Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

(Left) Alf and his younger brother Wilkie, Richmond, 1930s and (right) Alf Egan, Carlton footballer, 1932. (Photo: Supplied)

A tick over two years ago, a story appeared here about the life of Alf Egan. Egan, who was also known as ‘Tom’, is forever remembered as Carlton’s first known Indigenous footballer to lace a boot.

Listed as this club’s 478th senior player since 1897, Egan completed his senior debut, against Essendon, at Princes Park in Round 3, 1931. Named on a half-forward flank alongside another first-gamer Bernie O’Brien, Egan would boot a goal in the first of his 36 games for the Blues through the course of three seasons as a ruckman/forward.

Egan’s stoic display at centre half-forward in the 1932 Grand Final earned him universal acclaim. Alas, his time at Princes Park ended just a year later, with Carlton’s loss to Geelong in the first semi-final of 1933.

At 23, Egan saw fit to follow his football dream to North Melbourne, but by the end of ’35 and after just 15 senior appearances it was all over for him at League level.

While the previous article shed precious light on Egan’s hometown of Myamyn in Victoria’s south-west, little was recorded of his later years – other than that he was known to have fathered a son to a Richmond woman in the 1950s.

A labourer by profession, Egan of no fixed address would sadly succumb to heart disease at the age of just 51, with his cremated remains placed in a compartment of the Church of England section at Springvale Botanical Cemetery in January 1962.

The article of 2014 concluded with a plea to any of Egan’s descendants to make contact to help fill in the gaps.

Recently, one of them did – Egan’s son the much-respected Aboriginal elder Ted Lovett, himself a former Fitzroy footballer, who played two games on permit with the Lions in 1963 and a further seven in ’64.

“I’ve had a tough life but I’ve got through it”. Ted Lovett, 2016 (Photo: Supplied)

Ted is proud of the fact that Egan is remembered as Carlton’s first Indigenous player and that he played League football before Doug Nicholls. Here, he reflects on the life of a father he never really knew and at 75, ponders his own incredible life’s journey, the great capacity to prevail and the triumph of the spirit.

I didn’t know much about “Tom” down home, but I have a handwritten book about the Egans. I know that Dad lost his uncle Bill in the Battle of the Somme. I also know that his big brother Mick served in New Guinea during the Second World War, and his younger brother Wilkie died of natural causes in Richmond.

The Egans and the Lovetts were first cousins and my grandfather was brought up strict Church of England. My younger sister Georgina was the only family member to get the Egan name on her birth certificate, and she was born after grandfather had died.

All our mob were Gunditjmara – “The Fighting Maras” as they called us. Football was our natural game and we used to kick a possum skin stuffed with charcoal.

My Mum (‘Gertie’) and Dad met in Heywood, but I was born in Carlton and most of us were born in Melbourne. We had a stepbrother who died, but we never knew him and still don’t know anything about him. 

I had an older brother Victor who became a professional boxer, Tommy (who was a better footballer than me), Dorothy (a tomboy who could also play footy), me and Georgina. We were all taught how to look after ourselves because there was a lot of racism around. 

Tommy and Dorothy have all since died and they died in that order. Now there’s only me and Georgina left, I’m 75 and she’s 73.

We all lived with Mum at 85 Young Street, Fitzroy (it’s housing commission now) and Dad lived with his family at 90 Somerset Street, Richmond. We’d catch the tram there and get off near the Skipping Girl. They lived a few blocks up on the right.

They weren’t happy times in Fitzroy because we more or less lived in poverty there. There’s a clipping from The Sun going back years ago of the five of us – all my brothers and sisters, and Mum living in poverty.

Later on, I worked in Aboriginal Affairs in the early days of the movement, the radical times. That was in the ’70s, with all the marches, and I did a lot for the Aboriginal people. I received the Centenary Medal for services to the Ballarat Aboriginal community.

I was about 15 years old when my Mum died of leukemia. My brothers and sisters were all there the night she died at St Vincent’s Hospital. My Dad died in sad circumstances in Burnley in 1962 and I’d say I was about 20 at the time. 

Dad didn’t really have anything to do with us in those early years and after a while I was made a state ward, but through no fault of the family. I went to Mildura fruit picking and me and an Italian boy got hauled in by the police for walking the streets. We were rounded up on the Friday night and went to court on the Monday. The Italian boy went home with his mother and I was made a state ward – and I had eight years of institutionalisation – Royal Park, Turana and the Salvation Army Boys’ Home.

In the end, I worked for the department that made me a ward of the state.

I never really played junior football, because from the time I was 14 I played seniors. Funny thing, Charlie Sutton wanted me and Tommy to go to Footscray as we’d previously played out at Brooklyn, but Tommy was mad Fitzroy and so we stayed put.

I played nine games for Fitzroy, but I had a few problems with my colour. I had natural ability – I played anywhere, sometimes full-forward, but mainly wing, half-forward or halfback. Playing for North Ballarat later on, I won the Henderson Medal in 1963 and ’65 – the first person to win the Ballarat League’s best and fairest award twice.

(Left)Ted Lovett, in his Fitzroy strip, contesting a mark in a training session with Ballarat’s Howard ‘Plugger’ Lockett, father of the great Tony Lockett, and (right) Lovett in his playing days. (Photos: Supplied)

I am very heartened that there are rules preventing racial intolerance now, but today they wouldn’t know what prejudice was.

I’ve had a tough life but I got through it – and I’m a great believer that history’s history, I can’t do anything about it and it’s all in the past.

I go to bed at night and if I wake up I’ve got another day to live. That’s the way I live now and I keep it simple.

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Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Lilian O’Cock was very proud of her father-in-law, Wally O’Cock, Carlton’s first league goalkicker.

The 94-year-old daughter-in-law of Wally O’Cock – the first player to kick a goal for Carlton in League competition – has forwarded to the Club a collection of previously unseen photographs, certificates and general correspondence chronicling the man’s life and career.

Lilian O’Cock, whose late husband Horace was Wally’s son, was also able to shed her own precious memories of the famous Carlton figure, with whom she first made acquaintance in New South Wales almost 80 years ago.

“I was 16 when I met Wally in Holbrook. He was a very kind man,” Lilian said.

“I met him in 1938, the war broke out the following year and Horrie went to the Middle East in ’40.”

The story of Wallace Alfred Richard O’Cock is this. He was born in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Clifton Hill on June 17, 1875. His father, was a bank manager named Alfred Ferrie O’Cock, his mother, Anne Wallace, and records indicate that Wally’s paternal grandfather originally hailed from Somerset in south west England

The dedicated club website Blueseum notes that Wally joined Carlton in its final year in the VFA (1896) and was one of the first players considered for selection for the opening round match of the fledgling VFL – Saturday, May 8, 1897. It also notes that Wally lined up a placekick in the second quarter of the match against Fitzroy at Brunswick Street and sent it sailing through the posts – the history-making six-pointer, Carlton’s first.

That July, after being laid up for a period with injury, Wally endeavoured to force his way back into the Carlton team. Initially he was overlooked for selection after failing to obtain a medical clearance, but the Club registered him under the name Alfred Wallace and he promptly booted two goals in a match-winning performance against the Fuschias.

The Wallace surname is itself famous in sporting circles. Wally’s uncle Donald Smith Wallace was an MP and pastoralist who owned the respective Melbourne Cup winners of 1888 and 1890, Mentor and Carbine – and as a descendant Graeme Cumbrae-Stewart OAM said in a previous interview, “the story goes that Donald got Carbine on the cheap”.

Wally’s 15 goals from ten matches through season 1897 earned him the plaudits as Carlton’s first leading goalkicker. He would manage a further 31 appearances for the Club over the next four years, despite having been in absentia for all of 1900 for reasons unknown.

He was only a few days short of his 26th birthday when he turned out for Carlton for the last time, against Essendon at the East Melbourne Football Ground in June 1901. He later fronted for a local outfit in Preston, but his glory days on the paddock were long gone.

“I remember Dad telling me that Wally was a nuggety little bloke with a fiery temper,” said Cumbrae-Stewart.

“I believe he had to give up footy after he copped a spike from a boot to his leg. He was also left with a permanent limp, which forced him to give up his work as a commercial traveller with MacRobertson’s.”

Cumbrae-Stewart’s story is borne out in Lilian’s precious images of Wally, who carried a walking stick in later life.

Old photos Lilian has kept show her husband Horace and her father-in-law Wally making their way to the MCG
in 1937. (Photo: Carlton Media) 

According to Cumbrae-Stewart, Wally relocated to the small southern New South Wales town of Holbrook to work for his brother-in-law Adam Anderson and his wife Alice who managed at property called Wentworth.

“He later took on his own property, but fire wind and rain ruined it and he went broke,” Cumbrae-Stewart said. “He then started as a stock and sales agent in Holbrook, during which time he and his wife Luisa Durrant raised six children.”

But Wally would ultimately return to Melbourne, as Lilian explained.

“Towards the end of his life, he came down from Holbrook and for a brief time lived with an aunt of Barry Humphries in North Caulfield,” she said. “He returned to Holbrook to live with his eldest daughter, but then asked my husband and I if he could come back down to live with us, at 55 Norwood Road, Caulfield North.”

Wally O’Cock was 74 years of age when he died in Richmond’s Epworth Hospital on June 14, 1951. His body was returned to Holbrook, and laid to rest in a grave shared with his beloved wife who died nine years previous.

It’s now almost 120 years since Wally O’Cock created history for Carlton, and Lilian is almost certainly the last living person to have known him.

Thanks to her, Wally’s story endures.

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Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

John Nicholls leads the victory lap for the 1970 Grand Final. Brian Bearman is pictured on the far left wearing the tie. (Photo: C & J Stuckey Pty Ltd Photographics)

Tributes are being paid to the long-serving Carlton statistician Brian Bearman, who died recently at the age of 82.

Brian’s working relationship with Carlton took in the Barassi era and beyond, and spanned almost 40 years. His loyalty to the club was rewarded with Life Membership in the club’s Premiership year of 1987.

Five years previous, Brian’s brother Ken was awarded Life Membership for services as timekeeper. In 2000, Brian’s son Lewis was similar recognised for his contributions as a statistician – “three Life Members of the Carlton Football Club none of whom ever played a game,” as Lewis observed.

Born on November 12, 1933 in Manchester, Brian Bearman, together with his brothers and parents, boarded the first Australian-bound passenger ship from the UK after the Second World War. The Bearmans made the move as Brian’s grandmother was advised that a warmer climate was in the best interests of her health – and she pitched for Australia because she heard you couldn’t get a decent cup of tea in South Africa.

On disembarking the vessel in Brisbane in 1947, the Bearmans settled in the city, only to relocate to Melbourne five years later.

When Barassi accepted the role of Carlton Captain-coach on the cusp of the 1965 season, Ken Bearman was already keeping time for the club. According to Lewis: “Barassi wanted a statistician and Ken said to his brother ‘you love the club – you can do that’.

“And that’s exactly what happened. From ’65, Brian started keeping stats with people like Margaret and Grant Salomon and his good mate the late Ron Bromley. Then in 2000 when Wayne Brittain took over and replaced a lot of statisticians with a lot of computers, Brian stayed on for a couple of years with the Carlton Heritage Committee.”

James Koochew, Brian’s successor as Carlton’s head statistician in 1994, said that he was but a young man of 26 at the time “and Brian had been doing the job for longer than I’d been alive”.

“I remember that Geoff Walsh made the announcement that I was taking over and Brian was the first bloke to stand up to offer his congratulations,” James said.

“That was a measure of the man. He was a true gentleman.”

In more recent years, and though his friendship with Stephen Gough, Brian fulfilled duties as a guide at the National Sports Museum. But he remained an active Carlton supporter to the end.

“There’s a photograph of Dad running a victory lap with ‘Big Nick’ and the Carlton players after taking stats in the 1970 Grand Final,” Lewis said. “That moment was one of the joys of his life – to run the victory lap with them.”

Brian Bearman died peacefully in Cabrini Palliative Care. He is survived by his beloved wife of 54 years Ruth, son Lewis, daughter Tanya now living in the United Kingdom, and four grandchildren.

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Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Left to right: Carlton 49ers Don Hyde AM, Hugh Cornell and George Handley.

Their ranks may be thinning – it’s 67 years ago after all – but members of Carlton’s under-19 premiership team of 1949 – “the Carlton 49ers” – this week celebrated past glories with gusto at a reunion in neighbouring East Brunswick’s Gelobar Café.

Of the 19 who took the chocolates from Geelong in that Grand Final (9.8 (62) to 7.9 (51)), only three managed to make it along – chief organiser Hugh Cornell, George Handley and Don Hyde AM.

Notwithstanding the seven team members who have since died and a further five whose whereabouts remain unknown, four more including captain Alan ‘Alby’ Mangels (the father of Carlton’s 88-gamer Alan jun.) fired in their apologies for various reasons.

But there lending support was Alan Bell (son of the then Carlton Secretary Harry Bell, the Spirit of Carlton’s Dennis Munari and the club’s resident statistician Stephen Williamson.

“When I think about the ’49ers I think about those players who went on to become top players at League level,” said Hyde, who so capably called League football on radio and television for almost 40 years.

“I think of Harry Sullivan, Keith Robinson, Max Thomas and so on. I think back and I say to myself, ‘Gee, I played with those guys’.”

Brunswick-born and bred, and an old St Joseph’s North Melbourne boy, Hyde later represented the Kangaroos at reserve grade level because he was residentially tied to the club. He also chased the leather at Deniliquin and Maryborough, during which time he began to pursue a career in radio.

“I remember one day at Deniliquin the manager said to me ‘Our main commentator is not available – you play, so you must be able to broadcast’ – and that’s how it all started,” he said.

The ’49 triumph completed back-to-back grand final victories for the team, whose members also include Ian Clover and Dick Gill, the sons of Carlton greats Horrie Clover and Frank Gill respectively. Jim Francis, the Carlton Premiership player at senior level in 1938, served as coach throughout that period, having assumed control of the junior outfit when it was first admitted to the Northern District Football Association in 1944.

Francis, who succumbed to a knee injury the previous season,imparted his football nous on the players, with University High School sportsmaster Mr. Gaynor offering his services as an administrator.

The then Secretary Harry Bell, in his season overview for the 1944 Annual Report, somewhat prophetically reported:

“Mr. Gaynor and Jim Francis formed the ideal combination for the control of the boys, and it is hard to assess their value to your Club, but it is thought that full realisation of the plan may be expected in two or three years, when five or six of these boys will be regular First Eighteen players, and when this is achieved it may then be recognised that the fielding of an under 18 years team in the N.D.F.A. was one of the most progressive steps ever undertaken by the Carlton Club”.

Cornell recalled that in those fledgling years of the Under 19 competition, Collingwood was the only team not represented, “which is somewhat surprising when you think about it”.

“I think the 12^th team at that time was a TAA team,” he recalled.

Cornell also remembered his old mentor with great affection.

Don Hyde AM views the team photo.

“Jim Francis was a wonderful coach. He asked his players to play hard and fair,” Cornell said.

“He was a real gentleman. He was always very measured and he never lost his temper.”

For the record, Carlton’s Trophy winners in the ’49 Premiership year included Harry Sullivan (Best and Fairest), Tom Jones (Most Consistent), Keith Robinson and Noel Rundle (who tied for Best Team Man), Max Thomas (Most Serviceable Player) and George Ferry and Gerald Burke (who tied for Most Improved Player).

With the exception of Rundle, all award winners later represented Carlton at senior level – Ferry in 139 games, Burke (87), Sullivan (31), Thomas (24), Jones (seven) and Robinson (two).

Cornell has dutifully convened reunions of the Carlton 49ers in every year since 1999 – the 50^th anniversary of their famous victory at the old Princes Park ground.

“It was a difficult task after 50 years trying to find out where all the lads were, but we’ve effectively been meeting every year since ’99,” Cornell said.

Carlton FC Under 19 Premiers, 1949

Carlton players pictured are as follows;

3^rd row: Jim Johnson, Brian Amarant, Ray Clover, Keith Robinson,

Harry Sullivan, Tom Jones, Ron Price, Don Hyde, Dick Gill

2^nd row: Ambrose Curtis, Hugh Cornell, George Ferry, Alan Mangels (c.), George Stafford, Noel Rundle, George Handley

front row: George Crowley, Max Thomas, Maurie Rossi, Charlie Blake, Gerald Burke, Ken Reed

Coach Jim Francis stands is in the back row, fifth from the right.

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Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Barney Lazarus was Carlton’s first Jewish footballer.

When the Carlton Football Club acknowledges the many and varied contributions of members of its vibrant Jewish community at the President’s Luncheon this Sunday, thoughts tend to turn to the Smorgons and the Pratts at board level rather than those who have made their mark as Carlton players.

True, Richard Pratt, in another life as the club’s resident Under 19 ruckman, took out the 1953 Morrish Medal for competition best and fairest before life led him on a vastly different career path.

Before Dick was Fitzroy’s three-gamer of 1897 Herbert (“Bert) Rapiport – acknowledged as League footballer’s first Jewish footballer – who fronted up for Carlton in a few exhibition matches through the 1800s – amongst them an exhibition game on the MCG in tribute to A.G Spalding, a visiting American whose family established the famous sporting goods chain.

But as neither Pratt nor Rapiport played a senior League game, one must turn back the hands to 1902, to identify Carlton’s first Jewish senior footballer – one “Barney” Lazarus – who completed his senior debut for the Old Dark Navy Blues, against Geelong at Corio Oval, in the eighth round of 1902.

Named on a half-back flank, Barney was part of Carlton history on that winter afternoon in June, as the visitors’ narrow four-point victory was their first over the Pivotonians since the VFL’s inception five years previous.

Barnett Joseph Lazarus was born in London on December 18, 1879. He was a boy of six when his parents led him down the gangway of a Sydney-bound sailing ship before relocating not long afterwards to the colony of Melbourne.

Recruited to Carlton from Carlton Juniors after plying his early footballing craft at neighboring Princes Hill (and possibly Prahran), Barney would represent the seniors in just seven appearances, the last of them the 15^th Round of 1902, in what was Jack Worrall’s maiden season as club secretary.

At some point following the completion of his Carlton career, Barney relocated to Sydney. The NSW Australian Football History Society records that Barney turned out for Redfern through the 1907-’10 seasons, during which time he also represented the Combined Sydney outfit in matches against the likes of South Melbourne, Norwood and Fitzroy; and New South Wales against Geelong, Collingwood, Queensland and North Adelaide.

Little is known of Barney’s life after the game (and only this grainy image puts a face to the name). But the dedicated Carlton supporter and part-time genealogist Bernie Kuran recently shed more light.

Barney, it seems, married in 1912 and died 50 years later, on May 6, 1962 at the age of 83. He was laid to rest at Sydney’s Rookwood Jewish Cemetery – according to cemetery records in plot 259 in section 19, row 13.

At Rookwood, his Hebrew name is identified as Boruch ben Leib (Son of Leib).

But at Blueland, it’s Barney.

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