LOU RICHARDS anointed him the 'Macedonian Marvel' when he lit up the 1980s, but it wasn't until after Peter Daicos retired that the Collingwood icon discovered more about his heritage. Now he has decided to share his father's migrant story. 

The Daicos name is one of the most famous in football, but while the 1990 premiership hero was born and raised in Melbourne, his father Stamatis (Stan), left his village in the Greek part of Macedonia on a ship at the age of 15 in search of a better life. 

Daicos wrote his first book before he retired in 1993 after 250 games for the Magpies, but his second memoir is different. 

Life since the coronavirus pandemic has shifted his perspective following the passing of his father, his brother and his wife Colleen's sister, as well as his own cancer battle, which he kept private until writing this book.

My Family's Journey documents a migrant story and also covers the rise of his sons, Josh and Nick, who have become stars in the AFL and premiership players at Collingwood. 

When Josh made his debut at the MCG in 2017, the moment prompted Peter to have an important conversation with his dad that he'd never had. 

"I remember when Josh was playing his first game and he came over, my dad was in a room, my mum was in the room, all close family were there, and I was standing with my dad and I just said, 'thank you'," Daicos told AFL.com.au this week.

"He turned back to me and said, 'No, thank you for inviting me today. It's great being here'. I said, 'No, thank you for coming to Australia. I wouldn't have played and Josh wouldn't be here today'. That was a moment. 

"There's things as part of this experience that I've learnt as well that I didn't know. Parents don't open up a lot, so it's just nice to have got a lot of information. 

"I'm fortunate that I have relatives, cousins that had gone through the process over the last 15, 20 years. So they'd had long chats with my dad. I had chats with my dad, but dad is dad and you sort of tend to take things for granted. He told me little snippet bits but they tend to hold things very close as well. It was just nice to understand a little bit more."

It has been 33 years since Peter called time on his Hall of Fame career. Now his two sons are starring for Collingwood. Nick won his second MVP and Coaches Award on Tuesday night when he collected his fourth All-Australian blazer. Josh won the Copeland Trophy in the premiership season in 2023 when he was also named in the All-Australian team and was included in the squad this week.

Cameras search for Peter whenever he is watching his boys and have regularly captured his raw emotion in corporate boxes, in the rooms or down the race. Magpies supporters relish his reactions, but he says he is just like every other invested Collingwood supporter desperate to see a win.

"The result is more stressful, not the boys getting banged up or anything like that. It's more the result that that stresses me, but I'm like any supporter: I go to the football in anticipation. We all do, don't we? We don't set out to go and stand on seats and yell and scream and carry on. I mean that comes with the lie of the land as the game starts, whether it's umpiring decisions or whether it's the scoreboard or whether it's a miss, a goal, the close scores and all that. How can you not get carried away by it? You're a rare breed if you don't," he said.

"It's a very emotional game and for all of us it's a huge release. We live a Monday to Friday and come Saturday, it gives us that unpredictability, it's that tribal coming together, where we cheer and yell and scream and cry and laugh and all these emotions spill out in a game and then we shake hands and we head home to start another week.

"But it doesn't matter what your kids are doing. I've said it many times that you people get to see a finished product. They don't see all the work that goes in, the physical and the mental toil that it can have at times. So whether your kids are doing their VCE, their studies or doing their ballet or netball, whatever it may be, as a parent, you get to see firsthand, the amount of work that goes into it. So it's always pleasing as a parent when things come off for them."

Dedication has been passed down from one generation to the next in the Daicos family. When the boys were kids, they always had a footy in their hands and were constantly out at Gordan Barnard Reserve, Greythorn Park or Elgar Park. And if they weren't outside, they were kicking indoors.

"If we weren't at the park, we were in the yard and if we weren't in the yard, we were in the living room, if we weren't in the living room, we were up top before they went to bed, kicking a little soft touch football; it didn't actually need to be a football, you could kick a sock, and as long as you kick the sock on a certain point, you're going to make it hook and bend and do all that sort of stuff and might sound a bit foreign to people, but that's just the case," he said. 

"We were just constant because we play a touch game, we personalise how we kick, how many steps we take, how we punch the ball, but the one key ingredient you can't explain to anyone is how hard they need to kick it. It needs to be felt. I use golfers as my example. Millions of books have been written, but the point of golf is to get out and practice. I didn't push it, but I didn't need to push him. If they were getting lazy, I would have pushed. And I was pretty hard on them at times, but we did make it fun."

Peter is now 64 but he has plenty of weekends to come at the MCG. Football was a crucial part of his childhood as the son of an immigrant. It changed his life as an adult. And now, long after he retired, it is still central to his life as the parent of two stars.

"Football was the way I expressed myself growing up," he said. "My love of the game hasn't diminished. I don't think there's two days to go by that I don't think about playing a game. Physically that's an impossibility … I've gone on to other things. I haven't relied on the game and done other things in my life, but it is me, it defines me as much as sometimes I'd like to be known as Peter Daicos other than Peter Daicos a footballer, but it is what it is and it's been very good in my life."