CARLTON and Essendon will lock horns at the MCG again tonight in a clash that never fails to produce upsets, controversy and drama, not to mention inevitably pulling a huge crowd.

It's a rivalry now branded officially with the presentation to the winning side of a perpetual trophy, the Madden Cup.

Simon Madden is acknowledged as one of the best ruckmen league football, his career spanning 19 seasons and 378 games, and producing four club best-and-fairest awards and two premierships. His younger brother Justin, a State Government minister, began with the Bombers but became a life member at Carlton, also finishing with more than 300 games, two best-and-fairests and a couple of premiership medallions.

It's some legacy. But when the Blues and Bombers battle it out tonight, for the feted brothers, there will be more than a tinge of sadness. Sadness that arguably the most important Madden of them all won't be there to see it.

As football matriarchs go, few, if any, loom larger than Thelma Madden, who died on February 5 from cancer, aged 80. Her funeral, at St Therese's in Essendon, was attended by more than 400 people, who packed the church, then flowed well beyond the doors.

The crowd, which included a who's who of the Carlton and Essendon Football Clubs, heard an amazing story of a mother's loyalty and devotion to sons Paul, Simon and Justin, whom for much of their childhoods, Thelma had reared as a single parent.

When Bill Madden, an ex-serviceman, died of a heart attack in the backyard of the family home in Airport West in 1971, eldest son Paul was just 14, Simon 13 and Justin nine.

It was another crushing blow to a still-youthful woman who had already known her share of hardship. Not for the first time, however, Thelma simply picked herself up and soldiered on with the business of bringing up three boisterous and demanding boys, the rewards always obvious in the pride she took from their accomplishments.

"She loved the idea that two of her sons had a cup named after them. She was very proud of that," Simon Madden reflected this week. The genial, self-deprecating former Bomber champion also knows that it's a trophy that could just as easily be named after his mum.

"We got unconditional love from her, and that's always a good basis for a family," he says. "She just pushed us to make sure we did well, and when I say push, I mean strongly encourage.

"She wasn't one of those mad football parents that belt you in the head with football all the time, but she thought if something was worth doing, it was worth doing well. I can always remember as a youngster making a blue and saying, 'You never make mistakes, Mum', and she'd say, 'Everyone makes mistakes, you've just got to keep going'.

"We were a pretty working class family. Dad was an ex-serviceman, and they were always working, trying to get enough money to make sure they paid off the house and fed us. Every now and then, the numbers got a bit tight, but she made sure we were always looked after.

"She didn't drive, Dad used to drive us everywhere, and when he died, she decided she was going to get her licence.

"It took forever, I think she failed the test at least a half-dozen times, but she just kept going at it till she got it, so I think that perseverance was something that came through in us, too."

At the age of 10, her sister had contracted polio, and her father suffered the first of several heart attacks that would leave him unable to maintain a full-time job.

At 12, Thelma worked part-time at a local crayon manufacturing company, after lying about her age to help support her family. By 14, she had been forced to leave school and work full-time. Her father died a year later, aged 46, having spent the last period of his life in a convalescence hospital.

Eldest son Paul spoke at her funeral of his mother's early life. "While researching Thel's life BC (or before children), I realised that there was so much that I didn't know about her, but discovering all this information reinforced what I already knew — that she was an strong and extraordinary woman who lived through hard times, but loved life and the people that she met along her life's journey," he said.

Thelma was still a teenager when she had met her future husband, and it was more than 10 years before she was persuaded to marry him. Paul was born while the couple lived in Bill's East St Kilda flat. They shifted briefly to Footscray, then to Thelma's mother's house in West Brunswick, where Simon was born.

After much work and saving, they were able to afford a home of their own in Airport West. "Thel always impressed on her three sons the importance of owning your own house and a good education, two things that she had struggled to achieve," Paul remarked at the funeral.

Airport West was where the Madden football dynasty would be groomed, back then a very newly-developed area, one, recalls Simon, full of "dirt roads, no sewerage, open drains, little infrastructure and a rattling bus that was started with a sixpence".

But it also spawned the St Christopher's school where the boys took their first footballing steps, and a school community in which their mother would immerse herself.

"Like many others, she was prepared to do what was needed," Simon recalled at the funeral. "At one stage, she even looked after a class of kids when the school was short a teacher for a while. I remember, because it was my class. It's rather strange putting your hand up and calling out 'Mum, mum!' when all the other kids are calling 'Miss, Miss'!"

After Bill died, Thelma worked in many part-time and full-time jobs to ensure her children were provided for. There was the Moonee Valley racecourse tote, the post office, Diners Club, Caterpillar and as a receptionist-cum-unofficial counsellor for a series of doctors. "With her confidence, her smile and her bright white uniform, patients saw her more as the head nurse than the receptionist. I'm sure she was diagnosing problems and suggesting solutions and remedies before they went in to see the doctor," Simon quipped.

Sport, mainly football, remained a constant in the Madden household. Thelma patiently endured a steady stream of windows broken in the regular backyard kick-to-kick sessions, six at once during one particularly accident-prone period. She'd escort the boys home from their junior football games on the muddy ovals of the northern suburbs, hose the layers of dirt and grime off them in the backyard, then take them inside for a hot shower.

The Madden boys all remark on their mother's wicked sense of humour, which she wasn't too precious to unleash on her own children. "It wasn't unusual to find some plastic fruit in our lunch boxes or even a large rubber spider under the sandwiches," Simon laughs.

"I think this sense rubbed off early, as Mum loved to recall that way before I'd got to school age, Dad would kiss us goodbye in the morning before going off to work, and I would stand at the front window waving goodbye saying, 'See you later, you silly donkey'."

Justin recalls his mother's parental concern remaining just as strong long after her boys had moved out of home.

"I was sharing a house with a couple of mates in Essendon," he eulogised. "Concerned about our wellbeing, she often arrived on the doorstep unannounced with parcels of food, serious cleaning implements or an armful of plant cuttings.

"At other times, it may be with a piece of furniture she'd discovered in a second-hand shop or in the hard rubbish collection with potential for resurrection to its former glory."

"It was always all about her boys," says Simon.

"Even when I took her in for the first time to see the specialist about her cancer, she had two worries about being there; one: did I have enough change to put in the meter to avoid a parking ticket, and two: as the appointment was at 12.30pm, was I able to get some lunch while we were there?"

Her wit stayed until the end, which came not long after she'd celebrated her 80th birthday with her precious children.

Justin recalls he and Paul sitting at their mother's bedside a couple of days before she died. Simon walked in wearing a grey striped sports coat and a green checked shirt. Thelma looked up and smiled: "Didn't you look in the mirror this morning?"

Simon might have that advice in mind when he dresses for tonight's game and post-game ceremony. It's a big occasion for the Bombers and Blues, and a particularly big one for the Madden family.

And while Thelma Madden won't be there to see it, her famous sons know the Madden Cup is every bit as much about her as them.