Collingwood’s Wheelchair Football League team fighting for another premiership

There’s a constant hum.

Backslapping, laughing, noise. Gone is the grind, making way for the release of nervous energy.

It can be found at any community club in the land that plays finals, but this scene just happens to be Collingwood, often considered the biggest club in Australia.

But it’s not Pendlebury, De Goey and Moore running onto the turf.

It’s Will Crooks, Marty Ford and Trent Hawkins wheeling into Collingwood’s indoor training centre.

Collingwood’s men’s team have a knockout final against Fremantle on Saturday. On Sunday, Collingwood’s wheelchair team are also fighting to keep their premiership dream alive.

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Arnie Razon is a Collingwood veteran, having joined the team in 2019. He’s using the club’s gym before training starts, just as the AFL, AFLW, VFL, VFLW and Super Netball players do.

He chats about his path as he matter of factly removes his prosthetic right leg and gets into his chair, a ritual that’s no different to an able-bodied athlete getting strapped for training.

“When people hear me say I play for Collingwood, they don’t recognise me,” he tells CODE Sports.

“And then I say I play in the wheelchair league and they want to know more.”

Andrew Paddle is the self-confessed social butterfly of the team, he had played footy and cricket as a kid but a car accident left him in a wheelchair. He was at a wheelchair manufacturer, when someone pointed out a chair as an ‘AFL chair’.

“I thought I’d like to have a go at that. I’d played no sport for 20 years, I never found something that was appealing to me,” he says.

When he was introduced to VWFL and Collingwood, Paddle found the passion again.

“I’ve been here ever since, now I train two nights a week and I love it. I’ve still got the AFL skills, but despite 23 years in a wheelchair I don’t have the best wheelchair skills!”

Paddle might be a throwback to a Greg Williams-type player in the AFL. He lacks speed but his handball is creative and accurate.

“The brain and hand skills for footy are still there.”

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The Victorian Wheelchair Football League was officially formed in 2018. The game had been played in various forms for years but the establishment of a peak league gave it a new profile and the backing of the AFL.

Collingwood, along with Hawthorn, Richmond, Essendon and St Kilda, joined with a team. Post-pandemic the league has grown and 2022 has seen a revolution of sorts with a development league established.

Nick Holloway, who looks after the league in his role at the AFL, says all of the other Victorian AFL teams have expressed interest about entering the league and supporting a team to play.

Liz Dunne, the community manager at Collingwood who manages the Pies’ teams, watches training and says the development competition has been a change for the league and its players. Previously there was a difficult balance between catering to the beginners, and those that craved elite competition.

“It’s allowed our players who might be developing their skills or new to the sport to play a full game in the development league, rather than be on the sidelines,” she says.

But there’s no delineation between ‘seniors’ and ‘reserves’ at training. This is one club, where all the players mix and train together whether they have cerebral palsy or are paraplegic, are teammates.

More meaningfully, they have also become mates.

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That ‘one club’ ethos is often on display.

When I visit training, a group of Collingwood’s VFLW squad are completing some training indoors before the wheelchair team take the court at 7pm, and the invitation is extended for a couple of players to grab a chair and join in.

Trent Hawkins gives the girls a crash-course on how to operate the chair and the general rules of the sport which is played on an indoor court.

In wheelchair footy the equivalent to a kick is a handball, while an underhanded throw takes the place of the handball. Players ‘mark’ a handball and goals can only be scored by a handball. Tackling is completed by tagging an opponent who then has a two count to dispose of the ball.

It is a very good replication of the sport we know. The underhand throw is only really possible for short distances which means the Aussie Rules skill of the handball remains the primary attacking weapon.

Chairs are specially designed to be lighter but also create 360 degree movement. They are different to players’ ‘day chairs’ that need to go up stairs and over kerbs.

The VFLW players trying it out are amazed at the skill required to move to the ball, let alone executing ball skills at the same time.

Earlier this year, men’s AFL player Mason Cox joined in training.

“He’s a big boy so he doesn’t really fit into a chair,” Razon laughs. “We were told not to go too hard on him in case we hurt him!”

Speeds the players reach on the chair are impressive, ensuring the game is quick. Will Crooks is Collingwood’s speedster. At training he practises sprinting, stopping, and then turning out with force to change direction just as quickly. In many ways this is just like the movements of an AFL player who sprints to reach a contest, wins the ball and accelerates away.

The ball is very much in play when it hits the ground, it’s up to players to pick it up. Crooks zooms by and picks the ball up in one hand with all the dexterity and power of Anthony Koutoufides at his best. That combined with the speeds result in spills.

In one drill Razon goes flying out of his chair. To the uninitiated it looks disastrous, until he simply rubs his hip and manoeuvres his way back in and wheels back into the action.

In matches this is a regular occurrence that Dunne admits she still struggles to watch for fear of injury, but you sense that the players themselves actually look at these moments with pride.

“It can get fierce,” Razon says.

“Disabled people might be paralysed from the waist down but they can have a massive competitive streak in them.

“I’m one of them.”

They don’t see themselves as fragile and these scrapes are the battle scars to prove it.

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The league itself is run with some strict rules, just like the AFL and AFLW.

Players join a club via being drafted to ensure even talent distribution. An example of this is Marty Ford, Collingwood’s newest player who joined in the mid-season draft this year.

Ford is tall. He played basketball and football in his younger days, you can see he would have been an imposing presence as a centre and ruck in those endeavours.

An injury 10 years ago changed his life, leaving him without use of his legs and arms. Gradually he regained use of his arms and earlier this year he was contacted about entering the VWFL Draft.

“Our captain Ben Jankowski had been at me for a year or so to play, then he rang me up and said, ‘Mate you’ve got to help us out, we‘ve got no bigs’,” he tells CODE Sports.

He entered the draft, and then he was a Collingwood player. Initially it was a strange feeling for the mad Geelong fan, but he immediately felt at home and it helped him recover a love he thought he’d lost.

“I’m super competitive but I’d never gotten involved in playing wheelchair sport. So to be back competing has been so good for me. I should have gotten involved earlier.”

Trent Hawkins had played wheelchair basketball and tennis most of his life, but tried footy when he was drafted by Hawthorn for the first VWFL season. This year he switched to Collingwood.

“By getting the AFL involved and having all the teams, it gives us a sense of belonging,” he says.

“To say ‘I’m a Collingwood player’, it means a lot to us all. This competition has changed a lot of peoples’ lives by making us part of it.”

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Hanging from the ceiling of the training centre are premiership banners, stretching back to 1896 when the Magpies won their first VFA flag before joining the VFL the next year. There’s the famed four consecutive premierships in the 1920s, reserves and under 19 premierships, the drought-breaking 1990 premiership, a VFLW premiership and the first ever Victorian Wheelchair Football League premiership in 2018.

In 2022 Collingwood’s wheelchair team are aiming for back-to-back premierships, but even if they complete that mission, it will be hard to compare with the emotional rollercoaster that was their 2021 premiership.

When talking to the players, many mention Brendan Stroud. He wasn’t just a teammate, he was a friend. A mentor. An inspiration.

Stroud was instrumental in the start up of the league and became the captain-coach of Collingwood. Most of the players were introduced to the league via Stroud.

“Brendan rang me one day to tell me he’d drafted me to Collingwood,” says Paddle.

Stroud took Collingwood to premiership glory in 2018, but in 2020 he was diagnosed with cancer.

Such was his love of the game and his team that he continued to play and coach. He never let on to teammates how bleak his prognosis was. There was a flag to win.

The night before the Grand Final Brendan Stroud lost his fight with cancer. Remarkably, he’d played the previous week.

The team found out the tragic news on the morning of the Grand Final he was to lead them into.

“It was terrible,” Razon says.

“I knew Brendan for four years and he was my mentor. You see someone three or four times a week and you develop a bond and mateship.”

It was only a late decision for the Grand Final to actually go ahead.

“The Collingwood staff came along that morning to make sure we were OK, let alone get on the court.”

The Pies won a nail biting game with old rival Essendon by five points, watched by AFL players Jordan Roughead, Mason Cox and Steele Sidebottom.

“We won on pure adrenaline and emotion,” Razon says.

Paddle says it was a day like no other, that Stroud would have taken immense pride in.

“It was a very tough day, but one of the greatest things to be a part of, to overcome it all. It was an amazing day,” Paddle says.

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Midway through training the players huddle and discuss the weekend’s tactics and prospects.

They take on St Kilda at Boroondara Sports Complex in Balwyn North on Sunday in an elimination semi final and if they get through that, they’ll play the winner of Essendon v Hawthorn later in the day.

Top of the ladder Richmond awaits the following Sunday in the grand final for whoever reigns supreme this week. Can Collingwood compete with them if they get there?

“Richmond are the team to beat,” Paddle says.

“But we drew with them earlier in the year, so our best footy is up there, as long as we play our best, fingers crossed.”

While the public attention of the Collingwood Football Club’s legion of fans this week is focused on its men’s final against Fremantle, inside the club the commitment to all its teams is genuine.

“For over 100 years, Collingwood encompassed only men’s football teams,” Collingwood CEO Mark Anderson tells CODE Sports.

“We are proud that today we are a more diverse and inclusive club with eight teams who represent the Magpies.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, you can aspire to play for Collingwood.”

The connection with the wheelchair-bound community is deep at Collingwood. One of Collingwood’s most legendary families are the Roses.

Bob was one of its greatest ever players and coaches, his son Robert had played VFL football for Collingwood and Footscray and had shown even more promise in a burgeoning state cricket career.

A car accident left him a quadriplegic the week after his 22nd birthday, having a lasting effect on the club.

“Since 1999 we’ve supported the Robert Rose Foundation for people living with spinal cord injuries,” says Anderson.

“Our wheelchair team is in some ways an extension of that commitment and a further tribute to the Rose family for the indelible mark they left on our club and the broader Melbourne community.”

That support is not lost on the players that will wear the black and white this weekend, indoors.

“It’s the most famous club in Australia,” says Razon.

“And I can’t express how much that it’s a family-oriented club. The support we’ve received is fantastic.”

The effect of becoming a fully fledged Magpie has even resulted in Paddle doing the unthinkable.

“I was a Richmond supporter but now I find myself supporting the Collingwood AFL team.

“They’ve indoctrinated me,” he laughs.