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The best Magpie Steele Sidebottom has ever played with
SEN • August 6th, 2025 3:50 pm
Collingwood veteran Steele Sidebottom becomes just the second Magpie to reach 350 games this Thursday against Hawthorn.
Having played for 17 seasons since being drafted with pick No. 11 in the 2008 draft, Sidebottom has played with some of the club’s greatest ever players while becoming one himself.
When asked by SEN’s Garry Lyon,who stands above the rest as the best teammate he’s ever played alongside, one name stands above the rest: Scott Pendlebury.
“‘Pendles’, I think,” Swan said on SEN Breakfast.
Given Pendlebury was a pretty obvious pick, especially as the duo hold the record for most V/AFL games played as teammates at 321 and counting, his choice for next best was a little harder.
This time, it was one of Sidebottom’s early teammates in Dane Swan who still sits inside his top two despite the duo last playing together almost a decade ago.
“Probably ‘Swanny’ (is second),” he replied.
“Swanny’s ability to be able to start getting tagged in the midfield and then take someone deep forward and kick three or four goals in a quarter was something that probably most midfielders can’t do.”
Most Collingwood fans have Sidebottom alongside that duo as the club's greatest three players over the last two decades, and no one has been a bigger fan of the humble star than his former coach, Nathan Buckley.
Having coached Sidebottom for 194 of his 349 games at the top level, Buckley spoke of his admiration for the two-time premiership star.
“What a star,” Buckley said on SEN’s Whateley. “I can’t help but smile.
“Certain people leave you with a resonance of an emotion and his is just joy, it’s laughter, fun. He smiled his way through his whole career which I admire so much because at the beginning of my career, football was not something to be enjoyed, it was something to be endured, it was something to be conquered.
“He’s played with it, he’s grown through it, I’ve got so much admiration for the man he is, the journey that he’s gone on.
“Then what he’s been able to do on-field - he is a star, he is an absolute gun footballer, and he has been for that length of time.
“I get asked who was my favourite player to coach and Steele was my first. I’ve got plenty of favourite players but you never forget your first. You have that connection as a coach with the player and he was the first one I felt I was really helping as a kid and I’m seeing the growth. He did it all but it made me feel like I was positively impacting him.
“He just cared so much about the team and his contribution to it. He emptied himself out.
“He was a star right from the start, he’s continued to grow and all power to him. 350 games of footy in the blink of an eye - what a gun.
“I’m going along on Thursday night to have a look and I’ll be standing and applauding him with everyone else.”
Listen to Sidebottom’s chat with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson ahead of game 350.
