Mark Knight’s Collingwood cartoon puts Pies fans party bus to finals

AFL footy finals are here and in a classic showdown to start last weekend, Collingwood had to travel to Adelaide to face the minor premiers in the Crows. The Crows have been on fire this year and the home crowd at Adelaide Oval always lets the visiting team know that they are a long way from home and in enemy territory. The other big factor in the game was that the Pies had been down on form and had lost a string of games leading up to the finals. Their captain, Darcy Moore, was not playing like the leader he usually is. The Crows were tipped to win.

Being the Australian Football League (AFL), finals are played all over the country, and as we have just been talking about, the Adelaide game meant Collingwood supporters had to travel to South Australia. You would think the easiest way to get there would be to fly, but don’t expect Australian domestic airlines to help or make it that easy. Airline ticket prices from Melbourne to Adelaide suddenly skyrocketed*. Surprise, surprise. So most of the Black and White Army* had to get in their Commodores and do the eight hour drive to the City of Churches.

Road trips are fun, but there’s only so many times you can sing “Good ol’ Collingwood forever”. Coaches were organised to bus supporters in. This caught my attention and I thought it would make a good post-game cartoon. If Collingwood lost it would be the toughest eight hours ever sitting on a bus back to Melbourne! But what if they won?

As it turned out, the Pies did win and they won well! That meant they went straight into a preliminary final with a week off. The excitement was palpable*. Collingwood supporters were jubilant* in the stands with huge toothless smiles, the coach Craig McCrae fist-pumping on the sidelines as the siren went. When the players came into the change rooms to sing the club song, the circle was not just the 21 players but coaches, assistants, club admin, girlfriends, wives and kids, probably even distant relatives joined in to belt out the anthem. That only happens when you win a grand final. So the win clearly meant a lot.

Watching all this and thinking about my cartoon on the win, I wondered what the mood would be like on the bus ride back to Melbourne. So I started sketching a stretch of the Great Western Highway. A road sign with distances to towns and Adelaide would help the viewer imagine where the bus was on the trip home. I decided to use an older “Greyhound bus” style coach, something a little bit rough, like Pies supporters. I needed to illustrate how excited fans were. I borrowed from one of Australia’s most famous buses and that was “Priscilla” from the 1994 movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, with its roof adorned with a huge high heel stiletto and a 30 metre trailing silver cape.

For the Collingwood bus, I changed it to a footy boot and a Collingwood scarf. On the front of the bus is the poor Adelaide crow mascot, looking like it had been hit by, well, a bus. I added Pies supporters hanging out the windows, more toothless grins, empty beverage containers being flung and a party atmosphere. But had they just won the grand final rather than a first final? No. I was reminded of that old football axiom* about celebrating too early. It is bad luck to go to the early crow and you will hear coaches telling players and the like to “Keep a lid on it, you haven’t won it yet. Don’t put the mockers on us!”

And so I had the unfortunate bus driver deliver a note of caution to the elated* passengers aboard the Collingwood Express when they were 429 kilometres into their 726 kilometre journey home by quietly telling them to keep a lid on things if possible.

Judging by the buoyant mood, I reckon they could quite comfortably sing “Good ol’ Collingwood forever” for the entire eight hour journey home. That poor bus driver.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• skyrocketed: rose extremely quickly at an unusually fast rate
• Black and White Army: the name given to Collingwood’s loyal supporters
• palpable: so obvious that it can easily be seen, felt or known
• jubilant: feeling or expressing great happiness, especially because of a success
• axiom: a statement or principle that is generally accepted to be true
• elated: extremely happy and excited

EXTRA READING

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Tourette’s teen makes AFL history

QUICK QUIZ

1. Who did Collingwood defeat to make it to the preliminary final?
2. From which classic film did Mark Knight take some inspiration for his cartoon?
3. Who is the coach of the Magpies?
4. What was unusual about the Collingwood change rooms scenes after the win in Adelaide?
5. Pies supporters have a nickname – what are they called?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Draw a Crows cartoon

Draw a cartoon that shows what defeated Crows fans might think about Mark’s cartoon.

Time: allow at least 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Communication Design

2. Extension
Imagine that Kids News has asked you to write a short article explaining the cartoon that you have drawn for Activity One, just like Mark has done for today’s story. Write the article. Your purpose is to help other kids understand your ideas and the choices that you made when you created your cartoon.

Time: allow at least 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts

VCOP ACTIVITY
What happens next?
Imagine this story is part of an animated series made up of three cartoons. The three cartoons tell the complete story and this article is only Part One. Think about what the rest of the story could be and draw the next two cartoons that tell the story.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts, Visual Communication Design, Critical and Creative Thinking