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THE CARLTON Football Club – and the Italian quarter of Lygon Street with which his name is inescapably linked – is collectively mourning the passing of Sergio Silvagni, patriarch of one of the great Australian game’s most famous dynasties.

In the exalted company of John Nicholls and Adrian Gallagher, Silvagni, was central to perhaps the greatest following division in football history.

Through him, and through his son Stephen and grandsons Jack and Ben who followed, the Silvagni name is forever part of Australian rules lore.

But it wasn’t always the case, as Serge once revealed.

“I had some friends at Carlton who were playing in the Thirds,” Silvagni said in an interview with this reporter back in 2002, “and on practice match days of a Saturday you’d have the Thirds, Reserves (Seconds) and Seniors – each boasting a squad of fifty players from which to select.

“I was still a schoolboy attending Parade College when I went along to the Carlton ground to try out with my mates. I turned up at half past nine in the morning to get a run with the Thirds, but when the teams were named, they said to me, ‘Son, run the boundary’.

“During the course of the game, a few other leftover players got a run, but at the quarter-time and half-time breaks they told me to keep running the boundary. It wasn’t until the third quarter that they put me on their gun full-forward, but I managed to blitz on this bloke.

“In the end I discovered how lucky I’d been to even make it onto the ground. The reason I hadn’t got the call-up earlier was because they knew I could play but they didn’t know how to pronounce my name.”

Sergio Silvagni was born in Carlton in 1938, the son of Giacomo and Antonia Silvagni – migrants from Asiago in the Northern Italian province of Vicenza, who set sail for the Great South Land between the wars.

For the first 25 years of his life, until his marriage to his beloved Rita in 1963, Silvagni lived with his sister Milena and their parents in a single fronted dwelling in Canning Street, Carlton – a stone’s throw from Lygon, the epicenter of Melbourne’s Italian community.

A student of St Thomas’s school Clifton Hill and later Parade College East Melbourne, Sergio, as No.1 ruckman, formed part of Parade’s formidable 1st XVIII Premiership team of 1954 – an outfit which included his cousin John, and was captained by Kevin Bergin, the College captain.

The following year, Bergin completed his senior League debut at Carlton . . . and John and Sergio followed suit in 1958.

Silvagni remembered the difficulties of life in Carlton in the immediate post-war years. He recalled that the family home once doubled as a boarding house for newly-arrived Italian men, invariably from his father’s northern Italian town of Asiago, who would board there for a week or two until Dad found them a job, more often than not in concreting.

“Times were tough back then. You thought you were doing well if you got a bottle of lemonade or an ice cream at the weekend,” Silvagni said.

“When the war broke out, a year after I was born, the Italians suddenly became enemies. The Italians who had taken out citizenship here were all right but Dad never bothered, so after a while he was sent away to an alien camp in Broadford, where he lived in a tent and cut timber. I was only about four at the time, but I will always remember him leaving. He was lucky enough to be detained for only a couple of months; some of the Italians served three or four years at internment camps in the country.

“During the war all the Italians kept a low profile. In football, Frank Curcio was the first player of an Italian background to really emerge, and then there was ‘Onga’ [Tony Ongarello] at Fitzroy. I was around during Onga’s time, and if the League’s racial vilification laws had been in place when Carlton and Fitzroy played then half the crowd would have been locked up. Half the crowd would get into me and half would get into Onga.

“Because the Italians were seen as enemies through the war, I had to be a very quiet and low-key kid, almost introverted. I just kept quiet and kept to myself, but playing sport was a way of assimilating. I started playing football at St. Thomas’ in Clifton Hill, I enjoyed it and it just went from there.”

Silvagni was named for his first senior appearance in the 7th Round of 1958, the match with South Melbourne at the Lakeside Oval. In the largely forgotten No.20 guernsey, he followed the hard-edged Carlton captain Bruce Comben and vice-captain Laurie Kerr down the race.

In ’59 he switched to the famous No.1, which would sit comfortably on his back through the great Carlton conquests of which he was part through the Barassi years.

Sergio’s CV at Carlton reads thus; 239 games for 136 goals from 1958-’71; Premiership player 1968 and ’70 (the latter after coming out of retirement); best and fairest 1962 and ’68; leading goalkicker with 40 in 1958; captain in 1964; coach in 1978; Team of the Century ruck-rover; Hall of Fame Legend. At Carlton, the bandy-legged bloke with the downed socks and the brutal physicality truly wrung the cloth dry.

The three-time Premiership player and five-time best and fairest John Nicholls, considered Carlton’s greatest footballer of all time, regarded Silvagni – “with Rita a friend for 60 years” – amongst the best of his generation.

“Serge and I had 13 years in the first ruck together, we played together every week and no matter what angle I was coming from he was always there. We didn’t discuss tactics, we just knew eachother,” Nicholls said.

“With the socks down and the bandy legs, Serge was underrated, but he could play anywhere. He was built like Ron Barassi but he could beat ‘Barass’ and he was a good mark. I saw him go to a back pocket to play on blokes like Len Thompson and none of them outmarked him. I also saw him beat (Darrel) Baldock at centre half-back.

“Serge was as strong as a bull, but he was fair. He never did anything wrong. In all the years I never saw him do anything untoward, save for a game against South Melbourne when Eric Sarich played up a bit. Rather than hit Sarich, Serge picked him up by the scruff of the neck and shook him like a rabbit. The problem was that Sarich had an arm free and split Serge’s eye open.”

The three-time Premiership player and club Best and Fairest Adrian Gallagher, in paying tribute to his fellow member of Carlton’s famous triumvirate, talked of Silvagni as “a great man”.

“His was a great Italian story and an even greater Australian story,” Gallagher said.

“I saw Serge play in the first Carlton game I saw – a match against Essendon after I came down from the country. My father had found work as an administrator at the nearby Mount Royal Hospital for the Aged and we lived on the premises. Of course you had to barrack for the local team and Princes Park was just up the road.

“It was the opening game of ’59 and the big no.1 was at full-forward. He booted a few goals that day, including the biggest torpedo I’ve ever seen to the scoreboard end at Garton Street. I think I marked him down for five in the Footy Record, I got him to autograph my book which I still have, and he was my favourite Carlton player from that afternoon on.”

In reflecting on his later association with Silvagni and Nicholls as a fellow Carlton player, Gallagher put it simply.

“How fortunate was I to have those two looking after me – one hitting the ball in right direction, the other paving the way. It was like the Red Sea parting in front of me.”

The former Carlton Premiership player, CEO and President Ian Collins, who last paid Silvagni a visit on his 83rd birthday barely a fortnight ago, lamented the loss of his great teammate.

“Serge’s friendship through our wives and families from 1960 onwards was what I appreciated more than anything,” Collins said.

“I played 160 games for Carlton and there was only a couple I didn’t play with Serge. We finished on the same day in 1971, in the final home and away round of the season against Collingwood at Princes Park. He retired that day and I crossed to Port Melbourne to coach. That was the same day Ron Barassi coached his last game for Carlton that day and Billy Barrot stormed off.

“That last game against Collingwood in ’71 was a virtual carbon copy of the last time we played them in 1970 – the ’70 Grand Final. We were 44 points down at half-time in ’70 and 42 down at half-time in ’71, and we got up both times. By then most of the Collingwood blokes slept with the lights on, and fancy Carlton playing Collingwood this week.”

Collins recalled Silvagni turning in a string of commendable performances as a forward for the Carlton thirds, “and I reckon he bypassed the seconds to play seniors”.

“Serge was so strong it wasn’t funny. When he finished up at school he followed his father into the concreting profession and he didn’t do weights because he didn’t need to.

“He was a great back-up to ‘Big Nick’ in the ruck, in the days when the ruck-rover could also fly from the back at the throw-ins. He was an inside player and there was no flashiness, but he could take a good mark for his size. He never got pushed off the ball and he was fair, but the tougher it got the better he played.

“Even when he retired he kept his connection with the club. He contributed greatly on match committee, he coached for a brief time and all he ever wanted to do was help. Serge was born in Australia, grew up in Carlton, lived in Carlton and played for Carlton. He couldn’t have given Carlton more.”

The record books are littered with the names of League footballers of Italian origin who made an impact between the wars – men of stature like Len Incigneri at Richmond, Frank Curcio at Fitzroy and Albert Boromeo at Carlton.

Yet it were those of Silvagni’s ilk – the first generation Australian footballers of Italian origin in the immediate post-World War Two years? like Peter Pianto at Geelong and Albert Mantello at North Melbourne – who caused the greatest stir.

The late Lygon street hairdresser Ernesto (Ernie) Angerame, for a time the Carlton Football Club’s official barber – put it best when he reflected on the Silvagni influence in a previous interview.

“I knew the parents of both Sergio Silvagni and John Benetti, and they all lived in the Carlton area, like so many of the Italians,” Angerame said.

“When their boys broke through at Carlton we all followed them because we knew their names and it was wonderful to hear those names on radio. When Australia opened up to the migrants in the early to mid-1950s, the majority of Italians continued to come to Carlton. By then the people of my generation were already settled, so we began to take the new migrants to the football at the Carlton ground to see Silvagni and Benetti play.”

FORMER Carlton ruckman Ken Greenwood, who shared following duties with  the likes of Brian Buckley, Graham Donaldson, John Nicholls, Maurie Sankey and Sergio Silvagni through the 1960s, has died at the age of 79 after a long illness.

Recruited to Carlton after taking the South Bendigo Football Club’s best & fairest honours, Greenwood, wearing the No.5, plied his ruck craft through 55 games for the Blues under the watch of coaches Ken Hands and Ron Barassi.

John Nicholls remembered Greenwood, a member of Carlton’s 1962 Grand Final twenty, as a capable footballer deprived of opportunity.

“They (Carlton) got him from the Bendigo League, but he was a bit stiff because there were quite a few of us on the scene at the same time – Brian Buckley, Serge (Silvagni), Maurie Sankey and myself – and like ‘Bucks’ (Buckley) he couldn’t get much of a look-in,” Nicholls recalled.

“Ken was a big raw-boned bloke, a bit like Brian Buckley, but probably found it a bit hard to get games . . . and I know I wasn’t going to stand aside for them.

“But he went to Footscray, was a good player there and if memory serves he also served the Bulldogs as an administrator for which he was highly-regarded . . . and he was a good man to go with it.”

Greenwood, who later rounded out his playing career as captain-coach of VFA club Preston, famously came to Barassi’s aid at the end of the ’65 season, when senior coach and player were amongst a squad of 52 Carlton footballers and officials on an end-of-season trip to New Zealand’s North and South Islands.

During the New Zealand foray, both Greenwood and Barassi found themselves in a diabolical predicament in climbing Mount Cook – New Zealand’s highest mountain at 3724 metres – and as Nicholls remembered “they were told not to climb it because they wouldn’t get down”.

The newspapers of the day reported that Barassi had survived a near-death experience on the mountain, having been caught on a ledge at 5000ft.

The following was Greenwood’s recollection of that experience, as told to this reporter in 2015 on the 50th anniversary of the Mt Cook foray:

“We were staying at this chalet-type hermitage at the base of Mount Cook for about three days, and on this particular day the sun was shining, we weren’t doing too much and Barassi said ‘Does anyone feel like going for a walk?’.

Three or four of us set off on the walk up this mountain – Johnny Gill was one and I really can’t remember who else – and we found this track through mountain scrub. After a while, Johnny Gill said: ‘This is getting too far for me – I’m going back’ – so ‘Barass’ and I pushed on.

I said to Barass, ‘How far do you want to go?’ and he said ‘Let’s climb until two o’clock, three o’clock or whatever’. Now I was a boy scout, I’d done a lot of hiking, and I knew we were getting up into the snowline and it was a bit rugged.

We kept pushing on and pushing on, and I thought ‘Well I’m not going to squib it, I’ll keeping going with him’, and as we got higher and higher it got pretty dicey.

Barass was ahead of me and he got us into a situation where we were both climbing quite vertically up the rock – and he got onto a ledge, grabbed a rock above his head to pull himself up, but couldn’t because it was too high. And he couldn’t come back down either because he’d slip, so he effectively became stuck there.

Prior to that, as we were walking along, he said to me: ‘I don’t help you, you don’t help me – let’s do this together’ – which I thought that was silly as you’d always help someone if they got into trouble.

Anyway, he was stuck there on the ledge, he wasn’t moving, his hands were getting wider and wider and I could see that he was getting a bit worried. I was below him, I was quite safe and I said to him ‘You need help don’t you’.

‘Yeah I do,’ came the reply.

So I managed to get up on the ledge with him, put my arm around him and steady him. This enabled him to inch along to another rock, which gave him stability. We were then able to sit down together and he turned to me and said ‘That was close’ and I said to him ‘Well we had to help eachother – we were at a height that was dangerous’.

When Barass said ‘We’ve gone far enough’, we then had to get back down. But when you’re walking down a mountain you get this feeling of falling over and somehow we lost our way. We saw snowdrifts happening and rocks disappearing, and we knew we couldn’t go on the snow. So we got to another ledge where the only alternative from there was to jump onto another ledge. It was a drop of more than 10 feet and Barass said ‘Look, I’ll jump first, then catch you when you jump’. So he jumped, falling forward, and he managed to grab hold of a bush on the way to cushion his fall. But he cut his hand open and I could see the blood even though he put his hand behind his back so I couldn’t see it, and I knew then that because he only had one good hand he couldn’t catch me.

He then said to me ‘Come on, you can do it’, but I was long-legged and lanky and I told him I had a feeling that I did what he did he wouldn’t be able to stop me. But he kept saying to me ‘Come on, you can do it’ and eventually I did it.

We eventually made it back. His hand was cut open, we were both covered in scratches and bruises and we both copped the park ranger who was waiting back at the hermitage for us. He tore strips of us for doing something without telling anybody, for forcing them to send out a search party and for basically putting ourselves in danger – we got a real dressing down and I never saw Barassi look so sheepish.

By the time we had climbed Mount Cook I’d already had a season with Ron, so I knew that he was a driven man. At Carlton he made an enormous impact. He was a breath of fresh air for us young blokes with his whole demeanour, his attitude and his drive for football. It was just terrific and we loved him. Barass had that gritty determination to succeed no matter what, just like on the mountain where he wanted to keep going and going just to prove that he could do it.

Did I save Ron Barassi’s life? I don’t like to say that. Anybody could have done it. The thing was he had nowhere else to go, he was stuck there and if he moved he would have fallen. He just got himself into a terrible predicament on a ledge that wasn’t safe.

We both understood the danger we were in, and in a quiet moment not long after I remember him saying to me, ‘Thank God we were both able to help eachother’. In the years since we have had that special bond and whenever I bump into him now we have a quiet chuckle.”

Carlton senior players will wear black armbands into Saturday night’s match with Brisbane at Marvel Stadium as a mark of respect to the late Ken Greenwood.

It’s almost 60 years since Graham McColl completed his senior debut for the Carlton Football Club. For McColl, the game against North Melbourne in the second round of 1958 would herald in an association that would endure for more than a quarter of a century at Princes Park – but not as he had anticipated.

Just 10 senior games into his maiden season, in the night grand final against St Kilda at the Lakeside Oval in September ’58, McColl ruptured the anterior cruciate in his right knee. Resuming training the following March, the young ruckman again broke down with the same injury. At 24, McColl’s League career was over before it had begun.

McColl is carried from Princes Park in a training mishap in March 1959. (Article by The Sun)

The proverbial silver lining came with McColl’s subsequent pursuit of recovery techniques – which in turn piqued his interest in becoming a club trainer. So it was that McColl embarked on his new career at Carlton, rising through the ranks of the support staff from thirds, to reserves and ultimately seniors.

In the premiership season of 1981, McColl’s contributions to Carlton as trainer were rewarded with Life Membership – the same year in which players Mark Maclure and Graeme Whitnall were similarly honoured.

Now 83, McColl recently penned the following reminiscences of his life and times at Carlton.

“Before I reminisce about my life to date as a player, member of the training staff, member of past players’ association and Life Member, it may be of help to give you some prior history of my football life with some details of how I became a Carlton player in 1958.

Early school years (commencing 1940) were at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. I attended Forest Hill school, located outside the Aerodrome, on which I lived. I played Rugby and represented the school in athletics to year six.

After the War, we moved back to Melbourne and various parts of Victoria, which resulted in me attending many different schools. Eventually we moved to East Coburg where my parents obtained a home and my father was discharged from the R.A.A.F.

At this time I went to Preston Technical School and, after learning NOT to RUN with the ball under my arm (as in Rugby), I played in the school’s Australian Rules team, where we played against other Technical Schools in the metropolitan area and won many games. Ron Barassi (who later went to Melbourne) played as a half-forward flanker, and Brian Pert (later to play for Fitzroy) and myself were the wingmen.

I was invited to play for the Carlton Under 19s, however I wasn’t able to play a game, as family commitments forced me to look for a club in the vicinity and that’s how I came to play at Coburg in the VFA, playing 68 games. I feel my summer training with Preston Harriers and at Preston Tech., in running, high jump and hurdles, helped me with my ability to play in various positions if required.

1950s saw me as a telephone technician in training, working in many exchanges in Melbourne and country areas, and moving through various levels. With a transfer for eight weeks to Geelong Exchange, my father arranged for me to train at Geelong Football Club, with Reg Hickey as coach. I learnt a lot there and won Coburg Football Club’s Best & Fairest in 1956. Geelong asked me to sign a Form 4, however, Carlton was aware of this and claimed me as their player, where I played ten games in 1958 for the seniors. Of interest during this time was the payment the players received, which was 12 pounds for a full match and the Provident fund only being available after 50 games!

My first game was against North Melbourne, where I played as centre half-forward, my opponent being Albert Mantello. He tried me out physically and I more than held my own, with two goals. I also gave Mantello a hefty bump to which his teammate commented: ‘You’ve got one here, Albert’.

The night series at the South Melbourne ground saw me playing in the ruck, where I received my knee injury in a final against St Kilda. Medical staff didn’t know how serious my injury was. I drove home and went to work the next day. My boss sent me off to the local doctor and then to a physiotherapist. He didn’t know what the full extent of my injury was either. I missed the next year and so I wrote to the American National Football Association and received a strapping procedure – 30 strips of tape – but not much help.

When Dr. Arnold Cooper came to the club he explained what the problem was an I was offered a position on the training staff, with ongoing training by Dr. Cooper and our new physiotherapist Geoff Luke.

I was employed as a trainer for the Under 19s. In addition to looking after injured players, I became a messenger to players from the coach. Some of the players who started in the Under 19s were Adrian Gallagher, Jim Sullivan, Ray O’Halloran, Mark Maclure, John Morrison and Bruce Doull. The Under 19s won the premiership in 1963. 

Trainer Graham McColl (middle row, far left) with members of Carlton’s under-19 premiership team of 1963, which includes Adrian Gallagher and Denis Pagan.

During my time as a trainer, the senior team won four Grand Finals in 1968, ’70, ’72 and ’79 – the latter in which Wayne Harmes (a local boy with a ‘never-say-die’ attitude) saved the ball on the boundary to enable Ken Sheldon to kick the winning goal. This is still a matter of discussion for Collingwood supporters. Alex Jesaulenko captained and coached his grand final team, but we had to carry him off with a serious ankle injury. However, with true spirit, he was there to receive the premiership cup at the end of the game.

McColl tends to Sergio Silvagni’s knee in 1966. 

Back in the ’70s, a VFL Trainers’ Association was established by a couple of Hawthorn trainers. The association established a training scheme for those persons who wanted to become members of their club’s medical team and be present on the ground during games. Interested parties were required to participate in a six to 12-week practical course, which involved resuscitation and different methods of strapping. The course was conducted at the Collingwood ground.

As the years rolled on, my employment with Telecom caused me, at one stage, to resign my position with the senior XVIII staff. I was able to overcome this, as management moved me to a position that enabled me to attend training sessions during the week. Later, I was offered the position of Head Trainer, but had to decline as my work for Telecom would not allow me to be at the ground for commencement of training and in time for strapping.

McColl to the rescue of Rod Ashman, elimination final vs. Geelong, VFL Park, September 1978.

On a brighter note, I enjoyed assisting those who were new to the club, the camaraderie and the interaction between training staff and players was excellent, even though we were all on various levels. Sunday morning recovery sessions consisted of lap running, hot and cold showers and rubdowns and a drink of some description to finish off. On many occasions, players, trainers and staff got together with wives and girlfriends, sometimes not getting home until mid-afternoon. 

I tended to lose my interest when we basically became ‘waterboys’. However, nowadays the players have doctors, physios and mini-ambulances available to get them to more specialised treatments – and they sure need it with the game edging towards a Rugby format. I’ve always known the game as Australian Rules football (but there’s a) number of ball-ups (scrums), handling the ball incorrectly (throwing) and running the ball down the ground before kicking or shooting for goal (basketball). Umpires should also be able to assess that players are required to bounce the ball within 10-20 metres of running, or otherwise be penalised. I feel the umpires need to be re-trained in these areas.

Overall, I have enjoyed my time with Carlton. In writing these reminiscences, it has brought back some wonderful memories, of trips away, pride in winning Premierships and watching new players develop their skills.

Thanks for your interest in my time at Carlton, and to finish – Go Blues!”

Graham McColl (No.36)

On the night of Tuesday, August 16, 1955, the former Carlton footballer Henry William Cleveland Toole wheeled his way through the doors of the football club entrance at the old Princes Park ground. Toole, whose recent illness had forced the removal of both legs, had regained his mobility by way of a wheelchair paid for by the then President Ken Luke.

At the much-anticipated reunion, “Harry” Toole had come home to thank the great “KG” for this noble gesture, and to formally acknowledge the enduring support of two old on-field contemporaries of the 1920s – Billy Blackman and Newton Chandler, “The Grand Old Man of Princes Park”.

Toole’s welcome presence on a night in which yarns were shared of the days that used to be, underpinned a landmark moment in Carlton history. Earlier that evening, the club’s Former Players and Officials Association (the Spirit of Carlton as it is now known) was formally established.

The Association’s founding was recorded by the then Carlton secretary Wally Floyd in the club’s annual report of that year.

“The formation of a Former Players, Officials and Staff Association has been under discussion for some years, but during the past season the committee made a decisive move, after presentations from a number of former players – headed by M. Ewins, V. Wright, R. Hiskens and J. Watson – to have the secretary draw up a draft constitution for consideration at the annual re-union of former players,” Floyd wrote.

“Accordingly, on Friday, 12th August, a very representative gathering, called together by press notices and circular where addresses were known, met and successfully launched the Association. The secretary’s draft constitution was adopted with only minor alteration and office-bearers elected and installed.”

Floyd noted that the Brunswick-born five-game former Carlton footballer Vernon Wright was elected President with the 18-game returned serviceman Morris Ewins “of 66 Glengyle Street, Coburg” the Honorary Secretary and another former player, Cr. Frank Williams, Treasurer.

“A strong committee was also formed and this has met on many occasions since and has drawn up details for full-scale activities for 1956,” Floyd declared.

“Those eligible for membership are former senior players, officials and staff of the C.F.C. and further information can be gained from either the Club or Association secretaries.”

The Former Players and Officials Association prospered through the 1960s under the watch of Wright and secretary Reg Morgan – the baseballer turned footballer who was lucky to survive a ruptured spleen when representing this club’s reserve grade team in 1943.

Through the years, past player reunions were regularly convened at Princes Park on matchdays – for a time in the Heatley Stand, then in the Gardiner and later the Hawthorn Stand, in a room whose walls were festooned with photographs of past Carlton greats. The President Chris Pavlou, himself a loyal servant as player, coach and director, hosted these much-loved club functions.

In November 2006, through the informal overtures of the club’s former runner Bob Lowrie, a solid core of former players, coaches and administrators gathered at Giancarlo Caprioli’s University Café on Lygon Street to assess their beloved Carlton’s waning fortunes. Pondering the malaise were Jim Buckley, Mike Fitzpatrick, Ken Hunter, Steve Kernahan, Mark Maclure, Keith McKenzie, David Parkin, Val Perovic, David Rhys-Jones, Geoff Southby and Robert Walls, with apologies accepted from Alex Marcou and David McKay.

The gathering of greats to a man resolved to restore and enhance the spirit and culture of the Carlton Football Club in a non-political way.

Hence the slogan “Spirit of Carlton” was born.

Two years later, at an annual general meeting of the Past Players’ Association, it was resolved that the Spirit of Carlton group would form an amalgam with the traditional association, and that the entity’s name “The Spirit of Carlton Past & Present” would be adopted.

The outgoing president, 1968 Carlton Premiership player Dennis Munari and former president Pavlou, both of whom had worked tirelessly in keeping the traditional association up and running, were on hand for the transition, in keeping with Vern Wright’s vision of all those years ago.

IT’S ARGUABLY the greatest Grand Final of them all . . . and quite probably the Club’s most famous victory . . . and more than 50 years after the event the Carlton men who spectacularly wrested the 1970 Premiership from Collingwood’s grasp recently gathered to reminisce for what may well be the last time.

Though the COVID-19 lockdowns put paid to the 50-year reunion last year, 14 of the 19 surviving members of that feted 1970 team (Vin Waite died in July 2003) came together over dinner at East Melbourne’s famed Italian restaurant Il Duca – before taking in the Round 2 match involving today’s Carlton and Collingwood footballers over the road at the MCG.

For the record, team members at the reunion dinner convened by the club were Neil Chandler, Garry Crane, 1970 club Best and Fairest Adrian Gallagher, Barry Gill, John Goold, Kevin Hall, Ted Hopkins, Syd Jackson, Peter Jones, David McKay, Barry Mulcair, Phil Pinnell, Ian Robertson and Robert Walls.

Also present was the Premiership coach Ron Barassi (and his runner Rod Wilkinson who jetted in from Adelaide) along with Premiership captain John Nicholls – while ‘Big Nick’s’ Premiership teammates Brent Crosswell, Alex Jesaulenko, Sergio Silvagni and Bert Thornley forwarded their apologies.

Vin Waite’s widow Christine was also present, as was Jo Stuckey (nee McLean) – the daughter of the late 1968 Premiership player Peter McLean who supported Barassi as a Carlton Committeemen through the ’70 Premiership season. Gordon Newton, the last surviving member of the George Harris-led Board of Management in that year, was also on hand – as was the 1968 Premiership player Bryan Quirk and current Carlton President Mark LoGiudice, who welcomed guests to the Luncheon before they boarded a coach to the MCG, courtesy Firefly Director Joe Bono, a fervent Blues man.

Spirit of Carlton Manager Shane O’Sullivan, who organised the historic get-together, said he was overwhelmed to see so many former players and their wives/partners in the room.

“The Club was really keen to do something for its Premiership players of 1970 even after COVID restrictions meant we couldn’t,” O’Sullivan said.

“‘Barass’ and the players really seemed to enjoy themselves – particularly players like Barry Mulcair who came down from Bendigo and hadn’t been back in a while.”

All images supplied by Vicki Walsh. 

THE PAST eight decades (and as many League Premierships) of the Carlton Football Club’s illustrious 156-year history were on show at Kew Golf Club yesterday (Sunday), for what was the much-anticipated annual Life Members Luncheon.

In the lead-up to Thursday night’s season opener with Richmond at the MCG, Carlton presidents past and present, together with Premiership coaches, captains and players, joined former committeemen, staff members and their wives and partners at a function which was cancelled 12 months ago due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Amongst the Blues’ luminaries at Kew was Premiership coaches David Parkin and John Nicholls, together with Nicholls’ fellow Premiership captains Mike Fitzpatrick and Stephen Kernahan; four-time Premiership players Wayne Johnston, Peter Jones and David McKay; three-time Premiership players Jim Buckley, Neil Chandler, Adrian Gallagher, David Glascott, Mark Maclure, Alex Marcou, Peter McConville and Ken Sheldon; and dual Premiership players John Goold, Robbert Klomp, Val Perovic and Geoff Southby.

Ian Aitken, Rod Austin, Adrian Gleeson, Matthew Hogg, Ted Hopkins, Michael Kennedy, Andy Lukas, Warren McKenzie, Paul Meldrum, Denis Munari, Fraser Murphy, Phil Pinnell, Bryan Quirk, David Rhys-Jones, Warren Jones and Shane Robertson – Premiership players one and all – were also conspicuous by their presence.

So too were Michael Jamison and Heath Scotland – the most recent of the club’s on-field retirees –who were there to represent 21st century Carlton. Also on hand was the club’s longest-serving President John Elliott and its current President Mark Lo Giudice.

Former Carlton Chief Executive Stephen Gough, who together with Frank Brosnan, Shane O’Sullivan and Sharon McColl was responsible for organizing the Carlton Life Members Luncheon, described the event as a strictly social get-together “that’s not a day for speeches, fundraising, raffles or panels”.

“But as the Luncheon was cancelled last year and Life Members had not come together since 2019, it’s important to acknowledge the passing of five Life Members,” Gough said.

“I am of course speaking of Mark Naley, Ken Kleiman, Henry Gardner, Sam Smorgon and most recently Eric Salter – and we extend our deepest condolences to the friends and families of those esteemed Life Members.”

Gough also acknowledged the President and board of directors of the Carlton Football Club for supporting the Life Members Luncheon “and getting everyone together”.

Special mention was also made of the club’s most recently-awarded AFL Life Members Eddie Betts, Marc Murphy and Shane O’Sullivan, and tribute was paid to David McKay following his recent elevation to Legend status in the Carlton Football Club’s Hall of Fame.

As Gough noted: “If you think of the history of this club since 1864, only 14 people have been afforded that recognition . . . so to the great ‘Swan’ and (wife) Meg, well done”.

In closing, certificates were presented to 20 Life Members attending the function for the first time, as the countdown to Thursday night’s contest with the reigning Premier began in earnest.

As a Carlton senior footballer he ran out but once wearing the famous button-up dark Navy Blue guernsey with the No.47 on the back.

It happened almost 50 years ago – but Daryl Gutterson always deemed it an honour to wear that jumper.

Now, in the wake of Daryl’s untimely passing at the age of 67, the item carries even greater poignancy for the loved ones he leaves behind.

Zoned to Carlton (but only just as the dividing line with Fitzroy was across the road from his family’s home in Derrick Street, Lalor), Daryl, then an impressionable 16 year-old, joined fellow Lalor player Ian Cartwright in the move to Princes Park in 1969 – in what was a magnificent epoch in Carlton history.

A second cousin of the seven-game Footscray player and 1962 Gardiner Medallist Jim Gutterson, Daryl – or ‘Dizzy’ as Brent Crosswell dubbed him for his breathtaking turn of speed – first turned out for the Bill Hoogen-coached Under 19s.

He progressed through the reserves – initially under the watch of the late Keith McKenzie – and in 1971 finally earned his one and only call-up, ironically against the Lions, in the Round 10 match at Princes Park.

Having blown out the candles on his 18th birthday cake just 27 days earlier, Daryl featured in another first when he followed ‘Big Nick’ down the race in that maiden senior appearance.

For this was also the game in which Carlton coach Ron Barassi and Fitzroy coach Graham Donaldson (Daryl’s reserve grade coach at Carlton the previous year), famously agreed to trial the 50-yard centre square, within which only four players from each team were permitted to frequent at the centre bounce.

Named 20TH man on the bench alongside John Warden (wearing the No.46), the budding wingman with a thumping left foot got the call-up early in his solitary senior appearance and stood both David Rhodes and Treva McGregor, eight weeks after McGregor took out the ’71 Stawell Gift – the last League footballer to win the coveted footrace.

Daryl’s oldest son Brent (so named after Crosswell his long-time friend) said that a lack of application in his tender years probably went against his father.

“After making his senior debut against Fitzroy in ’71, Dad played the rest of that year in the reserves . . . and he played on in the twos until the end of ’73,” Brent said.

“Although ‘Barass’ liked Dad as a footballer, Dad always told me that with the likes of Garry Crane, Ian Robertson and Bryan Quirk going around, it was a case of ‘right place, wrong time’ for him.

“Being a young guy, Dad probably thought natural talent would get him through . . . and in the end a run-in with ‘Barass’ didn’t help.”

“The run-in” to which Brent referred took place on another occasion, when Daryl was kicking the dew of the grass.

A former teammate, the 1968 Premiership player Ian Collins, recalled the incident.

“Daryl was quite a clever wing/half-forward, although he wasn’t very big and was quite light. Anyway he was playing in the reserves this particular day and at half-time, while we were stripping for the senior match, he walked into the room,” Collins said.

“Barassi lined Daryl up and told him he was shirking the issue. Barass grabbed him by the throat and tried to put him into one of the lockers. The locker was about half the size of Daryl, but Barass was trying to force him headfirst into it.”

Little did Barassi realise that Daryl, a southpaw, was a more than handy amateur welterweight, and retribution came swiftly – courtesy a left hook across the chops – which split the coach’s lip and drew blood in the process.

Not surprisingly, Daryl, at 21, and with 68 reserve grade matches and the one solitary senior appearance to his name, parted company with the club he loved. He sought a clearance to Fitzroy, but the Blues played hard ball and so he crossed to VFA outfit Brunswick.

By the age of 28, after having represented Watsonia in the Diamond Valley Football League, Daryl opted to give the game away – his commitment to work as a sales rep for a fittings and bearings business taking precedence.

“Though he loved Carlton, Dad always thought that if he’d lived on the other side of Derrick Street he might have been a 100-game Fitzroy player given the players he was competing against at Princes Park in that era,” Brent said.

But Daryl always kept a soft spot for Princes Park and its people. He was a regular at Spirit of Carlton functions and only recently took great delight in seeing Callum Moore getting around in the old No.47.

“Dad used to say to me “I only played one game’, but I’d tell him ‘Dad, you played in exalted company – the company of absolute legends of the VFL/AFL’ and I’d have given anything to have run out once in a senior game wearing a Carlton guernsey,” said Brent – himself a Carlton reserve grade player who trained with the likes of Bradley, Fevola, Koutoufides and Ratten through 2002 – and took goalkicking honours with 30 from a half-forward flank.

“Dad played in a magnificent era at Carlton with Crane, Crosswell, Gallagher, Jackson, Jesaulenko, McKay, Nicholls, Robertson and Walls – famous names that are still talked about now.

“As a person, Dad was a pure gentleman. He wanted to know everyone’s stories. When I was playing he used to follow me down to the games and we’d talk footy, because footy brought him so much joy.”

The four-time Carlton Premiership player David McKay, as with Collins another of Daryl’s old teammates, remembered the one-game wingman as “a good player who like so many of his time found it difficult to break into the side”.

“But that one game meant so much to Daryl. He was proud of his association with Carlton and he was loved and respected by his former teammates,” McKay said.

“He was a terrific fellow too. Every time you saw him at a past players function, which was often, his face lit up. He had a rough look about him, but underneath beat a heart of gold.”

Daryl died in the Intensive Care Unit of Heidelberg’s Austin Hospital on Thursday, August 13, after suffering a cardiac arrest five days previous. He is survived by his wife Robyn (a niece of Carlton’s first Brownlow Medallist Bert Deacon), sons Brent and Rhys, daughter Emmilee and their respective spouses, and six grandchildren.

The funeral service for Daryl Graeme Gutterson will be held next Monday, August 24, commencing 11.00am. To view the service via webcast, go to www.tobinbrothers.com.au

Daryl Gutterson’s one senior appearance, Carlton v Fitzroy, Round 10, Saturday, June 5, 1971

Carlton 13.12 (90) defeated Fitzroy 10.15 (75)

B: Ian Collins Geoff Southby Vin Waite

HB: Kevin Hall David McKay Barry Gill

C: Trevor Keogh Bill Barrot Phil Pinnell

HF: Ian Robertson Robert Walls (vc) Syd Jackson

F: Peter Jones Alex Jesaulenko Barry Armstrong

Ruck: John Nicholls (c) Sergio Silvagni Adrian Gallagher

Res: John Warden Daryl Gutterson

Coach: Ron Barassi