In the lead-up to the 40^th anniversary reunion of members of Carlton’s 1979 Grand Final victory (yet again over Collingwood), thoughts invariably turn to Wayne Harmes and the dramatic lunge and thump that’s long been part of League football lore.

And yet Grand Final day ’79 proved to be the defining football moment in the life and times of Heathcote’s own Peter Francis – the 47-game Carlton wingman often considered best afield on that last Saturday in September and therefore the Norm Smith Medallist who wasn’t. 

Few would realise the enormous responsibility that was entrusted with Francis by his great mentor Alex Jesaulenko – League football’s last Grand Final-winning captain-coach – in the lead-up to that dramatic contest in sodden conditions in September ’79.

But as Francis explains, Jesaulenko had steeled him for such tasks in a pivotal discussion just prior to the commencement of the pre-season training period some 10 months before.

The following is Peter Francis’ story, in his own words.

It’s hard to believe 40 years have lapsed since Grand Final day 1979. As I often tell my kids here (as Talent Manager with Gippsland Power) – “Your footy career goes really quickly – don’t take it for granted, make the most of it”.

I’d played reserves at Carlton through the 1977 and ’78 seasons. In ’78 I played in a night game and kicked four, but I didn’t get the nod for the next week. As the year went on I feared I wouldn’t make it, and in the last reserves match of ’78 when I was named on the bench I thought “Gee, I’m in real strife here”. I honestly thought I’d get delisted.

But looking back on it now, the ’77 and ’78 years were really part of my football apprenticeship, and ‘Jezza’ (Alex Jesaulenko) played a massive part in that.

Jezza had a good eye for talent. I remember that he used to always sit upstairs, even before he coached, to watch the reserves play. Obviously he got a handle on guys coming through, and he recognised players like myself and Alex Marcou who was in the same boat as me, having played a couple of seasons in the reserves before he made it.

Jezza came to me at the end of ’78, just before pre-season started in November, to raise a couple of points. The first of them related to the positives, that I had the skill and good speed, but then he told me about the areas in which I needed to improve. “You need to get tougher, you need to get stronger and you need to get harder”, he said. In other words, he was telling me to get bigger and become more aggressive in my attack on the footy . . . and he was right.

Jezza said to me: “I’ve booked you in to do some boxing with a fellow named Des Duguid (a former Amateur boxer) at the Police Academy and I’ve also booked you in to do weights at the Melbourne Weightlifting Centre . . . on top of the other training that we’ll do”. He also said to me: “If you don’t do that, I’ll know that you don’t want to play”.

So I went and did it, I put on a stone in weight, and whereas I thought I’d hate the boxing, I absolutely loved it: while I still couldn’t fight, it gave me real confidence. After that pre-season I knew that no-one could hurt me, in the end I got the nod for Round 1 in 1979 and away I went.

I loved Jezza as a coach. He was brilliant for me. He gave me my opportunity and he taught me how to play my part for the team. Every week he’d say to me, “Peter, you play your role, you do what I tell you and you’ll stay in the side. You go outside that and you’ll be out”. Every week he’d say “You’re on the wing this week Peter, you’re on (for example) Michael Turner. I only want him to get seven kicks and I don’t care if you only get six.” So I knew that day that I had to be a defensive wingman and that I had to keep my opposing wingman quiet – whereas on another day he’d tell me to go for it.

In terms of my relationship with Jezza I knew my role, I knew what I had to do each week and I knew that I had Jezza at my back – and I think that’s the real art of coaching.

Peter Francis played a starring role on Graeme Anderson in the 1979 Grand Final. (Photo: Supplied)

The MCG was a heavy deck on Grand Final day, but I knew that my body could stand up to it and again I knew my role. Michael Young was told he had Ricky Barham and I was told I had Graeme Anderson. Now Graeme had kicked three goals on Keith Greig in the Preliminary Final and five the week before in the first semi against Fitzroy. As such, my role was to keep Graeme quiet and not allow him to kick a goal (Anderson managed just one behind), and as much as I got a little bit of the ball that day, my real role was to prevent Anderson from playing well.

It’s funny – when I think back to the ’79 Grand Final, what sticks in my mind is that I slept really well the night before. I was always a nervous player, I always got terribly anxious before games, and while I had a little bit of trouble getting into the ground on Grand Final day I wasn’t nervous, which was a bit bizarre.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened in the rooms or what Alex said before the game, but the biggest thing I remember is that when we ran out to the roar and to all the balloons flying, I felt like I was walking on air. It was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had and the hardest thing to describe. But I knew that I felt good that day, I was confident I was going to play well and so too the team.

People remember you for playing in Grand Finals, but certainly for playing in Premierships – and I’ll tell you now I played better in a lot more games before and since.

In saying that, the 1979 Grand Final defined me as a player for sure. A lot of people remember me for that game, not realising I played at four clubs. They think I only played at Carlton and they remember me for the 1979 Grand Final. All I can say is that I was lucky enough to play well in what was a star-studded side – Southby, McKay, Doull, Keogh, Ashman, Buckley. I was just a “good ordinary player” as Jack Dyer would say, with a lot of champions around me.

In fact, that game defined my life. For the past 27 years, I’ve been working full-time in it and I put it all down to that day, no doubt.

I played more games at Richmond, but I was at Carlton for five years, Carlton was my first club and Carlton gave me the opportunity. My obvious preference would have been to stay at Carlton, but it didn’t work out that way and that doesn’t matter – that’s how football goes, I’ve never been bitter and I’ll always be indebted to Carlton for what it did for me.

Life’s really busy and with the passing of time you do tend to go your separate ways. But I remain good friends with Kenny Sheldon and Wayne Harmes and I’m really looking forward to seeing Jezza again at the reunion for all those reasons I have outlined. As with Carlton, I’m indebted to Alex Jesaulenko too. Without Alex, I would never have got my opportunity. I really believe that.

It happened in the fifth round of the ’69 season, against South Melbourne at Princes Park – for Bruce Doull the first of 356 senior appearances through 18 seasons of a truly grand career for Carlton.

This week marks the 50^th anniversary of Doull’s senior debut – and on the eve of Sunday’s match with North Melbourne, the legendary Carlton figure recounted a tale which would suggest he could quite easily have played for Geelong or even North, had fate not intervened.

In a wide-ranging to-camera interview with this reporter by the No.11 locker a little while back, Doull – who was born in Geelong – recalled his childhood passion for the Pivotonions.

“I used to wear my Geelong jumper to school, but I didn’t really have a football background in Geelong, I didn’t play at Geelong at all,” Doull said.

“I was nine years old when we (the Doull family) came up to Melbourne, to Broadmeadows. I joined Jacana through friends at school. That was Under 13s and that was the first period of football for me.

“In the early years each club had a boundary . . . and ours was in the northern suburbs. I was half a street within Carlton’s zone, the other was North Melbourne’s.”

In truth, Doull’s father (and Rod Austin’s father as it happened) settled into new houses on the Carlton side of Camp Road, the dividing line separating the Carlton and North Melbourne zones. Also in the neighbourhood were the families of Wayne Harmes and Shane Robertson – fellow Carlton Premiership players who all lived on the right side of the divide.

Doull cut his footballing teeth at Jacana through the Under 13s, Under 15s and Under 17s (curiously as a ruckman), before joining Robert Walls as a Carlton Under 19 hopeful in 1966. For Doull, on-field progress was slow. As he said: “I played a lot of games in the Under 19s, a lot of games in the reserves, and was in and out of the firsts for a long time”.

Recounting his somewhat delayed emergence as a bona fide senior competitor, Doull offered a forthright response.

“I think it was because I just wasn’t a very confident person . . . I also had an injury in my early years, a dislocated collarbone which wouldn’t go back into place, and I had to have it pinned – so I was out for a long time with that,” he said.

“Then when I did get back in I got a hit from behind and got a fractured cheekbone, which put me out for a few weeks . . . I don’t know whether I lost confidence or what, but I just wasn’t aggressive enough for that style of footy at the time.

It was at this crucial moment in time that the perceptive Carlton senior coach Ron Barassi intervened.

“He (Barassi) really tried to help. He sent me off to do judo training to learn how to fall, which I don’t think a lot of people wouldn’t have been doing in those days, and he also sent me to a psychologist just to try and get some confidence in me,” Doull said.

“When we were training, if we were doing circle work he (Barassi) would call my name out to get involved – even if I was on the other side of the ground he’d just yell it out – otherwise I probably would have just hung in the background.

“He (Barassi) was a massive influence on me. I was very scared of him. Very scared of him. He was the coach, you were the player and that was it. But I appreciate that he took the time to (help) . . . and I can’t thank him enough for the start.”

Named 20^th man for that first senior outing against South and wearing the comparatively obscure No.4, Doull took his place on the pine alongside Barry Gill – and when the call finally came though from the coach’s box, Doull replaced Alex Jesaulenko no less.

Sadly, Doull remembers precious little of his first on-field sortie.

“I don’t remember anything about that game, nothing at all,” he said. “In those days they’d call you over on the Thursday night to tell you that you were playing. That’s what would have happened.”

But history records that Doull did get to sing the song post-match, the home team having accounted for the Bloods by 25 points – 20.17 (137) to 17.10 (112) – with the resident ruckmen John Nicholls and Peter Jones each contributing three goals to the winning tally.

The Carlton-South Melbourne contest of Round 5, 1969 was not without incident.

Volatile Carlton full-forward Ricky McLean was reported for the second time in eight days and duly outed for two matches by the Tribunal for having used abusive language towards field umpire Ian Coates.

‘Barass’ was also the subject of a League investigation in respect of his umpiring remarks for which he was later reprimanded in writing.

But for one of the most revered football figures ever to lace a boot, a glorious career awaited.

Bruce Doull bio

DOB: September 11, 1950
Carlton Player No.: 811
Senior career: 1969-1986
Senior debut: Round 5, 1969 v South Melbourne, aged 18 years, 234 days

Games: 356
Goals: 22
Last Game: 1986 Grand Final, v Hawthorn, aged 36 years, 16 days
Guernsey nos.: 4 (1969-71) & 11 (1972-86)

Premiership Player: 1972, 1979, 1981 & 1982
Best and Fairest: 1974, 1977, 1980 & 1984
Norm Smith Medallist: 1981
Carlton Hall of Fame: 1987 (elevated to Legend)
Carlton Team of the Century half back: 2000
AFL Team of the Century half back

Ian Thorogood, the former Carlton Senior coach thrust into the position with the shock resignation of John Nicholls, has died at the age of 82.

A three-time Premiership player in the feted Melbourne teams under Norm Smith’s watch, Thorogood was appointed Assistant Coach to Nicholls prior to the latter’s sensational departure on the Thursday before the opening round of the 1976 season. To quote the late Carlton secretary Keith McKenzie in  the Carlton Annual Report of that year: “Overnight, the summing up of players and tactics became number one priority in Ian’s football life”.

“The Blues began the season in great style with seven successive wins under Thorogood’s control and much of the credit must go to this man,” McKenzie wrote.

“Many times during each and every week, Ian would either be on the telephone or be at the club to discuss team placements, statistics or opposition styles. No-one could say Ian was ever caught unprepared.”

Thorogood took his team to within one straight kick of qualifying for the ’76 Grand Final – “the one that got away” as has often been said in the years since.

Through season 1977, he mentored a group which included emerging talents Jim Buckley, Wayne Harmes and Ken Sheldon – the same year in which Robert Walls, now a mentor to the Carlton coaches, officiated as captain.

“Ian was thrown into the job when John Nicholls departed on the eve of the opening game,” Walls said.

“‘Thoro’ took us to the finals in ’76 but we went out in straight sets and the general feeling amongst the boys as the years have gone on is that we let another slip. We played some pretty good football, but we just didn’t get the job done in September and there remains a bit of a regret.”

“I got on well with Ian. I really liked him. Like Barassi he came through the Norm Smith school and was straight down the line. We all respected Ron greatly and ‘Thoro’ was in the same mould . . . I enjoyed playing under him.”

A member of the Redlegs’ 1957, ’59 and ’60 Grand Final triumphs, Thorogood later captained and coached VFA outfit Waverley to the 1965 Premiership. At Princes Park, he coached Carlton teams to 29 victories from 46 matches through the 1976 and ’77 seasons.

The Carlton Football Club extends its deepest sympathies to the Thorogood family at this time.

As a mark of respect to the late Ian Thorogood, the Carlton senior players will wear black armbands in Thursday night’s season opener against Richmond at the MCG.

BARRY Bryant well remembers the day the offer first came through.

It happened more than 60 years ago, when the then 17 year-old was a junior teller in the counting house at Walwa – the tiny northern Victorian town less than a mile from the Murray River between Wodonga and Corryong.

“It was about 1957. I was working in the bank there and the manager said ‘Oh there’s a couple of fellows from Carlton here to see you,” said Bryant, who paid his old club a welcome visit recently.

“I said to the manager ‘You must be kidding’ because ever since I was a kid I always followed Carlton.

Resplendent in their dark navy blue blazers, the two men from the big smoke were the Carlton Secretary Allen Cowie and the 1947 Brownlow Medallist Bert Deacon.

“They said to me ‘We’d like you to come down to Melbourne to play. We’ll get you to play on permits’ – and I didn’t need to be asked twice,” he recalled.

“I came down and played about four or five games on permits with the seconds under Jack Howell as coach, whilst attending bank school.”

Barry Bryant among his Carlton teammates. (Photo: Supplied)

After a brief first stint at Princes Park, Bryant opted to head back to the bush – his reasoning fairly simple.

“I realised I probably wasn’t totally ready to leave home at that age, so I went back to play a few local games. When Carlton asked me again if I’d like to come down I said ‘Just leave it’,” he said.

“I thought I’d get a transfer with work to Melbourne anyway and I got a transfer all right – to Kyabram. I had a good year with Kyabram, won the best and fairest there in ’59 and Carlton followed up. That’s when I came down in 1960 – and I wasn’t going to go anywhere else.”

The Walwa Bryant left behind was “pretty much a one-horse town”. But it had a fair footy team, amongst them Barry, his younger brother Gordon and their father Milne (aka ‘Spud’) Bryant. Together they played their part in Walwa’s four flags on the trot – 1954, ’55, ’56 and ’57.

“That was open age of course and I reckon I played my first game at about 13,” he said.

“I was a little goalsneak so they put me in the pocket, and then from 16 I played centre – and Dad, who was 20 years older than me, was full-back.”

Boarding in eastern suburban Hawksburn under the watch of an old lady named Miss Decker, Bryant used to catch the tram to training.

Told that he would make the cut for the opening round of the 1960 season against Richmond at Princes Park, Bryant cruelly suffered a cork thigh in the practice match the week before, and was instead replaced by Dave McCulloch.

Wearing the number 11 later made famous by Bruce Doull, Bryant overcame that physical setback to complete his senior debut nine days short of his 20^th birthday, against Fitzroy in the second round match at Princes Park – an historic round given that matches were played on Anzac Day for the first time.

Barry Bryant returns to Ikon Park in front of his former No.11 locker. (Photo: Supplied)

But it’s the Round 10 contest with Footscray that Bryant savours most.

“I can remember before that match that Ted Whitten came over to shake hands,” Bryant said.

“He said to me ‘this is one of your first games – all the very best’ – and I have always remembered that. TED WHITTEN!

Plying his craft as a canny forward pocket with a beautiful left boot, Bryant made steady progress and was not surprisingly adjudged Best First Year player in Carlton’s Hands-coached senior teams of the 1960 season.

But in the 10^th round match of 1961 against Hawthorn at Glenferrie Oval, he copped an injury that effectively ended his on-field career.

“In the third quarter at Hawthorn I went up for a mark which I took on my chest, but I came down awkwardly and I felt something,” Bryant said.

“I thought ‘Geez, what’s happened here?’, and as I looked down my left kneecap was sticking out. That was pretty much it, although I look back now and wonder what might have been. All I was told by the medical people back then was to strap a brick to my left foot and lift the foot up and down.”

Bryant’s Carlton career ended after just 14 senior appearances – but not before he’d forged lasting friendships with the likes of Gordon Collis, Bruce Williams (now living on the Gold Coast), Barry Smith, who played a few games, and John O’Keefe whose whereabouts at the time of publication are unknown.

Beyond Bluesville, Bryant managed a couple of seasons with VFA outfit Brunswick before heading back to the sticks. He fronted up for a game with Rushworth, but when a poke in the eye almost cost him his sight he opted to give the caper away at the tender age of 25.

Turning his attention to tennis, he rose through the ranks as a competent state player and he still plays. A regular partner on-court is the former Collingwood Premiership footballer Brian Beers.

To this day, Bryant’s love for Carlton remains.

As he said: “I just love them . . . and now I see daylight.”

The true identity of a member of Carlton’s inaugural VFL team to take to the field has been revealed, more than 120 years after he first ran out.

The player is the 30-game backman Charles Herbert Sweatman, wrongly identified as Tom Sweetman, who was part of the club’s senior 18 which met Fitzroy at Brunswick Street Oval in the opening round of the League’s inception season of 1897.

The mystery was recently solved by Jamie Sanderson of The Blueseum historical website, with the support of researchers Rob Harris and the AFL’s Stephen Rogers.

According to Sanderson, the enduring flaw can be sourced to the newspapers of the day in 1897, which incorrectly listed the player as ‘Sweetman’ with two ‘e’s.

“It seems that the incorrect spelling was accepted as gospel by everyone including the player himself,” Sanderson said.

“He even went by the name Sweetman in his later playing career with Boulder City in the Goldfields League.”

When The Blueseum issued a public plea for assistance in sourcing information on its little-known players, Harris pursued information relating to Sweetman, only to find references to Sweatman.

Sanderson’s subsequent search through ancestry.com unearthed a Tom Sweatman, born in Ascot Vale in 1873, whose age tallied with the Carlton player.

“The thing that really made me twig was the image I located of the 1907 Boulder City Premiership team, in which Tom Sweatman is pictured standing next to Jim Pender – both men having played in Carlton’s backline through 1898,” Sanderson said.

Charles Sweatman in the 1907 Boulder City team photo.

“On being notified, the AFL conducted further investigation and confirmed that Sweatman was the man – and there were a few fist pumps when that came through. The League’s official records have now been changed, with historic publications like the Encyclopedia of League Footballers to follow suit.”

Sanderson added that although Sweatman died of a heart attack in Echuca in 1915 at the tender age of 41, he was married with a son “so there is the possibility of descendants”.

Accordingly, descendants are urged to contact Tony De Bolfo on 9389 6241.