Happy 70th Birthday to Ian Collins today!
From the Blueseum:
Career : 1961 – 1971
Debut : Round 1, 1961 vs St Kilda, aged 18 years, 173 days
Carlton Player No. 737
Games : 161
Goals : 49
Last Game : Round 22, 1971 vs Collingwood, aged 28 years, 308 days
Guernsey No. 19
Height : 175 cm ( 5 ft. 9 in.)
Weight : 73.5 kg (11 stone, 8 lbs.)
DOB : 24 October, 1942
Premiership Player 1968
Carlton Hall of Fame (2001)
President: 2003 – 2006
A courageous, uncompromising back pocket in the Blues’ 1968 Premiership team, Ian Collins went on to serve as Secretary-Manager and President through some of Carlton Football Club’s most successful, and later, most turbulent times.
After rejecting overtures from St Kilda and Melbourne, Collins arrived at Princes Park in 1960. He was widely regarded as a ready-made league footballer following an impressive junior career at his home town of Sale in Gippsland, from where he had starred in various representative teams as a quick and skilful centreman or half-forward flanker. At 175 cm and 74 kg he struggled at first to cement a regular place in a team not short of smaller, pacey types, until he was tried as a back pocket in his second year. Almost immediately, he made the last line his territory, and began forging a reputation as a courageous and difficult opponent in the number 19 guernsey.
In 1962 Carlton made the finals after many years in the football wilderness, and played Geelong in the Preliminary Final for the right to meet Essendon for the flag. In a willing, sometimes spiteful encounter, Collins suffered a broken jaw and a split tongue. Carlton won the match, so Collins was determined he would be playing the following week. Somehow, he managed to conceal the severity of the injury, and was far from our worst performer. Essendon, however proved too good.
Six years on, Carlton met the Bombers again for the 1968 Premiership, and turned the tables to claim our first flag in 21 seasons. Collins was solid as always on a great day when wingman Garry Crane was the Blues’ best in a hard-fought three point win. Alongside Collins at full-back as usual was Wes Lofts, and the duo were a daunting proposition. Later, Lofts served as the Blues’ Chairman of Selectors for many years, and he and Collins forged a strong partnership at board level.
Collins might well have collected a second Premiership medal if he had not suffered a serious achilles tendon tear that cost him the entire 1970 football season. While it was a severe blow to his sporting aspirations, the forced holiday did have an upside, in that “Collo” was at least able to complete his tertiary studies in accountancy. The skills he acquired were to prove more than handy when he announced his retirement from league football following the 1971 final series. He was 29, with 161 games and 49 goals to his credit. He spent the following season of 1972 as captain-coach of VFA club Port Melbourne (where one of his players was his former coach at Carlton, Ron Barassi), then hung up his boots for good to prepare for bigger things.