Vale Peter Alan Collins
02 July 1951 - 26 July 2020
Camberwell Hockey Club Life Member (1997)
Camberwell Hockey Club Members and Supporters are profoundly saddened at the news of Peter Collins (PC’) passing at home on Sunday 26 July. PC was a true “Weller” – A Life Member of the club since 1997, with decades of involvement with the club, a dedicated servant, great friend and contributor. BBQs will never be the same on a Thursday night.
Our deepest sympathies are extended to wife Jill, daughter Bec, son Shane and daughter-in-law Karen. PC will be sadly missed.
GROWING UP
PC was born in Blackwood South Australia to Mary and Greg Collins. After his service in World War II, Greg worked as a salesman with Lincoln Mills and Mary had worked as a Commonwealth Postmaster General's Department (PMG) telephonist. He was the oldest child of three with his sister Margaret born in 1955 and brother Rob in 1962.
PC attended Blackwood Kindergarten, Primary and Secondary schools and developed an early passion for all things cars and mechanical engineering. A reluctant student, PC often scaled the school fence and wandered to the local garage or train station to watch and learn about car servicing and heavy engineering.
A Holden fanatic, PC closely followed motor sport with Bathurst being an annual favourite. A 2005 breakfast function for the late Peter Brock's sixtieth birthday was a highlight with PC meeting and chatting with the champion driver. Later in life coming to Matlock, PC would roar down Mailing Road in a hotted-up V8 Torana - imagine some of our neighbours' reactions to that in 2020!
PC's dad Greg played State League hockey in South Australia with the Blackwood Hockey Club, winning the Advertiser Trophy one year as Best & Fairest in the competition. With an early influence watching our sport, PC began playing himself at a young age and would relentlessly practice in the backyard bouncing the ball off the back wall.
MOVING TO MELBOURNE
In 1969, the Collins family moved from Blackwood and moved to Melbourne. PC as an older teenager was reluctant and for many years drive back to South Australia on weekends and holidays to visit friends.
During these trips PC met Jill, his future wife. Jill had two teenaged children Shane and Bec who all moved over to Melbourne making PC a devoted husband and father. Prioritising his family life, PC was known to embark on an array of home maintenance and improvements and developed a love for the iconic family focus of the backyard barbecue.
PC had surprised his family and friends by embarking on a career not in mechanics or engineering but in jewellery design and making. He continued his work and training joining Pearlberg Jewellers in Melbourne before setting out on his own in the Manchester Unity Building, a Marcus Barlow designed Gothic Art Deco masterpiece appropriately located in Collins Street.
He produced wedding rings for John Darcy-Evans who fondly recalls not only his unusual playing style, service as a manager and prowess on the BBQ, but his genuine love and interest in families and the welfare of our members.
That care and attention never waned. David Wansbrough also recalls PC helping the less celebrated players enjoy their game of hockey each week and the care and attention he gave to Tim Wansbrough. Julia Patterson, often Canteen Team Leader for those great Thursday nights remembers PC collecting his reserved bottle of red, cooking her a steak sandwich for dinner and staying behind however late until she'd packed up and safely left for home.
With his trade background PC was fanatical about the engraving quality on our trophies. On those odd occasions when Waverley and Hawthorn actually won the Bert Batch Cup or the Thornton-Hodder Cup against Camberwell, it seemed that they went down to the local Mister Mint to get the engraving done, and PC would spit chips. Bloody Cheapskates! He would take the plates of the trophies and get them re-done properly to his high standards. In the end he had a notice on them asking for the trophies to be returned to him for engraving. He also updated some HV trophies. In fact, some of the trophies of the other sections of the Club were also re-done if he saw engraving which was not up to his high standards.
Let's honour PC by keeping up these standards.
PC continued in this business until he retired in the early 2000's due to deteriorating eyesight caused by diabetes, passing on the business to his long time staff member Gale Penny.
running goal repairs
HOCKEY LIFE
On arriving in Melbourne one of PC's first actions was to find a hockey club and he thankfully settled on Camberwell. He was from that time always thinking about the club. He often put his hand in his pocket to support young players going to Australian championships and was devastated if any of the beneficiaries subsequently left Camberwell to play elsewhere.
He was known to hold weekend drinks and nibbles nights in the rear bungalow of his parents' house in Laburnum; mulling over the hockey events of the week with characters including Warren Patterson and the late Wayne Thornton. Paul Dixon, lamenting his inability to watch a Kookaburras World Cup final on pay TV recalls PC handing him a piece of paper with his address scribbled on it, “knock on the backdoor at 1.00am tomorrow morning and we will watch it together” he said.
As a player, PC was captain of our lowest graded team christened the Z4's by club champion Keith Thornton. Passionately working to improve the team's prospects, PC engineered somewhat of a coup one Thursday training night by persuading retired elite players Rob and Wally Dalton to join the team and demanded selectors Ron Yeates and Pete Ridland field them only in that team.
A twelve year old Paul Dixon recalls PC finding a junior to fill in and finding himself alongside PC as full back at Cherry Road. Younger members may not remember the venue, on grass next to Balwyn Football Club. Peter Ridland explains:
It was a very favoured spot for the people who walked their dogs. But sadly, this was before the time when picking up after your dogs was mandatory. The other problem with the ground was the cricket pitch. The Council always put a large heap of sand over it. Usually about 3 or 4 inches over it to make a sand trap on the hockey ground. It was a good reason to avoid the infamous "cabbage patch" and work things down the right wing in true Camberwell fashion.
But despite all that, we played many games there. PC used to play with one of Jay's old sticks. I have to say that he did not quite use it as well as Jay but then again, no-one else in the Club could as well! But at Cherry Road, where the tufts of grass would tee up the ball, PC used to love to lay into it as hard as could with one of these fearsome weapons that Jay had given him.
Dicko recalls PC"s prowess as a player on that bumpy grass:
PC had one of the best hand eye coordination that I have seen from a person playing on grass and many times wouldn’t bother trapping a ball, he would just “swing first and ask questions later”.
Penalty corners were a favourite of his, L1 on the circle was his position and when the ball was pushed out to him we all knew there was no layoff coming so we just stepped back to watch the carnage unfold. This corner option I believe was the forerunner of the modern day variation call BFT (blunt force trauma).
His further recollection of PC as captain coach perhaps a little less of a surprise but quintessential PC:
PC as a captain / coach demanded a strict and regimented game day preparation warm-up starting no later than 30 minutes before a game. However we all learned early on that PC had his own unique warm-up regiment.
Whilst we were running laps and hitting and trapping PC would be sitting in his car at the top of the hill listening to the football and exactly 5 minutes before the game was due to start (not one minute earlier, nor one minute later) you would see the boot of his car pop open and a hand reach inside to extract the footballs boots and stick and then he would stroll down to our team huddle always wearing his moccasins and with out breaking stride slip them off and transition into his football boots and step on as the game started ready to go.
During a 1987 finals match against another Camberwell team, Dicko explains what may have been the final straw in his love / hate relationship with our games umpires:
With not long to go PC pulled off a blinder of a short corner save on the goal line and cleared it to the sideline with a cracking hit (because as all that played with PC know in games he used pushes with about the same frequency that you see him with vegetables and or salad on his plate), the umpire who was a portly older guy copped it full blood in the shin and it rebounded from there back into our defensive goal for what turned out to be the match winning goal.
Well, PC concerned about the negative impact this had upon us put forward an eloquent argument to the umpire relating to his lack of mobility to no avail and they both decided a good sit down behind the goals was warranted.
Later as an enthusiastic member of the Vets, Pete Ridland recalls a PC administrative error:
PC also played Vets back in the days when we only had the one side and sometimes numbers were quite low. In his enthusiasm, he actually changed his birth year on HV records from 1951 to 1948. I don't think many of his opponents actually noticed or were concerned that there was a younger man running around. PC would play as kicking back whenever we did not have a goalie (which was not uncommon).
PC held many roles in the club. He was club secretary, manager to many teams and worked as our grounds and canteen manager for many years. He was known to source and procure goods and services for the club, cooking a BBQ and red wine lunch each time TEM player and club electrician Keith Needham arrived to repair the ground lights - ensuring forever prompt service!
He adored our State League group over the years and of-course literally wore his heart on his sleeve with the club crest and premiership years proudly tattooed on his forearm. Hamish Ridland remembers him as the 1's number one fan and Pete Ridland recalls:
What he really liked was State League. He loved looking after them. He always had spare socks. He always found their lost uniforms and Wansy's misplaced suits and shoes after training.
He always had plenty of red frogs on hand, possibly subsidised by the canteen. He loved looking after the spa where he ferried in cans of beer after wins (and losses) to his beloved players.
PC was famous for running the barbecue but was not a fan at all of the new electric stainless hotplate which perhaps tended to dry out those snags a little. Terry Ryan recalls:
He became justifiably famous in our club, and others, for running the PC BBQ over many years, for game days & Thursday training nights at our club; as well as beside the Yarra river during pre season trainings; and other places. It is true that other clubs envied us with our PC.
He could murder a sausage better than anyone else I know, but he would also do bacon & eggs, burgers, steaks and shaslicks to order.
You can tell from all of this, that outside of his love of his family, CHC was quite central to Peter’s life and he spent countless hours, year round, at Matlock Park doing all of the things he regarded as being necessary for the Club’s well being. He only took holidays when hockey was not fixtured and being played.
Whilst he at times struggled with the growing size and necessary professionalism of the club; that loss of the intimacy enjoyed in those early days in the east side clubrooms shed (now the dugouts) PC was immensely proud of the club, its growth and its successes. We are all in turn immensely proud of PC, a man of trust, loyalty, kindness, caring and selflessness.
Rest in Peace PC we are poorer for your passing and will miss you always.
These memories were compiled with contributions from many including Peter Ridland, Paul Dixon, Julia Patterson, Terry Ryan, David Wansbrough, Hamish Ridland, John Darcy-Evans, Mike Bourne and Warren Patterson. Thank you everyone and please excuse any errors or omissions which are mine.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
We are working on a podcast tribute to PC and we need your help. We want to gather your thoughts, anecdotes and memories to include in a special episode.
You can record a message directly from the page below using a Chrome, Firefox or Edge browser; or simply use the voice recording app on your phone and email the clip to the comms group. If you’d like to do a longer piece on air please email the Comms Group. comms@camberwellhockeyclub.com.au