Eight former players have been acknowledged for their incredible achievements.
By Tony De Bolfo,
THE CARLTON Football Club has seen fit to acknowledge the incredible achievements of eight former players who played their role in each of the Club’s history-making hat-trick of Grand Final victories in 1906, ’07 and ’08.
The Club has recognised that in this its 160th year of its existence, a moment presents to fittingly acknowledge Worrall’s hat-trick heroes by inducting them into its coveted Hall of Fame.
It’s more than 125 years since the Carlton teams, under the watch of legendary Secretary/Coach Jack Worrall earned the 1908 pennant to complete the first Premiership three-peat a little more than ten years after the then VFL’s formation.
In what was the Club’s first golden era in League competition, Worrall’s teams were universally lauded. The former Richmond ruckman (and later President) Barney Herbert, writing for The Sporting Globe six years after Collingwood completed the Premiership four-peat, noted of Worrall’s teams:
“ . . . to be fair and honest, and looking impartially at team strength and balance in every part of the field, I say without hesitation that the best team I have ever seen playing football anywhere or at any time was that of Carlton in the years 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911.
“I do not think that that side will ever be excelled in the League for strength, balance and brilliance. No team playing today can show the football genius of the Blues in those seasons.”
Worrall himself, writing for The Australasian in 1932, deserves the final say.
Of the three Carlton Premiership teams under his watch, the great man wrote: “They were a band of athletes, with many special all-rounders, perhaps the best combination that has ever been seen on the field”.
The “Hat-Trick Heroes” Inducted into the Carlton Hall of Fame are as follows:
Les Beck;
Jim Flynn;
Fred Jinks;
George Johnson;
Ted Kennedy;
Alexander Lang;
Billy Payne; and
George Topping.
It should be noted that a total of 11 players represented Carlton in each of its three successive Grand Final victories, with George Bruce, Norman ‘Hackenschmidt’ Clark and ‘Champagne’ Charlie Hammond having been previously Inducted in 2006, 1989, and 1991 respectively.
Worrall was also Inducted in 2006.
The recent Induction of Carlton’s eight Hat-Trick Heroes follows the Inductions in March of Jack Carney, Neil Chandler and Brendan Fevola and the Inductions in May of prominent 19th century figures Jack Baker, Jack Conway, John Donovan, John Gardiner, Billy Goer, Harry Guy, Robert Heatley, Tommy Leydin, Orlando O’Brien and George Robertson.
A further three Inductees – a Carlton Premiership Captain-Coach and two Premiership Captains post-1897 – will be so honoured later this year.
All Inductions have been ratified by the Club’s Board on the recommendation of its Heritage Sub-Committee.
Carlton is mourning the loss of dual premiership player, John Goold.
By Tony De Bolfo
THE CARLTON premiership player John Goold – the long-locked, long-striding centre half-back whose overt flamboyance on the football field was more than matched by his glitz and glamor off it – has died after a long illness at the age of 82.
Goold featured in two of the most famous of all Carlton victories – the drought-breaking Grand Final win of 1968 over Essendon, and 1970’s come-from-behind Grand Final conquest of Collingwood, in what was his 108th and final on-field appearance for the Club.
Through the swinging sixties, the sartorially-elegant Goold forged a glorious reputation as football’s first fashionista. A fashion designer away from the game, Carlton’s cravat-collared clothes horse was once depicted by The Age cartoonist Sam Wells in his dark Navy Blue guernsey, shorts, socks and boots – and an accompanying top hat, cane and spats.
Wells dubbed Goold ‘Mr. Debonair’ and Lou Richards went with ‘Mr. Elegant’ – but Goold is forever remembered as ‘Ragsy’ – a moniker given him by his Carlton teammates in homage to his involvement in the rag trade.
Hailing from Healesville in the heart of Victoria’s idyllic Yarra Valley, John William Crosbie Goold was, from the outset, a sportsman of renown. At Melbourne Grammar he excelled at tennis, athletics, football and cricket, but he also developed a penchant for the traditional field pastime of polo and the rough and tumble of fox hunting as an adept horseman.
A fervent Melbourne supporter, Goold somewhat surprisingly lacked a genuine confidence in his footballing ability. “If I thought I was good enough I would certainly have gone to Melbourne,” he said in an interview years later, “but I honestly didn’t think I would ever amount to anything in this game. Cricket and tennis were the games that really interested me”.
After graduating from Grammar, Goold headed home to Healesville, and chased the leather for the Yarra Valley Bloods. In 1962 he featured prominently in their Grand Final victory – which in turn attracted the discerning eye of many a talent scout.
“Incentives were offered elsewhere,” Goold recalled, “but I gravitated to Carlton – partly because the deep blue of their guernsey attracted me, but mostly because of the good advice I got from people who even then were longsighted enough to predict that big things were ahead for this club.”
A little known tale told by the late Ken Hands involved rival club Richmond’s overture to Goold, at a time when the player was still very much a free agent.
“Goold came to training with us at Carlton and had made arrangements to go to another club (Richmond) for dinner that night,” Hands told this reporter some years ago.
“I asked the secretary to leave out a recruiting form for me, but he didn’t do it – he’d already gone home and locked up his office. So I parked my car outside the window of his office, got on the roof of the car and climbed up a water pipe to get in his window to grab the paperwork.
“John (Goold) then signed the form and I made certain it was lodged at Harrison House that night before he met up with the other club.”
Goold himself corroborated Hands’ version of events. “He (Hands) wasn’t a young man at the time, he held down quite a responsible job and here he was climbing up a pipe”.
At Princes Park, Goold was handed the woollen No.11 previously worn by the likes of Rod McGregor and Laurie Kerr, and later by fellow centre half-backs Bruce Doull and (now) Mitch McGovern.
He donned the guernsey for the first time into Round 7 of 1963 – the match with Footscray at the inhospitable Western Oval – having been named on a forward flank alongside two Brownlow Medallists John James and Goold’s fellow Healesville recruit Gordon Collis.
Goold booted a goal on debut in the visitors’ hard-fought eight-point win, but the future rebounding defender would put just two more over the goal umpire’s hat in his eight-season senior Carlton career.
By his own admission, Goold found his feet after Ron Barassi was sensationally appointed Carlton captain-coach – particularly so after Collis’ health issues created a vacancy in the key defensive post in the second half of season ’65.
Goold always believed Barassi’s investiture served as the catalyst for a football cultural revolution, of which he was incredibly fortunate to be a part.
“I think you could say that 1965 was my first year of League football,” Goold said. “That’s the way I felt – that’s the way I reacted to Barassi.”
Goold’s wind-catching ebony mane, juxtaposed with the pristine white anklets and wrist guards, earned him cult status amongst those behind the fence – but it was his hard-running rebounding, take-the-game-on panache that endeared the left-footer to the good football judges more than any aesthetic.
Not surprisingly, Goold was adjudged third behind John Nicholls and Sergio Silvagni in Carlton’s 1965 Best and Fairest count, and backed it up in ’66 with state selection for the Hobart Carnival. In Hobart he was adjudged runner-up to the West Australian Barry Cable in the Tassie Medal for the carnival’s best, and he capped it off with selection on a half-back flank in the coveted All-Australian team.
“All that glitters is (John) Goold. ‘Mr, Debonair”. How Goold was portrayed by The Age cartoonist Sam Wells in mid-1966.
The premierships of 1968 and 1970 bookended Carlton’s 1969 Grand Final loss – and Goold played under real duress through the ’69 and ’70 September campaigns. In ’69 he laboured through with shin splints, and in ’70 he was only cleared to play on Grand Final morning, having copped a burst blood vessel and serious swelling to the shin after copping a wayward kick in the previous weekend’s prelim.
In the euphoric aftermath of the 1970 Grand Final, Goold was ferried off to hospital for further treatment to the injury. Within the sanitary confines of the ward, he resolved to give the game away.
After changing tack to pursue a career in farming in Victoria’s western district, Goold formed a diversified pastoral company and purchased a magnificent complex called Ballangeich Run at nearby Ellerslie. As his passion for farming and livestock grew, he began breeding top quality polo ponies, represented Australia in international competition, and further built on his already handsome reputation as a Hunt Master of the hounds – hounds he also bred.
As for his footballing prowess, Goold earned the greatest of praise, beginning with John Nicholls no less.
“He was a good player,” said Nicholls, Goold’s captain in the 1968 and ’70 Grand Finals. “He played centre half-back and he played on the best of them, Royce Hart included . . . and he more than held his own with them all.”
Former Carlton President Ian Collins, who with Robert Walls, Wes Lofts, Barry Gill, Kevin Hall and Goold made up the back six on Grand Final day 1968, considered his late teammate as one of a kind.
“They broke the mould with ‘Ragsy’. He was unique. He was flamboyant, he had flair and he was ‘Mr Elegant’ on and off the field,” said Collins, who shared in the experiences of 75 senior Carlton matches with Goold.
“I was at Carlton before ‘Ragsy’ and it took him a while to break into the seniors, but he was great company from the outset. I used to board at ‘Vonny’ Curtin’s place at 19 Berry Street, Coburg with Maurie Sankey, Gordon Collis and John Reilly, and John Goold and Wes Lofts always lobbed on Sunday nights for dinner. ‘Vonny’ used to cook for us and she called us her boys.”
Collins recalled that Goold and Collis, with the support of a well-heeled club sponsor, pursued an off-field venture in nylon stocking sales – thereby introducing Goold to the clothing industry.
“‘Ragsy’ then went into business with a Jewish woman who took him under her wing, and he started producing his own range of lingerie. That’s when Lou dubbed him ‘Mr Elegant’,” Collins said.
“As a teammate he was fantastic. I loved ‘Gooldy’ as a footballer because he could always do the extraordinary. He stood around 6’2” in the old measurement, he was scrawny like Michael Tuck at Hawthorn, and he could play on the big blokes and the small blokes.
“He was loyal to a fault and I think he liked me because I always tried to protect him.”
Three years ago, Collins and Nicholls were part of a troupe of football club identities – amongst them Carlton premiership players Ken Hunter and Mark Maclure – who completed a three-hour bus trip to Goold’s rural property to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Nicholls said that those in attendance truly savoured the moment with their extravagant host, as together they reminisced about the golden years of Barassi and spoke with great optimism of today’s Carlton under Voss.
“It was a great catch-up. We talked about old days and the culture of Carlton, and I talked about how positive I am with things at the Club now looking up,” Nicholls said.
Until the end, Goold kept a fervent interest in his football club’s fortunes and those of its on-field custodians of today. As Collins said: “He wanted Carlton to succeed in the extreme, and he called a spade a spade”.
An address delivered by Goold to the players at a 2008 Spirit Of Carlton event truly reflected his genuine empathy for his football club – and the message he imparted to the players on that occasion could so easily apply to today’s participants, in keeping with Michael Voss’s “play your role” edict.
“The environments, social values, ambitions and outcomes of a football club can be easily explained by drawing on the simple analogy of a wheel – and the fundamental importance of the axle to the structural impact it has on the pure performance of the wheel to move forward,” Goold said at the time.
“All 22 spokes are attached to the axle and are in turn attached to the wheel’s circumference. If one of the 22 spokes does not perform, the wheel will immediately wobble and fail.
“Players. Look upon yourselves as a single spoke. With a small singular drop in attitude by one spoke the wheel will immediately start to wobble and games are lost.”
John Goold was the 754th player to represent the Carlton Football Club at senior League level. He was awarded Life Membership of the Club in 1970 and inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011.
He is survived by his partner Deborah and sons Ed and Jock.
The Carlton senior players will wear black armbands into Sunday night’s match with Essendon at the MCG as a mark of respect to the late John Goold.
A special agreement which translated into an historic arrival at Princes Park.
By Tony De Bolfo,
ON GRAND Final day 1979, Greg Kazuro was part of the Bryan Quirk-coached Carlton Under 19 team that landed a Premiership in the curtain-raiser to the seniors’ Grand Final when “Jezza’s Blues” rolled Collingwood on a heavy MCG deck.
Amongst those with whom Kazuro savoured Premiership success was a kid from the same neighbourhood to which he was zoned – Thomastown’s David Glascott – whose 173-game senior career would take in the Premierships of 1981, ’82 and ’87.
Greg Kazuro, Carlton footballer, 1982
From 1980 to mid-1983, Kazuro turned out in 49 games for the Carlton reserves, mainly as a key defender – and in getting a call-up for a couple of AFC night series appearances came as close as anyone could possibly get to earning a senior call-up for the home and aways.
“Yes, I was close,” said Kazuro of is prospects of breaking through to the ones. “But I remember reading something in the paper along the lines of ‘Greg Kazuro is finding it hard to get a game ahead of Bruce Doull and Geoff Southby’, which is probably the reason why the club decided to move me on.”
Regrettably, Dame Fortune didn’t deal Kazuro the hand he’d hoped – but the son of a Belarusian-born father and English-born mother was a pivotal figure in this club’s relentless and ultimately successful cross-state pursuit of a scrawny 19 year-old key forward whose Carlton CV would one day read two Premierships, longest-serving captain and highest career goalkicker, the great Stephen Kernahan.
Kazuro’s part in the Kernahan play happened a tick over 40 years ago, after the then Carlton Chairman of Selectors the late Wes Lofts issued Shane O’Sullivan with the now famous edict, “Find me another Royce Hart”.
Kernahan was promptly identified, but the player had no real interest in traversing the South Australian border until the Bays landed the SANFL Premiership – mercifully in 1985 to end a 12-year drought.
Which was why the Blues were hell-bent in helping get Glenelg over the line, and offered the outgoing Kazuro a football lifeline to realise the objective.
“It happened in 1983 mid-season, Kazuro recalled on a visit to IKON Park this week. “Wes Lofts came up to me and said, ‘Look, there’s an opportunity to go across to Glenelg and gain some senior experience.
“At the time Graham Campbell, who had actually coached me to an Under 11 Premiership with the Lalor/Thomastown Community Youth team whilst coaching Fitzroy reserves and later seniors all in the one year, was coach of Glenelg . . . so the move worked out very well for me.
“Disappointingly I didn’t stay on after that ’83 year, but I played with Stephen and David Kernahan over there and it was nice to be connected with Stephen Kernahan coming to Carlton.”
Greg Kazuro by Stephen Kernahan’s Hall of Fame Legends locker at IKON Park this week
Beyond his brief tenure at Glenelg, Kazuro chased the leather for VAFA outfit Bulleen-Templestowe, and then turned out in the Diamond Valley League. Years later he watched his son Nathan represent the Northern Blues and be part of a Premiership with St Bernard’s Old Collegians, “and ironically the A-Grade Premiership they won happened here at the old Princes Park ground”.
More than forty years after the event, Kazuro bears no malice to Carlton for moving him on.
As he said: “Things have to fall your way, it’s often about the timing – you know, right time, right place – and I was blessed to be at Carlton, in esteemed company with some of the legends of the game”.
Thesedays you’ll find Kazuro in the outer at Carlton games – either at the MCG or Marvel – cheering on his beloved Blueboys as he’s done for most of his 63 years.
Why Carlton? Kazuro puts it down to the seismic influence of one man, the late great Ronald Dale Barassi, whom he saw in action for the Redlegs in the 16th round match of August 1964.
“The first game I ever saw was Melbourne versus Essendon at the MCG when my grandfather took me,” Kazuro said.
“I saw this bull running around named Ron Barassi and I thought to myself ‘I really like this player’ – so much so that when I started playing junior football I wore a pair of Ron Barassi plastic footy boots and when Ron crossed to Carlton I followed him.”
Brownlow Medallists met when Gordon Collis linked up with Patrick Cripps at IKON Park.
By Tony De Bolfo
IT’S 60 years this August that Gordon Collis was declared the winner of League football’s highest individual honour. Today, Carlton’s oldest surviving Brownlow Medallist returned to the old stomping ground where he posed for an historic photograph with the Club’s most recent Medal recipient Patrick Cripps.
Now 83, Collis – the former Carlton centre half-back – rubbed shoulders with Captain Cripps, coach Voss (Brisbane’s 1996 Medallist), assistant coach Aaron Hamill and a number of current players including Tom De Koning, Alex Cincotta and Mitch McGovern – a fellow key position defender with whom Collis compared notes.
Collis also viewed the current squad’s training session at IKON Park with another welcome visitor, the four-time Carlton premiership ruckman and Club best-and-fairest Peter ‘Percy’ Jones. He later posed in front of locker No.17 – the number he wore on his back in 95 games through seven seasons under coaches Ken Hands and Ron Barassi.
Gordon Collis meets AFL Senior Coach – and fellow Brownlow Medallist – Michael Voss.
“It’s been quite memorable,” Collis said of the experience. “To have been made to feel welcome is a big thing and the players and coaches I have met have been so engaging.”
By his own admission, Collis – a Carlton Life Member and Hall of Fame Inductee – maintains a fairly low profile – and part of the motivation in returning to his former Club was to be pictured with Cripps to appease a long-time business acquaintance across the Nullarbor.
“My friend in Albany has an interest in football history and had asked if I had a photograph I could share,” said Collis, who tomorrow heads to Albany on a five-week road trip.
“So I thought a bit outside the box and have been very fortunate to jump in a photo with Patrick Cripps.
“I’ve always been impressed with Patrick as a leader. He’s been quite outstanding. There’s no doubt he sets a terrific example on the field, both at ground level and in the air.”
Gordon Collis at the No.17 locker, the guernsey in which he played 95 games.
Recruited to the Club despite Fitzroy’s advances, Collis joined Carlton on the eve of the 1961 season and ironically completed his senior debut against the Lions in the second round of that year.
Collis learned of his 1964 Brownlow victory by way of a radio broadcast from VFL headquarters at Harrison House – the votes having been called by the former Carlton dual Premiership coach Perc Bentley, the then chairman of the League’s Permit and Match Arrangement Committee.
Then 23 and a game short of his 70th for the Blues, Collis secured the coveted Charles Brownlow Trophy (the club’s third after Bert Deacon and John James) with 27 votes from Hawthorn’s Phil Hay and Esssendon’s Ken Fraser, the joint runners-up with 19.
Six days later, Collis was named Carlton best and fairest ahead of Ian Collins and John Nicholls.
Having earned the respect of the football world for his consistent showings at centre half-back, Collis was destined to turn out in just 26 more senior matches for Carlton, before illness precipitated his retirement at just 26 following the 1967 Preliminary Final loss to Geelong.
It’s a little-known fact that Collis actually laboured with a duodenal ulcer from his teenage years and through the duration of his entire League career.
“I played my whole career with the ailment and it was pretty destabilising at times,” Collis recalled.
Gordon Collis with his 1964 Brownlow Medal.
“I actually had a haemorrhage at the time that I played and there was no cure for it, so all I could do was somehow control it with diet. I would have dearly loved a longer playing career, but with that issue and a stress fracture in the foot I was quite proud of the fact that I was able to live with that adversity.
“With medical science advancements as they are, I was fortunate in the long run, as in around 1990 it was discovered there was a bug in the system that caused the issue, and if it was knocked out there was a good chance of recovery. A gastroenterologist at St Vincent’s named Greg Whelan, set me up on this course of antibiotics and I haven’t had a problem since.”
In pondering the 60th anniversary of his Brownlow victory, Collis conceded “I sometimes have to scratch myself as a realisation that this time has actually gone by”.
And as he said: “I actually doubted whether I’d actually reach this age, because I had a bit of a chequered run with my health”.
Old contemporaries have paid tribute to former Carlton centreman, Berkley Cox.
By Tony De Bolfo
OLD on-field contemporaries have paid wonderful tribute to the uncompromising former Carlton centreman Berkley Cox, who died in Launceston General Hospital on Monday 13 May at the age of 90.
Wearing the No.9 of the current captain Patrick Cripps, Cox represented the club in 102 senior matches between 1958 and 1965, including the 1962 Grand Final. He was named amongst the Blues’ best players afield in all four matches of the ’62 finals campaign and in ’65 was named Best Clubman and awarded Life Membership.
Cox was recruited to Carlton from NTFA club City-South, the club having unsuccessfully sought to lure his father Albert ‘Tracker’ Cox 32 years earlier. In an interview with this reporter nine years ago, Cox recalled sharing digs with a number of Tasmanians who had crossed Bass Strait to try their luck at Princes Park.
“We lived in a house in Melbourne with another friend of ours who’s passed away called Allan Wilson. It was called ‘The Tasmanian Embassy’ because all the Tassie players who used to come over went there,” Cox said.
“There were a few blokes over from Tassie at the time – Maurie (Sankey), John Heathcote, Johnny Chick and myself.
“One thing I remember is that when we had to move out of the flat in Coburg we had to get rid of the empty bottles (longnecks) – and when the chap came to collect them he said he’d never seen so many. He said, ‘Do you mind if I ring The Herald (evening newspaper)?’, to which we replied ‘You better not’.”
Berkley Cox and Peter Jones, Life Members Luncheon, Kew Golf Club, April 2019.
Cox was selected for his first Carlton senior match against the old enemy Collingwood, on the afternoon of Saturday, August 9, 1958 at Princes Park. He was named on a half-forward flank in the starting 18, which included the club’s greatest footballer John Nicholls in a back pocket.
“Berkley was a lovely man. He was four years older than me and he wasn’t all that young when he came over,” Nicholls said.
“His best place was in the centre and by gee he was tough. He was a clone of Ian Collins and he had a bit of trouble at the Tribunal on occasions. I reckon he got four weeks for accidentally bumping a boundary umpire named Cliff Green.
“Berkley was always a great Carlton man. Even after returning to Tassie he remained a great Carlton advocate and he always kept an eye out for a future Carlton footballer.”
A case in point – the prodigiously-gifted Campbell Town footballer and future dual Carlton Premiership player Brent Crosswell. Though Crosswell and Cox never met, the former acknowledged the latter as “the man who alerted Carlton of my existence”.
The three-time Carlton Premiership rover, club Best & Fairest and Team of the Century rover Adrian Gallagher recalled Cox’s welcome presence when ‘Gags’, then 18, ran out for the first time as a senior player, against St Kilda at the Junction Oval in May 1964.
In that particular game, Cox whacked St Kilda ruckman Carl Ditterich of all people – an offence which later earned him a four-match suspension – and as Gallagher reminded in a previous interview: “Berkley was my size, but he looked after me. He was at locker number 9 and I was at 10”
“Cox’s Clone” – the Carlton Hall of Fame Hall of Fame Legend, 1968 Premiership player and former CEO and President Ian Collins – vouched for Nicholls’ assessment of the Tasmanian’s on-field physicality.
“Berkley used to throw more punches in a game of football than a boxer in a ten-rounder,” Collins said.
“Not long after Berkley got to Carlton he broke a leg in one of those practice matches in the sticks, so he had to overcome that setback. He played half-forward and in the centre, and in the ’62 Grand Final he was part of the centreline of Kick, Cox and Collins.
“Berkley was always popular amongst his teammates. He was a good friend of Bob Crow’s. Unfortunately another has fallen from the perch.”
Cox’s on-field Carlton career was bookended by years of sterling service to City-South, and his contributions to the Redlegs and to the game in Tasmania speak for themselves –
140 matches 1954-57, 1966-69; Captain-coach, 1968-69; NTFA premiership player 1954, 1956, 1966; City State premiership player 1954, 1966; Club Best and Fairest 1967; Tasmanian National Carnival representation 1966 (Hobart); Six-time Tasmania state representative 1955-66; City-South Team of the Century (centre); and Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame inductee 2005.
On his return to the Apple Isle from Carlton, Cox married his beloved June Keep – a fellow Tasmanian who died last year – and together they raised five children; Felicia, Jennifer, Linda, Stuart and Sarah. Linda was born with Down Syndrome which prompted Cox to coach the football team at St George’s special school, and he was a lifelong supporter of the Special Olympics.
As indeed he was of Carlton.
“Dad loved Carlton. Being a Life Member was a source of great pride,” Felicia said this week.
“He maintained friendships all of his life with old footballers and those associated with football like Ian Collins, ‘Bobby’ Crowe, Paul ‘Badger’ Luttrell, Graeme Wilkinson and Wesley Lofts. My brother is named Stuart Wesley after him and his four sisters; Marie (deceased), Joyce, Barbara and Suzanne are all staunch Carlton supporters.
“Like a lot of ex-footballers he became a publican. He taught us children a lot of life skills – like how to use your elbow to disable your opponents without alerting the umpire! In later years he enjoyed collecting Apple labels and oil paintings, growing tomatoes and strawberries.”
In April 2019, Cox jetted in from Launceston with his son to for what would be his last official Carlton engagement – a gathering of Life Members at Kew Golf Club. On that occasion he was photographed for posterity with another fellow Taswegian, the four-time Carlton Premiership ruckman Peter ‘Percy’ Jones.
Perhaps the Carlton Secretary Gerald Burke put it best in the 1965 Annual Report when, in noting Cox’s recognition as Best Clubman, he wrote: “This newly innovated award has been won this year by a player who is renowned for his value as a Clubman in all respects, and as a player who gives support and encouragement on the field when it is most required. To Berkley we trust this award conveys the attitude of all at the Club towards him”.
The Carlton senior players will wear black armbands into Friday night’s match with Sydney at the SCG as a mark of respect to the late Berkley Cox.
Tom Carroll, Craig Davis and Mark Maclure inducted into the NSW Australian Football Hall of Fame.
By Tony De Bolfo,
FORMER Carlton forwards Tom Carroll, Craig Davis and Mark Maclure are amongst the 100 players, coaches, administrators, umpires and media personalities recently inducted into the NSW Australian Football Hall of Fame.
The Inductees and Legends were formally inducted at a function attended by more than 350 people at the SCG last Friday night.
Carlton full-forward Tom Carroll by the pickets at Princes Park, circa 1963.
Tom Carroll was a leading goalkicker in both the Riverina and the VFL. In 1956, and at the tender age of 17, Carroll lined up at full-forward for Ganmain and was part of its ’56 and ’57 back-to-back Premiership teams. He booted 103 goals for the club in 1960 and was recruited to Carlton on the cusp of the ’61 season.
Carroll represented the old dark Navy Blues in 55 senior matches from 1961-63, and earned Carlton’s first Coleman Medal (awarded retrospectively) in his maiden season with 54 goals. He was the Club’s leading goalkicker in each of his three seasons – 54 goals in 1961, 62 in 1962 and 27 in 1963 – before returning to the family farm in Ganmain.
Carroll accepted the role of Ganmain Captain-Coach and led the Maroons to premierships in 1964 and 1965, topping the goalkicking in both seasons. He took on the Grong Grong Grong Matong coaching role from 1968 to 1970, and then returned to Ganmain as non-playing coach in 1980.
Eighty-four year-old Carroll was unable to attend Friday night’s ceremony, but in reflecting on his induction declared: “You play your footy, you finish your career and they give you a tick”.
Hailing from Ross and recruited from Launceston in 1972, Craig Davis followed his cousin Brent Crosswell to Carlton – and there he inherited the No.23 worn by Bert Deacon, the club’s inaugural Brownlow Medallist and then Secretary. Davis represented the team in 42 senior matches through three seasons, was a member of the 1973 Grand final team and took out the club’s goalkicking honours with 45 in his final season.
A head-knock sustained in the pre-season period of 1976 put Davis’ playing career on hold, and he ultimately resolved to pursue his playing career with North Melbourne for what was a ten-game cameo through 1977 and ’78. He then represented Collingwood in 102 matches and booted 251 goals through five seasons for the Magpies, and rounded out his League career with nine appearances for the Swans.
Round 11, 1974, v St Kilda at Princes Park – Carlton from full-forward Craig Davis uses ‘Big Nick’ as a stepladder, on his way to a seven-goal haul in his team’s 45-point win.
Davis spent the better part of two decades putting his heart and soul into New South Wales football. Following an Assistant Coaching role with the Swans, he assumed the role of NSW AFL development manager from 1988-90 before stepping up as its General Manager from 1991-2000. More recently, he coached and mentored young players at the Maroubra Saints Junior Football Club, amongst them the Swans’ Errol Gulden.
“What a great night it was,” said Davis of the induction ceremony at the SCG. “Forty-eight of the 60 living Inductees fronted up, including ‘Plugger’ (Tony Lockett), and I got a photo with him. I told Plugger that between him and I we kicked 1400 and if we’d kicked straighter it would have been 2000.
“Mark Maclure was also there, which took me back 50 years. I remember in ’74 when Maclure came to Carlton and I was his mentor. I was 19, he was 18 and it seems like only yesterday.”
Mark Maclure was first identified by East Sydney after taking out the Sydney competition reserve grade best and fairest award as a 17-year-old. Recruited to Carlton, Maclure completed his senior debut in Round 13, 1974 – the first of 243 through 13 seasons – amongst them the Grand Final triumphs of 1979, 1981 and ’82.
Maclure earned the Best Clubman Award in 1981, and again in 1986, the year he captained Carlton. Following his retirement, he gave back as an assistant coach at Brisbane and Sydney, and maintained his involvement with the game through his radio and television work. In 2019, Maclure was named on interchange in the New South Wales AFL’s greatest team.
Mark Maclure finds the big sticks for the Blues again, circa 1986.
In his appreciation of the Induction accolade, Maclure reflected on his years with East Sydney and the local League.
“I there as a junior, played Under 19s at 13 then Reserves at 15 and the main games at 16. East Sydney was a terrific football club and the president Jack Dean was a legend,” Maclure said.
“In those days, work took players there from WA, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland, so there was a good cross section of players. Does it seem like yesterday? No, it seems like 50 years.”
Nine of the 100 inductees were elevated to Legend status in the Hall – Haydn Bunton Snr., Richard Colless, Terry Daniher, Jack Dean, Harry J. Hedger OBE, Tony Lockett, Paul Kelly, Jim Phelan and Ralph Robertson.
In 2020, AFL NSW/ACT established the New South Wales Australian Football Hall of Fame to commemorate the 140-year anniversary of the NSW Australian Football Association.
According to its charter, the Hall of Fame recognises and enshrines players, coaches, umpires, administrators, volunteers and media representatives “who have made a most significant contribution to the game of Australian Football in NSW since its inception in 1880”.
Inductees of the NSW Australian Football Hall of Fame cover all levels of football in New South Wales, from the elite to the community.
