Win for club and town: Eagles' president

Collie Eagles Football Club president Shane Golding said Collie has a proud history of great football since the Mines Rovers inception in 1904 and the birth of the Collie Football Club in 1961. 

"Collie has always been a pretty strong football town, we've had greats who have won the Hayward Medal and greats that have gone through and played WAFL and AFL," he said. 

"It has always been a pretty strong sporting town, generally, and AFL football has always been strong in town so there was a pretty big rivalry between the two clubs before the amalgamation.

"The local derby in any country town is always pretty strong, as is the Western Derby between the [Fremantle] Dockers and [West Coast] Eagles, so it was always pretty fiery whenever there was a local derby on."

The Collie Eagles formed in 2002 due to a merger the year before between the Collie Football Club and Mines Rovers.

"Both teams were struggling to field sides in all grades because there just wasn't enough players and wasn't enough funds in the town to actually substantiate two teams in a town this small," he said. 

Mr Golding said, despite backlash from some local supporters, the majority of people understood the need for a merger and supported the new side. 

He said the unity between both clubs, along with a new generation of fans and players, has changed Collie's football landscape. 

The Reserves side won the premiership in 2002 before the Colts' premiership win in 2003. 

The League team then went on to take out the 2004 and 2005 premierships. 

The Collie Reserves side has since won the 2013 premiership. 

Mr Golding said the premiership titles provided a strong morale boost for the team and Collie. 

"In the first four years of our amalgamation we had four premierships between the three grades so obviously at that stage we had lots of players, two clubs coming into one, we had that honeymoon period where everything was toddling along beautifully and everything was refreshed," he said.