Pendles Forever: Six Moments That Made a Legend

Four hundred and thirty-three games. Let that number roll around in your head for a second. Scott Pendlebury runs out on Saturday and every single player in the 125-year history of this great game will be behind him on the list.

I’ve been watching the Pies since I was old enough to bleed black and white, and I’ll tell you this for free — there has never been a Collingwood footballer quite like Scott Pendlebury. Not even close.

A Kid From Shepparton Who Became Collingwood Royalty

Before we get into teh moments, let’s just remember where this bloke came from. Pick five in the 2005 national draft. Collingwood fans had barely heard of him. He wasn’t the highlight-reel kid everyone was talking about that year. He was quiet, slight, a little serious. Nathan Buckley took him under his wing and the rest, as they say, is history.

Twenty years later, Pendlebury has outlasted every contemporary, survived two different coaching regimes, been through a salary cap scandal, back-to-back flags, a heartbreaking premiership drought, and finally another flag in 2023. Through all of it, he was there. Cool, composed, peerless.

Moment One: The 2010 Grand Final Replay

When St Kilda and Collingwood drew the 2010 Grand Final, the football world was gripped. The replay, though — that’s where Pendlebury first announced himself to the entire nation as something truly special.

He finished with 30 disposals in the premiership win, and not empty ones either. Every touch was a decision. Every handball a chess move. He was 22 years old playing a grand final in front of 100,000 people and he looked like he’d done it a thousand times before. That composure in teh biggest of moments? That’s the Pendlebury signature right there.

Moment Two: The Norm Smith Medal, 2011

Back-to-back flags. In the modern era. People forget how extraordinary that was for Collingwood and how central Pendlebury was to it. He won the Norm Smith Medal in 2011 and absolutely deserved every vote.

But here’s what I love about that moment. He didn’t grandstand. No wild celebrations, no posturing. He shook hands, thanked his teammates, and got on with it. That’s the man. The Pies’ second flag in as many years and their captain-in-waiting barely broke a sweat about the individual accolade. The team came first. Always.

Moment Three: The 2013 Brownlow Medal

Now, I know this one stings a little because it came in a year when the Pies had a rough trot — and yes, I reckon the umpires could have paid us a few more free kicks that season, just saying — but Pendlebury winning the Brownlow was a moment of pure football justice.

He polled 25 votes and won comfortably. The counting night had that feeling of inevitability about it. You know when a bloke just looks like a Brownlow medallist? Pendlebury was born to hold that medal. He was the best player in the competition that year, full stop, and the umpires at least got the three-votes decisions right often enough to recognise it.

For Collingwood fans who’d watched him for eight years by that point, it felt like the world had finally caught up to what we already knew.

Moment Four: Leading Through the Dark Years

This one doesn’t have a single game or a trophy attached to it. It’s more important than that.

When the Pies went through their lean stretch post-2011, the years where September felt like a distant dream, Pendlebury stayed. He could have lobbied for a trade. He was a Brownlow medallist in his prime — every club in the competition would have cleared the salary cap for him. He didn’t move. Not once.

He became captain in 2012 and wore that armband through some genuinely difficult seasons. He defended his teammates when they needed defending. He fronted the media when answers were hard to find. He modelled what it meant to be a Collingwood footballer when the points table didn’t agree with you. That loyalty definately means as much to me as any premiership medal.

Moment Five: The 2023 Premiership

Carn the Pies.

I’m sorry, I had to. Because if you’re going to talk about Pendlebury’s legacy you cannot skip past the night those demons were buried and the flag came back to Victoria Park — well, to the MCG, but you know what I mean.

He was 35 years old in that 2023 Grand Final against Brisbane. Thirty-five! Most blokes at that age are doing their hamstring in the Thursday training session and wondering if they should retire. Pendlebury was running at 100 kilometres an hour, winning the contest, setting up goals, and producing the kind of cool-headed performance that had been his calling card for two decades.

The image of him lifting the premiership cup, a full twelve years after his last one, is one I will carry to my grave. The man waited. He worked. And he got his reward. If that’s not a football story worth telling, I don’t know what is.

Moment Six: Right Now, 433 Games and Counting

And here we are. Saturday arrives and Pendlebury jogs through the banner — assuming the banner’s up, Pies can’t always be counted on for that — and makes history that nobody will touch for a very long time.

Think about what 433 games actually means. That’s nearly twenty years of pre-seasons. Twenty years of ice baths and gym sessions and video review and early mornings. Twenty years of being accountable to 85,000 members and a fanbase that does not exactly take its defeats quietly. We don’t. I won’t pretend otherwise.

What makes Pendlebury’s longevity so remarkable isn’t just the fitness — though the man is clearly a genetic marvel — it’s the mental sharpness. He’s still reading the game faster than opponents a decade younger. He’s still finding space in a competition that’s been specifically designed to take space away. He still makes the right decision under pressure when every other option would be forgivable.

What This Record Actually Means

Records in footy are funny things. Some of them are about opportunity as much as excellence. More games, more stats. But Pendlebury’s games record isn’t just about longevity for the sake of it. He hasn’t hung around to pad numbers. Every time he pulls on the black and white guernsey he is still one of the most influential players on the ground.

The comparisons to the greats are inevitable and deserved. When you put Pendlebury next to the pantheon of Collingwood legends — Coventry, Grubb, Buckley, Rocca — he stands tall among every single one of them. And now he stands alone at the top of the all-time games list.

I’ve been asked by a few mates this week what my single favourite Pendlebury memory is. Honestly? I can’t pick one. Every year throws up a new one. That’s the measure of the bloke.

So on Saturday, when the record falls and the crowd rises and the commentators run out of superlatives, just remember — we at Collingwood knew. We knew from the moment that quiet kid from Shepparton started gliding around Princes Park in 2006 that he was different. That he was special. That he was, in every meaningful sense of the word, peerless.

Four hundred and thirty-three games. Here’s to the next one.

Carn the Pies.