The Yarra Hotel in Johnston Street, Abbotsford, is one of several pubs to be linked with the history of the Collingwood Football Club. Others include the Retreat Hotel, the Yorkshire Stingo and the Friendly Societies Hotel, now known as the Carringbush. Only the Yarra Hotel, however, served as the Magpies' change rooms.

Before the club's first match, in May, 1892, players changed at the back of the Yarra Hotel before jogging across Johnston Street and making their way on to the field at Victoria Park. This practice continued for a month, after which a timber grandstand was completed at the ground. Players then changed in the training room beneath the grandstand.

While the drinkers in the public bar of the Yarra Hotel no doubt missed the sight of footballers jogging out the door, the pub remained a Magpie stronghold. In the years leading up to the new century, when the football club tried to make money by leasing liquor booths around the ground. The plan failed when supporters preferred to drink at the pub, ducking off to Johnston Street at half-time.

Mahon was a robust key defender, playing 60 games from 1961 to '65, while his father Jack was a robust publican. With Jack Mahon behind the bar, no one would be served without a singlet on his back and no food was allowed in the bar, not even a sandwich.

Danny Slattery, the son of a local publican, who ingested the folklore surrounding Collingwood and Fitzroy pubs from an early age, said Jack Mahon's insistence on a few rules was unusual.

"Some of the pubs were pretty rough," he said, remembering occasions when he crossed the street to avoid going too close to the Retreat Hotel.

In the 1970s, the family of another Collingwood player, in this case John Dellamarta, took over the Yarra Hotel. By then, the abandonment of early closing stemmed the brawls that erupted when drinkers were kicked into the street on the stroke of six o'clock, but a fight could still be found if you wanted one.

Robin Grow, a retired public servant and a respected authority on the history of Australian football, spent more than 30 years going to Collingwood matches at Victoria Park. He said it was not unknown for the fans of opposition clubs to be challenged along Johnston Street.

"To leave Victoria Park after a game could be reasonably dangerous," he said.

In the late 19th century, the area around Victoria Park was home to boot factories, breweries and tanneries.

"There was very much a district pride," Grow said.

The fans at Victoria Park looked after each other. In the event of an altercation, though, tempers were quick to rise. Grow remembered occasions in the outer in the 1960s and '70s when a space would suddenly clear to reveal knots of men belting into each other.

The mood occasionally continued in the pubs around Victoria Park after the siren. Marion Trovato, who with her husband Con has run the Yarra Hotel since 1991, said there was a sense of danger in the bar after Collingwood games. "You were always on edge," she said, adding that St Kilda supporters were the wildest opposition fans.

Trovato said she was slightly relieved when the club moved its home games to the MCG after receiving a drubbing from the Brisbane Lions in the final round in 1999.

Since then, Magpie fans have had no occasion to goad opposition supporters on Johnston Street or walk on bonnets of cars that stop at traffic lights.

But if Collingwood wins today, expect to see a little history revisited. The streets around Victoria Park, which was renamed Jock McHale Stadium during the 2000 season, are sure to thrum with the passion that terrified opposition fans and fired the souls of the black and white army.