OF THE many events that will be staged and celebrated in this milestone year for football, few will be better or more meaningful than a dinner at the MCG last Monday night.

It was the 50th anniversary reunion of Collingwood's 1958 premiership team. This was a rare gathering of the men who pulled off perhaps the greatest upset in football history and thus maintained their club's proudest record by denying Melbourne a fourth-straight flag.

Somewhat against the odds, given that it all happened half a century ago, 18 of the heroic 20 are alive, and 17 of them were back at the MCG one more time. Ray Gabelich and Barry Harrison are the two deceased and were represented by their widows, Gwen and Serena respectively. Also present were a number of other members of Collingwood's 1958 list, including the captain, Frank Tuck, who missed the grand final because of injury.

There are good reasons why that 1958 game lives on as such a rich piece of football history.

Apart from the preservation of Collingwood's record four straight premierships, there is also the issue of the drought endured by the Magpies in the years that followed. For decades, this flag was something to cling to. For Collingwood fans born after the late 1940s, too young to remember 1953, it was all they had.

How special it remains at Collingwood was made clear by the night's grand gesture. Club president Eddie McGuire wasn't able to attend due to a trip to the US but, before departure, had recorded an address for the occasion. It contained a surprise: Collingwood life membership would be bestowed upon the nine members of the famous team who hadn't already qualified for it under the club's rules. The delight this produced among the beneficiaries was impressive in its humility.

Naturally, the old stories were retold. As the murky, black-and-white footage of the famous game appeared on big screens, an approving roar erupted when Bill Serong flattened Melbourne's Ian Ridley. Thorold Merrett, winner of the Copeland Trophy that year, told of how inspired he had been by the pre-match oratory of coach Phonse Kyne, who warned his players of the shame they would inflict on their club, and even their families, should they lose.

Heaven knows what Scott Burns, and a handful of his present-day teammates who attended the dinner, would have thought of this application of the emotional blowtorch. In these days of studious avoidance of over-arousal, it would probably be seen as blundering amateurism. For Merrett and many of his teammates, though, it worked. So did the coach's half-time observation to his acting captain, Murray Weideman, after a second-quarter revival: "I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it."

While Weideman remains the charismatic star, this group obviously was, and remains, a team. Brian Dorman, who missed the grand final through injury, says they were "as good 50 years ago as mates as they are now". Today, Dorman trains horses in Berrigan and he travelled to Melbourne for the event via Corowa, where he picked up Frank Tuck, and Wodonga, where John Henderson came on board, and with wives alongside them they made the trip in Dorman's seven-seater.

Tuck, although among the unluckiest footballers in history, spoke on the night without a trace of personal disappointment at his misfortune. In 1953, suspension had cost him a place in Collingwood's premiership team; in '58, when captain, he was ruled out with a thigh injury. In his continuing dignity and stoicism, Tuck is described by Dorman as "better than me".

Among a group of mellow and dignified, yet proud men, perhaps the most interesting in terms of life after football is Ken Bennett.

He is the pint-sized, crew-cut, blond apparently standing up to Big Bob Johnson in a famous photo from the game that portrays the intensity of the day. Then only 18, Bennett drily says his assertiveness in that moment came from the fact that "Weed" was standing nearby.

After football, Bennett became involved in politics and rose to the position of assistant national secretary of the ALP.

He now lives in the Aboriginal community of Wadeye, south-west of Darwin, and has committed himself to improving the circumstances of indigenous people in that desperately under-resourced, under-privileged part of Australia. He does this in honour of his late wife — the Elaine Bennett Scholarship fund is her legacy.

Finally, as the evening wore on — and for anyone old enough to have a memory of the 1958 grand final, it was growing late — there was a conversation with Tasmanian Lerrel Sharp.

Sharp had come to Melbourne from Scottsdale as an 18-year-old in 1953 and played in a premiership in his debut season. Although injury denied him another in 1958, he was part of the team that year and wasn't going to miss this night. As well as the obvious reasons, like simply reliving it one more time, Sharp pointed out that these boys of '58 would probably never all be together again. They were, in a sense, he said, saying their goodbyes.