VFL grand final

Ahead of this year's final on Saturday, Jonathan Horn looks back over 50 years of VFL and AFL to pick the most memorable, heartbreaking and exciting games.

I was 11, and caught in the spell of Ablett and Brereton. Ablett, author Andrew Mueller wrote, “was like an escaper from the yarns of Henry Lawson – the sort of peculiar, irascible warlock you hear of in fairytales and ballads, not see on a football field, or anywhere in real life.” “But the result was never really in doubt” they’ll say. And in one of the most clutch moments in the history of the game, Dom Sheed executed the perfect football kick. Collingwood was 27 points up, and the footy writer Rohan Connolly remembers a Magpie fan in the outer popping the cork on a bottle of champagne (there was a one slab, two bottle limit in those days). This game had the lot – momentum shifts, unlikely cameos and a last-minute sealer. “It was the awakening of this sleeping giant.” A very credible case could be made that this was the best grand final of all. Later, North coach Ron Barassi gathered his players and their partners in the rooms. “I’ve always felt the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in football was when Leon Baker kicked that first goal in the last quarter,” Terry Wallace said years later. This game often gets relegated in these type of lists, partly because of the Meat Loaf debacle, but mainly because it blew out in the final term. A very drunk uncle rose from the couch at home – “BURY HIM!” he boomed.