RONALD Dale Barassi, a legendary figure in the Australian Football League (AFL), passed away on 16 September 2023, leaving behind a legacy that will forever be etched in the annals of Australian football history. Born on 27 February 1936, in Melbourne, Ronald’s passion for the game was evident from a young age, and he went on to become one of the most influential figures in the sport.

Ronald’s football journey began at the Melbourne Football Club, where he made his debut in 1953. Known for his exceptional skills, versatility and leadership qualities, he quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with. Over the course of his 12-year career at Melbourne, Ronald played a pivotal role in the club’s success, helping them secure six premierships in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1959, 1960 and 1964. His ability to dominate the field as a midfielder and forward made him a formidable opponent for any team.

In 1965, Ronald made a move to the Carlton Football Club, where he continued to excel both as a player and a leader. His impact on the team was immediate, and he was appointed Captain-Coach in his first season. Under his guidance, Carlton reached new heights, winning premierships in 1968 and 1970. Ronald’s ability to inspire his teammates and lead by example earned him the respect and admiration of players and fans alike.

Ronald’s coaching prowess did not go unnoticed, and in 1981, he was appointed as the inaugural coach of the Sydney Swans Football Club. Tasked with rebuilding a struggling team, Ronald once again proved his ability to turn a club’s fortunes around. Under his guidance, the Swans experienced a resurgence, reaching the finals for the first time in over a decade in 1996. Ronald’s dedication and commitment to the club earned him the title of AFL Coach of the Year in 1996.

Throughout his illustrious career, Ronald was not only a successful player and coach but also a mentor and inspiration to countless individuals. His passion for the game, unwavering determination and ability to bring out the best in his players set him apart as one of the greatest figures in AFL history. Ronald’s impact on the sport extended far beyond the field, as he played a crucial role in shaping the future of Australian football.

Ronald Dale Barassi will be remembered as a true icon of the game, whose contributions to the Melbourne Football Club, Carlton Football Club, North Melbourne Football Club and Sydney Swans Football Club will forever be etched in the hearts of fans. His legacy will continue to inspire generations of players and coaches, ensuring that his name lives on as a symbol of excellence and dedication in Australian football. Ronald’s passing leaves a void in the AFL community, but his spirit and influence will never be forgotten.

“Arguably our game’s greatest name, a giant of Australian Football, who left a legacy at every club whose doors he walked through the doors of, none more so than our own,” Carlton President Luke Sayers said.

“It was late 1964 that Ron donned the Navy Blue, and for the proceeding decades, the Carlton Football Club never looked back.

“The Captain-Coach of our Club for the drought-breaking flag in ‘68, followed by coaching what is considered the greatest victory of them all, the 1970 Grand Final comeback over Collingwood.

“Ron transformed the game and indeed the clubs who were privileged to be graced with his presence.

“How fitting that just last night, two clubs in which he left such an impact should play out a final that typified the toughness, ferocious competitiveness and passion that symbolised so much that was great about Ron.

“On behalf of the entire Carlton Football Club, our most heartfelt condolences go out to the Barassi family and we thank them deeply for allowing us and our game the honour of having the great Ron Barassi as forever part of it.”

DON Nicholls, the former Carlton centreman whose younger brother and Club Legend John followed from Maryborough to Princes Park, has died at the age of 86 after a short illness.

When Don joined Carlton as a 19 year-old in 1956, his reputation as an outstanding Victoria country footballer already preceding him. At 15 he’d taken out the League’s Best and Fairest Senior Player Award.

Don completed his senior debut for the Blues in the second round of 1956 at Princes Park – ironically against Melbourne, the team Carlton meets in Friday night’s semi final.

In July 2017, during a welcome visit to the old Carlton ground with John and family members, Don reflected on his years with the senior 20 when he wore the No.12 guernsey now on the back of Tom De Koning.

“I haven’t been back for a while, so when I look out over the ground the first thing that comes into my mind is how much the ground’s improved,” Don said at the time.

“The centre area used to be a mound of black mud where the cricket pitches were placed. I remember that Bruce ‘Bugsy’ Comben lost a contact lens in there once and everyone was wallowing around in the mud looking for it . . . they found the contact lens too.”

“To avoid the gluepot, play was down one wing or the other. Players found a way around it.”

In those days long stops and woollen sleeves were in vogue, and only one match-day ball was ever used. Consequently on wet days, players were actually weighted down by what they wore, and the air conveyance invariably lost its shape.

Not that it particularly phased Don.

“I was always keen to play here come down and they wanted me to come down earlier, but I wanted to finish my schooling in Maryborough,” Don said. “I was on my own when I first came down and all my family came down of a Saturday.”

Adjudged winner of the Terry Ogden Memorial Trophy for the Club’s Best First Year player in 1956 (with ‘Big Nick’ following suit in ’57), Don represented Carlton in 77 senior matches between the Melbourne Olympic year and 1961.

Little brother John, on debut, joined Don in the opening round of the 1957 season against Hawthorn – and the rest, as they say, is football history.

Carlton’s 1968 premiership player and former Chief Executive and President Ian Collins, who completed his senior debut in the opening round of 1961 against St Kilda on a day the Nicholls brothers played, remembered Don for his versatility.

“Don could play half-forward, centre and half-back. The thing with him was his versatility,” Collins said.

John Nicholls, the Premiership captain of 1968 and ’70 – and ’72 as Captain-Coach – described his brother, affectionally known as ‘Donny’, as a child prodigy in terms of his football ability.

“Donny was 15 years of age when he won the best and fairest in the Maryborough League and 16 when he took out the Courier Trophy in the Ballarat League, which was the best of all the country leagues,” John said.

“He played at a time when unfortunately bad treatment for an ankle injury really cost him. He should have kept playing. He was a good athlete and excellent exponent of the drop kick and he could play in a number of positions, whether half-forward, centre or half-back.

“When I followed Donny down to Carlton in ’57 I started off in the back pocket. At one stage Donny was playing half-back and I was always accused by my late wife Janet of kicking the ball to my brother.

“Donny was my brother and my friend forever.”

The players will wear black armbands as a mark of respect to the late Don Nicholls, Carlton player No.701, at the MCG on Friday night.

The Carlton Football Club also acknowledges the passing last Friday of four-game rover David Browning, the Perth recruit who completed his senior debut in Round 3, 1955 – a year before Don Nicholls.

WHEN Carlton ruckman Mark Pittonet readies himself for the 2023 finals campaign he’ll do so in the knowledge that he’ll be upholding the tradition set by a three-time club premiership great of almost 120 years past with whom he has a newfound connection.

Pittonet, who tonight chests the banner for his 50th Carlton game, recently discovered that his partner of two and a half years Elise Franetic is the maternal great granddaughter of ‘Ted’ Kennedy – one of 11 players to have famously featured in each of the Club’s hat-trick of Grand Final victories of 1906, ’07 and ’08 under the watch of the legendary Secretary/Coach Jack Worrall.

“I knew that my partner Elise’s great grandfather played for Carlton, but I didn’t realise how good he was. Knowing what I know now, it’s made me wonder: ‘Had I been listening? How did I miss all this?’,” Pittonet said.

“Elise reckons she told me about Ted Kennedy a while ago and that I brushed it off thinking that he might have only played one game. Then on a visit to her grandparents’ house a couple of weeks ago, they mentioned that they had a bit of stuff on Ted and I asked if I could have a look. I then realised he was a great figure in Carlton history.

“I’ve always known that Elise’s granddad was a diehard Carlton supporter. Now I know why. Elise herself was an Essendon supporter, but she’s now a converted Carlton fan.”

Born to Scottish migrant parents in Parkville in 1877, Edwin Page Kennedy chased the leather for St Jude’s in his early football life, before accepting an invitation to take part in a trial match with Essendon. In no time Kennedy found his niche in the ‘Same Olds’ senior team, but injury cost him his place in its 1901 Grand Final victory over Collingwood – and though he played in the 1902 Grand Final contest, the Magpies turned the tables and won the flag.

The following year, Kennedy severed ties with Essendon after 43 games and joined Carlton on Worrall’s recommendation. This would prove a masterstroke on Worrall’s behalf as Kennedy set foot on Princes Park with a point to prove.

Ted Kennedy, Carlton player No.163, lined up in the opening round of the 1904 season, against Fitzroy at Princes Park. The old dark Navy Blues were on the end of a frightful 94-point thumping on that Autumn Saturday afternoon and would lose to the same team in the 1904 Grand Final.

But Carlton, under Worrall, was on the rise.

The following year, Ted’s younger brother Jim (later Sir James) Kennedy joined him at Princes Park – but his 23-game Carlton career would be overshadowed by his post League years as a chartered accountant, Mayor of Brighton and State Minister for Transport, whose overall service to community was rewarded with a knighthood.

As a fleet-of-foot wingman, Kennedy, in tandem with Rod McGregor and George Bruce, formed part of the most acclaimed centrelines ever to take the field. Though injury deprived McGregor his place in the 1907 Grand Final victory, Kennedy and Bruce were there for the premiership three-peat – the 1906 Grand Final victory over Fitzroy, the ’07 win over South Melbourne and the ’08 triumph at Essendon’s expense.

Kennedy, McGregor and Bruce took their places in the Carlton 18 which met South Melbourne in the 1909 Grand Final – coincidentally the earliest known VFL game to survive on film – and cruelly fell two points adrift of a fourth flag on the trot.

That game would be Kennedy’s 109th and last at Carlton – and after nine seasons with two clubs, he’d participated in six Grand Finals.

Having served as Carlton Players Delegate in 1908, Kennedy accepted the role of Vice-President in his final year as a player – the same year the club committee presented him with a cheque and silver kettle (and the players a dinner set) in recognition of his marriage to Gertrude Lewin.

Kennedy served as Carlton Vice-President through to the end of 1913. He died at the age of 70 in July 1948 – 10 months after the Blues’ Fred Stafford sunk Essendon by a point with his trusty snap in the dying seconds of the 1947 Grand Final.

Pittonet’s historic football connection does not begin and end with Ted Kennedy. The Blues’ big man also revealed that his own maternal great grandfather Frank Gibson represented Fitzroy in the ruck through 63 games between 1928 and ’32 – a truism that has piqued the 27 year-old’s interest in the game’s rich history and his own League lineage.

“I’ve known about my connection with Frank Gibson for years but never really talked about it,” Pittonet said. 

“I’m not sure if it’s a fable, but I was told as a kid that Frank originally played as a ruck-rover who brought about a change in the rule – that only ruckmen could compete at the centre bounce because he used to run in and grab the ball before it hit the deck. Whether that’s true or not I have no idea – but I’m going to run with that.”

FORMER Carlton footballer Matthew ‘Skinny’ Lappin, thesedays domiciled in Queensland, had hoped to be at Carrara’s Heritage Bank Stadium on Saturday afternoon to see his Blues potentially lock in a finals berth for the first time in a decade with victory over the Suns.

But football has ironically deprived him of that opportunity, as Lappin is the resident coach of QAFL outfit Surfer’s Paradise, which meets Aspley at the Hornets’ Graham Road Oval in Carseldine at 2pm.

“The timing isn’t great, but it is what it is,” Lappin said. “In any event our place on the ladder can’t change so I’ll have my phone handy in a corner of the coach’s box to keep tabs on what’s happening.”

Watching on from afar these past eight weeks, Lappin has been “blown away like everyone” with Carlton’s incredible metamorphosis.

“I didn’t see this coming,” said the Blues’ prodigiously-gifted 196-gamer. “It’s been a total 180-degree turnaround and a real credit to everyone involved who stuck fat and kept it together – and they’re playing a sustainable brand of football by the look of it.

“I’ve loved watching it and I’ve been pretty vocal about it on my Twitter account. They’ve kept building with the addition of the right pieces.”

Originally drafted by St Kilda at selection 40 in the 1993 AFL Draft, Lappin strung 55 games together before being traded to Carlton with selection No.58 (later used to draft Ian Prendergast) in exchange for its selections Nos.22 and 53 (later used to secure James Begley and Troy Schwarze) in 1998.

The Blues knew what they were getting with the prodigiously gifted Chiltern footballer, whose Carlton tenure would cover 196 games through nine seasons – amongst them the 1999 preliminary and Grand Finals – and would result in him earning All-Australian and international honours.

Following his on-field retirement, Lappin remained with Carlton as an assistant coach, and as a playing assistant coach with the Northern Bullants.  He served as Carlton’s forward line coach from 2008 until 2010 before completing four years as an assistant coach at Collingwood from 2011.

Lappin relocated to Queensland and in early 2015 was appointed Gold Coast’s Head of Development. In August of that year he again donned the boots, this time for the Suns’ reserve grade team as a result of the team’s player shortages due to injuries.

In 2018, Lappin pursued his coaching interests as Head Coach of Southport Sharks’ Junior AFL Academy before accepting the coaching role with Surfer’s Paradise, and as self-confessed sun-lover he considers he’ll be in Queensland for the long haul.

FIVE members of Carlton’s feted 1972 premiership team, and a further member of the ’73 Grand Final outfit, have shared their reminiscences – both palatable and unpalatable – at the launch of a new book chronicling the team’s bitter rivalry with Richmond through those halcyon years.

Carlton’s ’72 premiership greats Peter Jones, Andy Lukas, David McKay and Geoff Southby, together with ’73 Grand Finalist Vin Catoggio, joined author Dan Eddy at the launch of his book Blue Brilliance in the 1864 Function Room at IKON Park.

Eddy’s tome examines with forensic detail the stories behind the stories that in part tell the whole of the Carlton-Richmond enmity through a five-year period which took in three Grand Finals – most notably the ’72 Grand Final when the Blues booted a record score of 28.9, and the ’73 Grand Final when the Tigers’ brutality, coupled with the late losses through illness and injury to Carlton’s key midfielders Barry Armstrong and Trevor Keogh – chiefly contributed to “a hollow victory”, as McKay put it.

McKay, who bravely played out the second half of the ’72 Grand Final with a broken jaw, and Southby – who took no further part in the ’73 GF after being knocked out in the second quarter – were both recipients of Neil Balme’s indiscretions: indiscretions for which Balme was never suspended.

While Southby declared he was prepared to forgive but not forget after 50 years, McKay was less than forgiving.

“Just thinking about it now, in some ways the 1973 Grand Final was pretty much a hollow victory for Richmond. To do what they did to Geoff early in the game . . .  and to explain it away as ‘that was football back then’ is really a pretty weak excuse,” McKay said.

“That was nothing short of thuggery – and it wasn’t just the on-field guys responsible, it was the off-field guys who sent them out to do it. That was sanctioned by the club I’m sure and it’s pretty tragic when you think about it, that you’ve got to go to those lengths to win a football game.”

Lukas and Jones talked fondly of their experiences in ’72 – Lukas as a contributor to the win off the bench, Jones having turned in the best of his 249 games for Carlton as No.1 ruckman in his one-on-one with Craig McKellar.

Blue Brilliance is available at The Carlton Shop.

BRIAN Walsh – a member of Carlton’s 1973 Grand Final team, and the Club’s leading goalkicker and Best Clubman in the same year – has passed away in Bendigo after a long health struggle. He was 72.

Joining Carlton from Sandhurst on the eve of the 1970 premiership season, Walsh was amongst the Club’s solid intake of Bendigo Football League recruits in the days of zoning. While he would never savour premiership glory, he was part of a solid core of Bendigonians central to Carlton’s on-going on-field successes – Sandhurst’s Trevor Keogh, Geoff Southby and Paul Hurst; Golden Square’s Ray Byrne and Greg Williams; Eaglehawk’s Greg Kennedy, Rod Ashman and Des English; and South Bendigo’s Peter Dean.

When he signed on at 18 in late 1969, Walsh had just earned the Bendigo League’s Best and Fairest award, so the Carlton recruiters knew what they were getting. By the opening round of 1970 Walsh was ready to go, and together with his old Sandhurst teammate Hurst, he completed his senior debut under coach Ron Barassi’s watch.

Named alongside Alex Jesaulenko in a forward pocket for the season opener, Walsh contributed two goals to Carlton’s winning scoreline of 21.19 (145) – and ‘Jezza’ booted a lazy nine.

As a canny forward, Walsh played his part in many a Carlton victory and he knew where the goals were. In Round 8, 1973, against South Melbourne at the Lakeside Oval, he put eight goals over the umpire’s hat, and in Round 16, 1974, against Collingwood at VFL Park, he booted another seven – five of them in the second quarter.

Trevor Keogh, Carlton’s two-time premiership player and dual best and fairest, knew Walsh from their secondary schooldays.

“Brian was a couple of years younger than me, but we went to school together,” Keogh said.

“We were friends at Marist Brothers in Bendigo where we played school football and later at Sandhurst with others like Kevin Higgins, Kevin Sheehan and Geoff Southby. Our schoolboy teams were always pretty good, but not in the same class as Assumption.

“When we were playing juniors and seniors we’d go by bus to grounds at Echuca or Rochester. I reckon I played three years in the seniors and Brian played two. He won the Michelsen Medal for the Bendigo League in 1969, the same year he won the Sandhurst Best and Fairest. I was the B and F at Sandhurst in 1968 and Southby in ’70.”

Keogh remembered Walsh as “a very smart footballer” both in Bendigo and at Carlton.

“He wasn’t quick, but he was clever with his hands and feet, and he could kick either foot. He played close to the goals – he mainly played as a forward, with the occasional run in the centre,” Keogh said.

“He was a good bloke too.”

On the eve of the 1975 season, Walsh saw fit to change clubs. He made the short diversion to Windy Hill and tallied another 51 senior games through four seasons for Essendon.

Walsh ended his on-field career at Werribee, earning was crowned best and fairest in 1981 when he was also captain-coach.

On the strength of his friendship with former Carlton premiership player and coach Robert Walls, Walsh accepted a role as Walls’ assistant at Fitzroy, and coached the Lions’ reserve grade teams between 1982 and ’84.

He later gave something back to the Bendigo League, taking Golden Square to the premierships of 1988, ’89 and 2001 – and there would also be coaching stints with Wangaratta, Campbells Creek, White Hills and Kyneton.

In October 1997, Walsh was one of 19 Carlton players named in Bendigo’s 23-man VFL/AFL All Stars Team.

PAT PELLY was Caleb Marchbank’s age when he donned the dark navy lace-up with chamois yoke for his eighth and final senior game for the Carlton Football Club.

That happened almost 120 years ago, in the 11th round match of 1904 against St Kilda at Princes Park, when Pelly, then 26, was named on a half-forward flank for that contest – and Jim Marchbank, the brother of Caleb’s great grandfather, took on ruck duties.

Seven weeks earlier, Pelly had completed his Carlton senior debut at Princes Park, ironically enough against the Saints, and in both instances alongside his cousin Jim Flynn. Fate would deal Flynn a greater hand, as he would lead Carlton to its inaugural VFL Grand Final victory as captain in 1904 – the first of a Premiership hat-trick under Jack Worrall’s watch.

Pelly, as with Flynn, was recruited to Carlton from St. James (between Benalla and Yarrawonga). Together they would turn out for the local St James Football Club, whose President was George J. Coles. It was George who acquired his first retail business in St. James from his father George W. Coles, and his company, the Coles Group, would one day morph into the nation’s largest retail business.

Not much else is known about the life of Pelly, Carlton player No. 170 who died in Benalla at the age of 61 on February 20, 1939.

But it’s through the help of Jim Flynn’s descendants in Benalla that the club has for the first time sourced a portrait photograph of Pelly, 119 years after he last laced a boot for the old dark Navy Blues.

The photograph, professionally taken by a representative of Bourke Street’s Stewart & Company, is thought to have been taken around the time Pelly was chasing the leather for Carlton, and features a resplendent Pelly sporting a black tie. Another photo, supplied by the Flynns, captures the local St James team of 1909, featuring Pelly (third player standing from the right) and Jim Flynn (second player seated from the left) both wearing their treasured Carlton lace-ups. The fair-headed player wearing a cravat and seated to the right and front of Flynn as you look at that image is Gordon Green, a member of Carlton’s back-to-back Premiership teams of 1914 and ’15.

The St James team, 1909. Pat Pelly is the third player standing from the right, proudly wearing the old Carlton lace-up with chamois yoke. Seated second from the left, also wearing the Carlton lace-up, is Pelly’s cousin Jim Flynn, Carlton’s inaugural Premiership captain and three-time Premiership player of 1906, 07 and ’08. In front of Flynn and to his left sporting a cravat is Gordon Green, later a member of the Blues’ 1914 and ’15 Premiership teams.

Since its inaugural VFL season of 1897, the Carlton Football Club has been represented by 1236 footballers, of which 115 – Pelly included – was not identified by a single photograph.

Thanks to the Flynns, that number has now been whittled down by one.

IN THE long and storied years of both Carlton and Collingwood, Heath Scotland’s connection with each of the game’s greatest rivals is truly unique.

History records Scotland as the only footballer to have featured in the final AFL games for both clubs at their respective inner-city venues.

In his maiden season as a League footballer, ‘Scotto’ represented the Magpies in their last hurrah at Victoria Park in Round 22, 1999 – and he was there for the Blues when the curtain came down on Princes Park in Round 9, 2005.

In the first instance, Scotland, together with the likes of the-then captain Nathan Buckley, Paul Licuria, Mal Michael and Paul Williams, heard the-then Collingwood coach Tony Shaw reflect on Victoria Park’s rich history in his pre-match address prior to the match with Brisbane. “The era stops today,” Shaw told his players at the time, “and you have been given the greatest honour of all time to represent your club”.

The Magpies, with just four wins from 21 starts, were propping up the ladder back then, and in third-placed Brisbane they encountered a Leigh Matthews-coached outfit boasting captain Michael Voss and Craig McRae – today’s Carlton and Collingwood Senior Coaches respectively.

Not surprisingly, the Carringbush couldn’t go with the Lions (8.4 (52) to 13.16 (94)) – and when the final siren sounded the old ground’s death knell, the black-and-white flag flying between the Sherrin and Rose Stands was lowered for the last time.

As with Collingwood in 1999, Carlton ended the season in last position with just four wins to show for 2005 – and on that historic Saturday afternoon in May, Scotland – having crossed to Carlton two years previous – heard Denis Pagan pay homage to Princes Park and its people in his pre-match address.

Sadly, Scotland experienced another defeat in that historic moment in time, with Carlton falling 18 points adrift of the Neale Daniher-coached Demons (amongst them the late Colin Sylvia and the best afield Brock McLean) 13.14 (92) to 15.20 (110) – and at game’s end he joined the likes of Anthony Koutoufides, Eddie Betts, David Teague and Lance Whitnall in forming a guard of honour for the great John Nicholls as he raised the match-day ball in the shadows of the Robert Heatley Stand.

In recalling his very personal dates with destiny at both Victoria Park and Princes Park, Scotland conceded: “It’s a great trivia question, isn’t it?”.

“It’s a long time ago now, but what I do remember about those final AFL games at Victoria Park and Princes Park was the raw passion and emotion of the supporters who saw their grounds as religious places,” Scotland said.

“The last game at Victoria Park happened in my first year as a player and I was energised and excited, but as with the game at Princes Park the team lost, and having played in both of them I was disappointed we couldn’t get the job done.

“Looking back, it was great to be involved in those final games. It was real privilege to play at those venues period, let alone for the last time.”

For the record, Scotland, then an 18 year-old Western Jets hopeful, was taken by Collingwood with its third selection (No.44 overall) in the 1998 national draft. He would represent Collingwood in 53 senior matches between 1999 and 2003 and earn the Joseph Wren Memorial Medal for reserve grade best and fairest in 2001.

At the end of season 2003, Collingwood traded Scotland to Carlton in exchange for the Blues’ third round selection (No.35 overall) in that year’s AFL draft. The Magpies nominated South Fremantle’s Brent Hall with selection No.35, but Hall managed just one senior appearance for them – the Round 16 match of 2005 against Essendon on the MCG.

But Scotland represented Carlton with distinction in 215 senior appearances between 2000 and 2014, during which time he earned the John Nicholls Medal in 2012.

Scotland said people have often asked how both the Carlton and Collingwood clubs compare, and he has a stock response.

“To be honest the clubs are very similar – so much history and tradition, so much expectation.”

“When I first joined Collingwood and then Carlton the venues were all run down, but even then I was mindful of the history of both of them and I found them eerily similar.”

Scotland is one of 30 players known to have played senior VFL/AFL football for both Carlton and Collingwood since the League’s inception in 1897.

The following is a senior Carlton-Collingwood combine of the 22 players including Scotland (plus four emergencies and a further four top-ups):

There are also seven further players who have represented both sides at AFLW level: Christina Bernardi, Lauren Brazzale, Brianna Davey, Alison Downie, Amelia Mullane, Nicola Stevens and Amelia Velardo.