'Doc' and Paddy stood side by side

Former Collingwood footballers Malcolm "Doc" Seddon (left) and Paddy Rowan. Source: Supplied

IT was 1915 and in the strongest of Collingwood traditions, teammates Malcolm "Doc" Seddon and Paddy Rowan pledged to stand side by side as they prepared to be shipped off to fight in World War 1.

They had become best mates after meeting four years earlier when they arrived at Victoria Park as first-year players.

And they were still playing for the Magpies during their army training.

In fact, they were sent on a 16km training march on the morning of the 1915 Grand Final, despite both having been selected for the afternoon's game against Carlton.

It was suggested the order came from their superior, who followed the Blues.

Carlton won by 33 points.

For Rowan, whose real name was Percy Rowe, it was to be his last game for Collingwood.

Rowe was killed in France in December 1916, when a piece of shrapnel pierced his body.

He had taken his pseudonym presumably because he was still tied to South Bendigo Football Club.

He had boxed under the name Paddy Rowan to keep his fighting career a secret from his mother.

In an extraordinary twist, it was Seddon who introduced a childhood friend, Louise Newby, to Rowe and the pair fell in love, marrying just before the two mates left for foreign shores shortly after the Grand Final.

Seddon survived the war and, feeling a great sense of responsibility for his fallen friend, returned to Australia determined to help Louise and look after her and Rowe's baby boy, Percy Jr, whom Rowe never saw.

In a strange set of circumstances, Louise had been Seddon's girlfriend, and eventually the pair fell in love, married in 1923 and had two children of their own.

After serving in the army for three years, Seddon resumed his career with the Magpies in 1919 and played in the premiership that year.

He had notched 102 games and 56 goals by the end of his last season in 1921.

He represented Victoria in 1920 and later served the Magpies as a selector and committeeman and was a life member.

The big ruckman had survived after being gassed on the front.

The Anzac spirit will never be forgotten at Collingwood and it's not just because the club lost players, officials and supporters to war.

In 1917, Seddon sent club secretary Ern Copeland a horseshoe that had been fashioned from "the driving band of a German 15-inch shell" which he had found on the battlefield of Bapaume in northern France.

The nails were made from pieces of a German aeroplane the Australians had shot down over the Somme.

Corporal Seddon wrote to Copeland: "I hope that this shoe will bring the boys to the top of the tree this year."

It brought the luck Seddon was hoping for with the Magpies winning the 1917 premiership.

Magpies president Eddie McGuire with the famous horse shoe.. Picture: Fiona Hamilton Source: Herald Sun

Each year Collingwood president Eddie McGuire takes the horseshoe to the Anzac Day clash, not that the players or anyone else have to be reminded about the significance of the day.

"I take it down and show the boys," McGuire said yesterday.

"If it's our home game, I also take it into the president's lunch and show everyone and tell them about Doc Seddon and Percy Rowe because it's just such a wonderful story."

Seddon also sent another horseshoe to his family, who have since donated it to Collingwood.

A famous Anzac biscuit, which he sent home from Egypt in 1915, has a Collingwood football drawn on it, with writing that says: "What I am training on."

Collingwood's Anzac display in the foyer of its Westpac Centre headquarters also contains a piece of shrapnel from a German Zeppelin airship shot down near London in 1916 and sent to the club from the Western Front by Dan Minogue, who was Magpies captain from 1914-16.

McGuire said today was poignant for everyone to remember the grandparents or great grandparents they never met.
 

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