Occurring whenever the two sides meet for a Collingwood home game, the clash aims to raise awareness and funds for Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

At the start of 1893, Collingwood convinced Strickland to leave Carlton and play for them, in one of the first major player movements in Australian rules football history.

In 1897, both Collingwood and Carlton were part of the eight teams which broke away from the VFA to form the Victorian Football League.

[7] The hostility in the rivalry between Carlton and Collingwood is considered by some sources[8] to have commenced with the 1910 VFL Grand Final; until that time, the clubs were generally thought to be on friendly terms.

Early in the fourth quarter of the match, while Collingwood was leading, a huge brawl broke out involving at least thirty players and officials from both clubs; the fight was described by experienced umpire Jack Elder as the worst he saw in his VFL career.

Collingwood held on to win by 14 points, but four players were reported for starting the big fight and as a result were heavily suspended.

The 1970 Grand Final is regarded as one of the league's all-time classic games, played in front of the largest ever crowd of 121,696, featuring a famous specky by Alex Jesaulenko, and won by Carlton after recovering from a 44-point half-time deficit.

Every year since 1993, an annual match between the clubs has helped raise money and awareness in cancer research.

It was therefore a suspicious coincidence when, on the morning of the 1938 VFL Grand Final between two sides, Carlton captain-coach Brighton Diggins was rostered to clean barrels in the brewery steam room, while Collingwood acting captain Albert Collier had the day off.

[11] "There were regular marches up Collins Street on Friday afternoons, then the next day you were at the footy, yelling only for Carlton or Collingwood."

"[15] On Anzac Day 1984, 68,082 people sat on the edge of their seats in the dying seconds at Waverley Park, as Warren Ralph of Carlton was given a controversial free kick against Collingwood's Peter McCormack.

In Round 2, 1994, Collingwood's Michael McGuane received the ball and ran from the centre-square along the wing and half-forward flank, closing to 30 metres and kicking it through the goals.

Twelve years later, in Round 21, 2006, Carlton's Eddie Betts smothered a handball in defence from Collingwood's Tarkyn Lockyer, gathered the ball just inside the boundary line, and kicked a goal with banana kick from the tight angle while under pressure from Magpie defender Simon Prestigiacomo, to win the 2006 Goal of the Year award.

[17] On New Year's Eve 1999, the AFL celebrated the start of a new millennium with an early pre-season Ansett Cup match between the two rivals at the MCG.

[18] The game and event were both disappointments; fewer than 20,000 spectators attended, when a much higher crowd was expected,[19] and Carlton won an uncompetitive match by 88 points.

Carlton fans would not be disappointed, seeing the Blues kick eleven goals to one in the third quarter and ultimately record a 111-point win, the greatest margin in any game between the two rivals.

In Nathan Buckley's 200th game, Collingwood showed no mercy to the Blues with a massive record-breaking 108-point victory, helping Carlton receive their first AFL wooden spoon.

But when Carlton and Collingwood came together at the MCG, the ladder positions became irrelevant,[22] as they would record the largest home-and-away crowd for the 2004 season.

Collingwood started strong in the first half but their poor kicking in front of goal kept the door open for the Blues.

The build-up to the match was intensely scrutinised by media and the public, with great attention paid to the increased hostility between Malthouse and senior Collingwood executive figures, such as Eddie McGuire and Nathan Buckley; the latter having played under Malthouse's management as captain of Collingwood for eight years.