An interesting ANZAC day article by Martin Flanagan that addresses the context

View this article in full at Real Footy by The Age.

Next weekend is the Anzac round, its highlight being Essendon and Collingwood playing at the G. Among his many ideas, this stands as one of Kevin Sheedy’s most successful (and certainly better than telling the Tigers’ faithful they had the team to win a premiership this year).

One of my brothers has a painting by Martin Tighe of two footballers, one Essendon, one Collingwood, playing it out on the MCG. The players in the painting don’t look like modern footballers. They look like Essendon players of John Coleman and Dick Reynolds’ time and Collingwood players of Lou Richards and Albert Collier’s time. They’re sort of eternal figures in terms of their clubs. Round the ground, where advertising banners customarily hang, are place-names like Gallipoli, Villers Bretonneux and Kokoda each written in a vivid, distinctive way as if to remind us each battle has a character entirely its own...