxley (omitted)