The 1970 VFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football game contested between the Carlton Football Club and Collingwood Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on 26 September 1970. It was the 73rd annual Grand Final of the Victorian Football League, staged to determine the premiers for the 1970 VFL season. The match was won by Carlton by a margin of 10 points, marking that club's 10th premiership victory. This game is widely considered to be one of the greatest Grand Finals of all time and, according to one of the key protagonists Ted Hopkins, heralded "the birth of modern football". The attendance figure of 121,696 spectators broke the grand final record set the previous year of 119,165 spectators, and set an all-time attendance record for any football code in Australia that still stands. Prologue Collingwood finished 1970 on top of the ladder with 18 wins. Carlton was next with 16 wins, followed by St Kilda and South Melbourne (14 wins each). South Melbourne was participating in its first Finals series since 1945, and got in despite winning only four of their last eight home-and-away matches. During the home-and-away season, Collingwood and Carlton had played each other twice. In Round 8 at VFL Park, Carlton had led by 29 points at half-time before being overrun to lose by 23. In the return fixture at Victoria Park in Round 19, Collingwood thrashed Carlton by 77 points, at the time the club's greatest winning margin against Carlton. The two clubs faced each other again in the Second Semi-final, which was a closely fought battle won by Collingwood 17.16 (118) d. 17.6 (108). Carlton qualified for the grand final with a comfortable 62-point victory against St Kilda in the preliminary final. Collingwood had last played in a VFL Grand Final in 1966, which was won by St Kilda by one point, while the Blues were playing in their third consecutive VFL Grand Final. The match was the fourth grand final between the two traditional rivals, the previous occurring in 1910, 1915 and 1938. Percy Beames, chief football writer for The Age, predicted a Collingwood win, along with four other colleagues, while three tipped a Carlton premiership, among them Geelong full-forward Doug Wade. In his article, Beames cited the Magpies' tenacity, strong finishing ability Teams Collingwood named an unchanged line-up from the team that had defeated Carlton in the Second Semi-final.