Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

A recent photo of former Blue Rod Waddell.

Of the thousands who claim it as an “I was there the day moment”, none was more impeccably placed to view Peter Bosustow’s Mark of the Year than the bloke in the No.10 dark Navy Blue guernsey.

Rodney Steven Waddell was front-on to the pack when “The Buzz” completed that famous leap in the shadows of the since-demolished Robert Heatley Stand at Princes Park.

“I was under the pack waiting for the crumbs, when all of a sudden Bosustow came out of nowhere and took this big mark,” Waddell said this week.

“I was right in front of it, No.10, and that was a huge grab. It was inspiring and really lifted the team to another level.”

Waddell emerged from the dugout that day, for what was the first of five senior appearances for the Carlton Football Club through the Premiership seasons of 1981 and ’82.

This was a landmark moment in Carlton history – Round 18, 1981 versus Geelong, in what doubled as Bruce Doull’s 250^th senior appearance for the club. In the lead-up to the match, injury and illness had robbed coach David Parkin of household names Barry Armstrong, Rod Austin, Jim Buckley, Wayne Harmes, Warren Jones, Robbert Klomp, Alex Marcou and Val Perovic – and yet the replacements still found a way in crafting a meritorious 33-point victory over the visitors.

“We were pretty much depleted but we actually beat them and David Parkin rated it as one of the greatest victories,” Waddell recalled. “I remember he had a plaque made up of that team and it’s probably still up at the club today.”

Magnificently, Waddell’s clearance to Carlton came at a cost of four Premiership points to Collingwood’s reserve grade team, as Waddell had turned out for the Magpies illegally.

At the time he was chasing leather for the then Diamond Valley League club Lalor, then coached by the former Collingwood half-forward Barry Rist. Rist was hell-bent on getting Waddell to Victoria Park on the strength of Waddell’s best afield showing against Reservoir-Lakeside in the 1980 DVFL Grand Final

“Naturally he (Rist) was a mad Collingwood supporter and wanted me to end up there, so he took me over to his place in Diamond Creek which was in Collingwood’s zone. But I lived in Lalor which was Carlton’s zone.”

Not surprisingly, Collingwood and Carlton soon waged war over Waddell, and a subsequent VFL investigation ensued. Ultimately the League ruled that the player was indeed zoned to Carlton, and the black and whites were duly fined $500 and stripped of the four competition points they had earned with Waddell in their team.

This week, with Carlton and Geelong meeting in the AFL’s Indigenous round, Waddell, whose League career ended after a further 20 senior appearances for the Cats, will watch on with much interest. Co-incidentally, Rod’s sister is the mother of Steven Motlop, who’ll be going around in the hoops at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

It’s more than 30 years since Waddell, now nearing 60, last played League football, and interviews have been truly scarce – perhaps the legacy of his disinterest in the world of social networking, mobile phones and the internet.

But Carlton’s No.10 is going well and was only too happy to reflect on his amazing life and times, after being located in his home, just a few kilometres south-west of the Bendigo CBD.

Rod Waddell (No.10) gets the perfect view of Peter Bosustow’s 1981 Mark of the Year. (Photo: AFL Media)

This is Rod Waddell’s story: 

“I was born in the Kimberleys in Western Australia. My mother, Mavis Lacey, was Indigenous and my father, Steve Waddell, was white. He was born in Heidelberg in 1931 and lived on the family’s dairy farm. I remember he used to tell this story to my Aunty Maureen that he jumped on a horse in Heidelberg and said ‘Tell Dad I won’t be home’ – and that was the last my grandfather ever saw of him.

I grew up in a place between Derby and Kununurra, on the Mount Elizabeth cattle station run by my father’s people. My father was a bullcatcher and he used to drag guys around the bush with him chasing wild bulls. I was only eight and he had me tying up these wild bulls by the legs. It was so isolated up there that some of the wild cattle lived and died without seeing a man.

In terms of my family story I can go back as far as when I was a kid on the cattle station. I remember going out hunting natural game with the Aboriginals on the station. We used to hunt flying foxes and goannas. We’d use boomerangs to catch the flying foxes, then skin them. We’d then dig a hole, fill the hole with rocks and heat the rocks. We’d put the foxes on the rocks and cover them with paperbark. We’d leave them to cook for an hour and a half, and they were quite nice to eat.

With the goannas you’d get them in holes or up trees. You’d hunt them with a stick or a boomerang, skin them and cook them under the ground or on hot coals. If you didn’t know any better you’d think you were eating chicken breast.

We also used to find honey from a native bee which they call “sugar pot”. The bee was like a little bushfly which produced wonderful native honey . The honey was protected by a dark casing in the side of a tree, you could cut the casing out to find the honey, and a lot of honey there was too. You could basically stick your hand in to retrieve the honey because the bush bee didn’t sting.

In the end, Mum resolved to send my younger brother and I down to Melbourne for schooling. I moved to Lalor with Raymond and I was probably seven or eight at the time. I lived with one aunty and he lived with another, and my sister Stephanie returned to Darwin to live with my mother.

That was hard for me because when I was up there I didn’t want to come down to Melbourne and when I got to Melbourne I didn’t want to go back. No sooner had I settled in one place than bang – I was suddenly back in another.

I never played footy in Darwin, but I did at Lalor Primary School where Alex Marcou and David Glascott went. I started playing playground footy there, I caught on to the game, I really enjoyed it and the rest as they say is history.

When I came to Carlton the famous ‘Mosquito Fleet’ was up and running and it was difficult to break in. In saying that, I didn’t want to leave Carlton, but in those days the contract they had put to me wasn’t going to kick in until the end of the ’82 year. If that was the case I could be approached by other clubs – and that’s what happened with Geelong, even though David Parkin didn’t want me to go.

Funny thing, I sat in the stands watching the 1981 and ’82 Grand Finals. I was actually close to making the 1981 Grand Final. I trained right through the ’81 finals series at a time when Rod Ashman was battling a niggling injury and it looked like I might have got a run in his place. But we knocked Geelong off in the semi and got the week’s break, which gave Rod the chance to get himself right . . . and he won everything but the Brownlow Medal that year.

If there was 22 a team back then like today I would have been there. But the main thing is that the team won.

I had no problem at all with Carlton. It was a great club, I didn’t really want to leave, I had a lot of mates down there and it was just that I got a better offer and my girlfriend at the time encouraged me to take it.

Rod Waddell during his days with the Blues. (Photo: Carlton Media)

After finishing at Geelong I went back to Lalor to play a few games then joined Jerilderie in the Murray League. We were up against teams like Finley, Deniliquin and Cobram, and won a few Grand Finals. I played with Russell Jeffrey and Mark and Paul Motlop who played all over Australia. Russell Jeffrey, who played at St Kilda, was a good mate of mine and he helped me out when I was coaching there for a time.

I also used to play footy up in Darwin, for Nightcliff, which meant that in those days I was playing 12 months of the year.

After I finished my playing days with Jerilderie believe it or not I started shearing. I knew nothing about shearing, but I got into the industry and started to travel. It was around 1989 and work took me to south-west Queensland, which is when I gave football away. A friend of mine, Bill Stapleton, who was the runner at Carlton through the 1980s, then bought an abattoir in Ararat. He phoned me to say “Can you come down to help me for 12 months?”, which I did . . . and 12 months turned into 15 years.

When I came back to Ararat I came out of football retirement after 12 years of not playing football and ended up playing for the Marong Football Club just outside of Bendigo, after meeting up with a bloke named Teddy Rogers. I’m now living outside of Bendigo and I’m back involved in the shearing run. I have a mate in the industry and I help him out a bit but it’s more casual thesedays. When you’re young you think you’re bulletproof, but it catches up with you.

I never had any kids of my own, but I was with a lady for 16 years and she had three kids which I helped bring up. The eldest one at the time was six and they’re all in their 20s now, and they’re really good kids.

These days I’m still a Carlton and a Geelong man. I’ve got a soft spot for both of them and my nephew plays at Geelong of course.

I still love Carlton and I still catch up with old teammates. At a 70^th birthday for one of the old Blue Diamonds Dicky Merton I caught up with Wayne Harmes and Des English.

The Indigenous round was unheard of when I was a playing, but it’s a good thing I reckon. When I was playing I got a fair bit of racial abuse, more from the crowd than the players, but I actually took it the other way and used it to my advantage. My view was ‘If they’re calling me this I must be doing something right’ and you lifted to another level.

These days I’m happy where I am living and I’m in no hurry of moving, but who’s to know?

Healthwise I’m not too bad. Other than a groin problem and a bruised achilles I never got a lot of injuries out of the game. That’s about all I got out of football, so I was quite lucky.”

The Carlton team v Geelong, R.18, 1981 at Princes Park:

(Rod Waddell’s senior debut)

B: Des English, Mark Maclure, Peter McConville

HB: Ken Hunter, Bruce Doull, Rohan Burke

C: Phil Maylin, Ken Sheldon, David Glascott

HF: Rod Waddell, Scott Howell, Wayne Johnston

F: David McKay, Peter Bosustow, Denis Lenaghan

R: Mike Fitzpatrick, Greg Wells, Rod Ashman

I/C: Brendan Hartney, Mario Bortolotto

Coach: David Parkin

More By Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

The Nine Network’s colour poster of Carlton’s 1976 team. Player names mentioned at bottom of article.

Forty years ago in living colour – it’s the Carlton Football Club’s on-field finest, pictured in the 1976 season.

Through the generosity of long-time supporter and member of The Carltonians Cameron Dare, a fold-out team poster of 1976 is now part of the club’s ever-growing archive.

The Nine Network, in conjunction with long-gone station Radio 3DB and British tobacco importer WD and HO Wills, released the poster featuring Carlton coach Ian Thorogood and his 29-man squad in full playing strip, in a team photo captured in the players’ room within the since-demolished Robert Heatley Stand on the cusp of the ’76 season.

Featured in the poster, which retailed for the princely sum of 75 cents, are the household names – Carlton Premiership players Alex Jesaulenko, Barry Armstrong, Rod Ashman, Rod Austin, Bruce Doull, Peter Jones, Trevor Keogh Mark Maclure, the late John O’Connell, Phil Pinnell, Robert Walls, Geoff Southby, Syd Jackson and David McKay – the latter pair sporting their prized guernseys with Australian crest worn with distinction on the Premiership team’s Orlando World Tour of late ’72.

Others appearing include the one-game player Wayne Deledio (father of Richmond’s Brett), Craig Davis (father of Collingwood’s and Sydney’s Nick) and Graeme Whitnall (father of Lance), together with  the late Danny Halloran.

Also there are Wayne Farquhar and David B. McKay, destined never to play a senior game in the old dark Navy Blue.

Four-time Carlton Premiership player David McKay – that’s David Robert James “Swan” McKay – believed that DB McKay later pursued an on-field career with Glenelg.

“We actually used to call him ‘DB’, although I have no idea what the ‘B’ stands for,” McKay said.

“DB was a flanker, quite a handsome boy as opposed to the rest of the rabble. DB’s father Mal was the butcher at Strathmore who bought the business from Phil Pinnell’s father George – and Phil worked there for Mal during school holidays. DB ended up working as a car salesman in South Australia, but I think he’s back in Melbourne now.”

McKay also believed that Farquhar was a local kid whose connection with Carlton could be sourced to the club’s Under 19s.

“I don’t know what happened to Wayne. He was a nice fellow, he would have been taller than DB, and he would have played key position.”

Notable absentees in this team photo are Jim Buckley, Ray Byrne and Mike Fitzpatrick, who would all appear in an alternative group photograph later featured in Carlton’s 1976 Annual Report.

Having won the first seven matches of the ’76 season, only to then drop the next five between rounds 8 and 12, the Carlton players racked up a further nine consecutive victories until drawing the final home and away game with Footscray.

An alternative photograph of Carlton’s 1976 team.

Earning the week’s break as minor Premier, the Blues then dropped the first semi to Hawthorn and were bundled out in the Prelim against North, in what doubled as the final senior appearances for O’Connell and Jackson.

Dare said he had no hesitation in donating the poster to the archive.

“To be honest I was only given the poster last week,” Dare said. “A close friend passed it on to me and I thought it might be of greater value to the club, so I decided I’d like to hand it in.”

The Carlton squad of 1976 featured in the Nine poster is as follows;

Back row: Russell Ohlsen, Garry Higgins, Barry Armstrong, Danny Halloran, Rod Austin, Graeme Whitnall, Greg Towns, Leigh McConnon

Third row: Phil Pinnell, Mark Maclure, Eric Pascoe, Rod Galt, Peter Jones (DVC), David McKay, Trevor Fletcher, Geoff Southby, Wayne Farquhar

Second row: Rod Ashman, Robert Walls (VC), Ian Thorogood (Coach), Alex Jesaulenko (Capt.), Bruce Doull, David B. McKay, Syd Jackson

Front row: John O’Connell, Trevor Keogh, Alan Mangels, Vin Catoggio, Craig Davis, Wayne Deledio

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

A recent photo of former Carlton footballer Keith Warburton. (Photo supplied by Peter Warburton)

Today he lives quietly in a nook of Victoria’s glorious Goulburn Valley. But there was a time when Keith Warburton – the Carlton footballer famously dubbed “the acrobat in football boots” – hovered precariously between life and death and the denizens of the football world held their collective breath.

It happened at the MCG on the afternoon of Saturday, September 6, 1952, in what was Warburton’s one and only finals appearance, the first semi-final involving the now-defunct Fitzroy.

Carlton lost to the Gorillas by a miserable point – 8.20 (68) to 10.9 (69) – with the golden point booted in the dying seconds by Fitzroy captain Alan Ruthven.

But the match was overshadowed by “Warby’s” dreadful injury – the result of a wayward blow to the lower abdomen incurred in the opening quarter of the contest.

“I got an accidental elbow to the lower stomach early in the game from Bill Stephen, one of the fairest players of the game,” Warburton recently recalled.

“I actually turned around in a pack as Bill was coming through. He put his arm up to protect himself and he collected me. I was dry reaching all through the game, but played it out. It was then that I got into trouble. In the rooms after the game I passed blood in the toilet and later collapsed at the club dance.

“I was bundled into a car and taken to the Royal Melbourne, but was later ferried to Prince Henry’s Hospital by a little mate of mine from Cheltenham, Lexy Robertson.

“We got there and it was full of drunks. There I collapsed and a sister came in and put me straight into the operating theatre. After the op my condition worsened over the next few days.”

Keith Warburton is one of Carlton’s few surviving members of that fateful 1952 semi-final against Fitzroy.

Warburton underwent emergency surgery to have part of his bowel removed – the legacy of a severed minor artery leading to the bowel – and as news of Warburton’s perilous condition filtered through, supporters gathered for a vigil outside Prince Henry’s.

Back at Princes Park, all from Carlton President Ken Luke down were mobilised into action, with Ken Hands and Jack Howell amongst the many answering the blood bank’s appeal for precious plasma.

This was big frontpage news, with The Argus of Tuesday, September 9 carrying a report headlined ALL WORRY ABOUT SICK STAR.

The article featured an image of Warburton’s wife of 65 years Rose in the company of nurse Aileen Keilan, who was afforded the lofty task of tending to the desperately ill footballer. Another image featured two young Carlton fans, Ike Weir and his brother Sam, hovering around the Bakelite radio in their pyjamas awaiting updates on their hero’s condition. A further image featured a hospital switchboard attendant taking calls from concerned members of the public.

The newspaper report, in part, read as follows;

While Keith Warburton, Carlton football idol, still battled for life in Prince Henry’s Hospital, countless thousands of people throughout the State yesterday waited anxiously for news.

The news late last night was “No change. He is still on the danger list, but is maintaining the slight improvement he showed on Sunday”.

Doctors at the hospital are confident that Warburton’s fine physical condition will help him recover. 

The Warburton drama has aroused greater interest than any injury to a player has ever done before. Yesterday it even drove interest in the end-season matches into the background.

Just before noon yesterday it was widely rumoured that a wireless station had announced the young forward’s death. The rumor spread quickly throughout the city. In hotels, clubs, shops and on the street the topic was “bad luck about Warby”. 

The hospital, receiving telephone inquiries at the rate of six a minute, finally was forced to issue an appeal to the public to desist – they were interfering with the work of the hospital. 

Hundreds rang from factories and offices to pass on the news to workmates. Hospital officials reported that they could not recollect when so many inquiries had been received about a patient’s condition.

The newspaper report in The Argus, Tuesday September 9, 1952.

Warburton to this day is thankful for all those who helped him through his darkest hour.

“I can remember many people popping in to offer blood. It was unreal,” he said. “I had a ruptured bowel and burst intestine. My belly blew right up. I can remember looking down and all I could see was a great big stomach.”

Carlton supporters come to the aid of their hero, as reported in this article from The Argus.

In time, and to the relief of all football lovers, Warburton came through. Remarkably he made the cut for the opening round match of the 1953 season, against Footscray at Princes Park, albeit with the necessary safeguards.

“I later had to play with a big belt on. It was like a girdle around my midriff and it slowed me up a bit,” Warburton said.

“I had it stuck there in the cupboard for a while and only a year or so ago I threw it away.”

At 26 years and 24 days, Warburton’s on-field career came to an untimely end. It happened in Round 11, 1955, against Richmond at the Punt Road Oval in game no. 74 for Warby.

On leaving Princes Park, he accepted the role of captain-coach at Tatura. “I was only supposed to hang around for 12 months as coach of Tatura as I was going to head up to Mildura,” he recalled.

“But ‘Spider’ O’Toole, who was, the big cattleman here said ‘See that land out there? You can take what you want, put a house on it and stay here’ and that’s what I finished up doing.”

Years later, Warburton watched on with pride when his son Peter completed his Carlton senior debut in coach Ron Barassi’s final season of 1971. Throughout it all, the old man pursued his post-game interests.

“I had a nursery for a while, grew veggies and kept dogs,” Warburton explained. “I trained greyhounds and made a stack out of it. It was cash and it kept me going. I was an owner/trainer.

“I never retired from work until late – I used to pick horses and greyhounds up for people.”

The great irony of course is that 64 years later, Warburton is one of the few surviving members of the Carlton team who took to the field on that fateful Saturday afternoon against Fitzroy. Save for captain Ken Hands, Doug Guy and Max Thomas, all of the 20 who represented the team in the ’52 first-semi have since gone.

This report from The Argus shows the lengths Keith Warburton’s teammates went to to save his life.

Thesedays Warburton labors with “a busted knee” suffered towards the end of his playing days. He’s survived two heart bypasses, had a tumor removed from his head and undergone a kidney op after learning his right kidney wasn’t working.

But he’s still going strong.

A grandfather to 14 and great grandfather to a footy team of 18, Warburton doesn’t follow the game anymore. As he said: “It’s played so differently now and I’ve said so before, but I’ve also been told I’m out of touch.”

And yet, as he nears his 87^th birthday, he still keeps a place in his heart for the place he remembers as Princes Park and the people who made it.

“When I joined Carlton in 1951 I used to catch the train from Bonbeach to Flinders Street and the tram up Royal Parade to the ground. Back then I was playing for two quid,” Warburton said.

“It’s hard thinking about some of these things at Carlton now because it’s such a long time ago. My wife bought out the scrapbooks and there were players in some of the teams I just don’t recall, but I do remember Dennis Zeunert, Peter Webster, Johnny James, Bill Milroy and Ken Hands.”

At two pound a game, “Warby” was undoubtedly underpaid. For few at Carlton, with the probably exception of Peter Bosustow, crammed so much so soon into his career highlights reel.

“Carlton people remembered me as a mad acrobat and I’ll tell you why,” Warburton said.

“As a kid I once got into a circus to have a look. I got under the tent and watched the acrobats perform all these tricks. From then on everything I did was acrobatic and that’s why they called me ‘The Acrobat’.”

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Albert ‘Alby’ Paterson’s name is added to Carlton’s Great Fallen memorial plaque at Ikon Park. (Photo: Carlton Media)

This time last year, on the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, a permanent memorial to Carlton’s Great Fallen of two world wars was unveiled at the old ground.

That solemn morning, in a ceremony involving the coaches, players and staff, the stone memorial and plaque carrying the names of 16 former Carlton footballers lost in conflict was unveiled by Joan Schinner. Joan was just a little girl when her father the 1938 Carlton Premiership player Jim Park was killed in action in Wau, New Guinea on February 9, 1943.

Assisting Joan in the unveiling was Chad Nash, the great nephew of 10-game former Carlton footballer Fenley McDonald who was killed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.

“Fen” was one of 11 Carlton footballers known to have lost their lives in the war to end all wars, until January this year when a twelfth – Carlton’s “lost soldier” Albert (“Alby”) Henry Paterson – surfaced some 96 years after his untimely passing.

The breakthrough came by way of an email forwarded to the football club by David Paterson, to whom Alby was a great uncle.

Now domiciled in Tura Beach, a suburb of Merimbula on New South Wales’ South Coast, David wrote to ask whether Alby could be recognised as a former Carlton footballer who made the ultimate sacrifice in wartime.

Alby’s service record, it seems, was not known to this club’s or the AFL’s historians, as his surname was incorrectly recorded as Patterson with two ts rather than one.

Read the profiles of Carlton’s Great Fallen

David advised that Alby was born in the old goldmining town of Happy Valley, just south of Ballarat near the town of Smythesdale in 1875. Happy Valley no longer exists.

Recruited from nearby Ascot Vale, Alby represented Carlton in the then VFA years through the winters of 1892-’96, and turned out for his one and only League appearance for the old dark Navy Blues in the second round of 1897.

That came against South Melbourne at the Lakeside Oval, when Paterson A. took his place in the pivot.

On parting company with Carlton, Alby, together with his wife Sarah Gazzard and daughter Amy, relocated to the Western Australian goldfields town of Kalgoorlie. There, from 1900 until 1915, Alby and Sarah parented three more children – Laura, Kenneth and Jessie – and Alby chased the leather for the Mines Rovers Football Club.

Carlton’s Great Fallen memorial plaque at Ikon Park. (Photo: Carlton Media)

“Alby was selected to play for WA in the state carnival of 1904, but his son died and he was unable to play,” David said.

Alby was 41 when he answered the nation’s call, enlisting for wartime duties on December 31, 1916. Service records show that he stood five feet seven inches in the old measurement and tipped the scales at 180 pounds. His was a fair complexion, with hazel eyes and brown hair, and he carried a scar on the left side of his upper lip (no doubt obscured by the handlebar moustache). He also stated his occupation as miner.

In August 1917 in Melbourne, Alby hauled his kitbag up the gangway of the Southampton-bound ship Themistocles en route to France.

At the Australian General Base Depot in Rouelles some three months later, he joined members of the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company, which was aligned with the Royal Australian Engineers for the course of the war. Each tunnelling unit was occupied in offensive and defensive mining which involved the placing and maintaining of mines under enemy lines, as well as other underground work such as the construction of deep dugouts for troop accommodation, the digging of subways, saps (a narrow trench dug to approach enemy trenches), cable trenches and underground chambers for signals and medical services.

During the Allies’ great advance to victory in Autumn of 1918, the 3rd Australian Tunnelling Company was responsible for the construction of a road bridge at Moudit under shellfire. What exactly happened to Alby is unclear, but what is known is that by July of 1918 he was admitted to hospital with lobar pneumonia –a form of pneumonia that affects a large and continuous area of the lobe of a lung.

Alby was still in hospital when the Armistice was declared and four days later, on November 15, 1918, was transferred to the 3rd Aust Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford.  Not until late December did he board a hospital ship bound for home.

The H.T. Marmara departed the Liverpool docks on December 21, 1918 with Sapper Paterson invalided home for discharge due to pneumonia.  Urine test was conducted during the voyage and Sarah was advised by Base Records of her husband’s impending return.

The Marmara finally docked in Fremantle on January 27, 1919. On March 2 of that year, Alby was discharged from the Military due to medical unfitness and awarded a pension.

Twelve months later, on April 16, 1920 Albert Henry Paterson died at Trafalgar, a goldfields town some three kilometres east of Boulder.

Last week, the club arranged for the etching of Sapper Albert Henry Paterson’s name into the plaque beneath the names of the 11 other Carlton footballers who so bravely gave their lives in the First World War.

Lest we forget.

 

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

The late Jim Park, 1938.

Ken Luke thought so much of Jim Park that when the Carlton Premiership player of ’38 enlisted for wartime duties the former saw fit to present his friend with a small but practical gift.

It was March 1941, and Luke, the much-admired and long-serving Carlton President and metal-spinning and silverware business owner, handed over a silver rations plate which Jim could put to use through his days of active service as Lieutenant of the 2/6^th Infantry Battalion.

The plate, which carries Jim’s war service number on its underside, is inscribed as follows;

VX 51193
J.W. PARK

PARAMOUNT
STAINLESS WARE
K.G. LUKE MELB
MAR 41

Today, some 75 years after Jim first took possession of “KG’s” very personal token of appreciation, the plate’s existence has finally been revealed.

For all these years it’s been in the keep of 94 year-old Olive Moriarty who in another life as a teenage girl, worked with Jim at a Melbourne finance firm through the mid-1930s.

“I was much younger than Jim was. I was just a youngster in the office and he really became my mentor because he believed in education,” said Olive, who for many years lived in a two-storey terrace at 175 royal Parade.

“Jim had a kid brother and he used to call me kid too. He used to say, ‘Listen kid, you should do such and such’. He was a very good man with people and he was a gentleman in every sense of the word.”

A young Olive Moriarty.

The Jim Park story has its origins in Bendigo, where he was born on Valentine’s Day 1910. Jim was the third-born son in a family of four sons and three daughters raised by Dr. Alexander Park and his wife Ethel.

In 1919, after Dr. Park relocated with his family to a practice in Moonee Ponds, Jim furthered his education at Scotch College and, later, Dookie Agricultural College.

By then, Jim’s footballing prowess had been identified by Carlton scouts, and in 1932 despite apparent overtures from Melbourne he joined the club – making his debut in the fourth round of that season, against Hawthorn at Princes Park.

Jim ably represented Carlton in 128 senior games, including the 1938 Grand Final when he crucially nullified Collingwood’s champion full-forward Ron Todd.

His last game in the famed No.26 guernsey came when the old dark Navy Blues met Footscray at Princes Park, in what was the last round of the 1940 home and away season.

The plate gifted to Jim Park. (Photo: Supplied)

Seven months later, Jim bid farewell to family and football club – and accepted with typical humility the silver plate from the prez.

“The plate was given to Jim by Ken Luke – a great President and very much Jim’s friend – before Jim left for the Middle East,” Olive said.

“He left in early March 1941, but the 6^th returned to Australia on August 4, 1942. They were needed at home because the Japanese had already bombed Darwin and the Japs’ mini-submarines were in Sydney Harbour.”

For a brief period, Jim was stationed back in Melbourne. This was a time when the Americans established a temporary military tent hospital just north of the newly-constructed Royal Melbourne Hospital, together with a large military camp known as Camp Pell in nearby Royal Park.

“The first contingent of Americans arrived in Melbourne on New Year’s Eve 1941 and were well and truly part of the scene when the 6^th battalion got back the following August,” Olive said.

“The troops of the 6^th went on leave soon after returning to Australia and there were many incidents where tempers were running high between the Australians and Americans . . .

A closer look at the plate. (Photo: Supplied)

“Though Jim was officially on leave, he spent a great deal of that time patrolling the Melbourne streets in an effort to keep his soldiers out of trouble. He was absolutely devoted to his troops and was very much a respected officer.”

In September 1942, members of the 2/6^th Infantry Battalion underwent a crash course in jungle training at the Kuranda military base in the far north, en route to New Guinea. Olive recalled that Jim and his fellow soldiers, on arrival in Milne Bay on the south eastern tip of this island, soon fell victim to malaria in epidemic proportions. As she said: “the soldiers were fighting disease as well as the Japanese”.

Tragically, Jim’s life was nearing its truly untimely end.

On Tuesday, February 9, 1943, whilst leading his men into action at Wau, Lieutenant James William Park was killed. He was just five days shy of his 33^rd birthday and he left behind his beloved wife Marjorie and their treasured two year-old daughter Joan.

Jim was buried in Wau West, then reburied at Lae War Cemetery. He is one amongst the 2818 soldiers of the Second World War laid to rest there.

On May 8, 1943, before the commencement of the first match of the season at Princes Park, the Carlton and Richmond teams, their respective club committees and a solemn group of supporters, observed a minute’s silence to the memory of a man widely known as ‘Gentleman Jim’.

A lone bugler then played the last post.

Later, The Sporting Globe Football Annual best articulated the widespread sorrow of the football community with this tribute;

“Jim Park had the admiration of officials, players and supporters alike at Carlton, for he played the game hard and fairly. He asked no quarter from anyone and he gave none. Yet with all his battling, he was scrupulously fair – a gentleman on and off the field.”

In the days, weeks, months and years after Jim’s passing, the gifted silver plate has remained in Olive Moriarty’s precious keep.

Question is, how did she come to acquire it in the first place?

Olive Moriarty today. (Photo: Supplied)

“I’m not sure that Jim ever took it with him, but it was when he came back from the Middle East that he gave it to me,” Olive said. “I remember him saying ‘This is unnecessary for me to take. Would you like to have it?’. We were very good friends you see.

“I kept the plate for years and years in the bottom of my cupboard, until one day I mentioned its existence to my son Peter who is an avid, avid Carlton supporter. I told him ‘This might be of interest to you’ – and of course it was.”

In truth, Ken Luke’s great gift carries an even greater resonance now, for it helps perpetuate the memory of a man of stature who was James William Park.

As Olive so rightly noted: “Jim has been dead since 1943 and that’s a long time ago . . . a hell of a long time”.

“But as I and anyone else alive who knew him will tell you, he was a very fine man.”

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

The late George Ilsley.

George Ilsley, Carlton’s homesick rural recruit who earned legendary status in the Bendigo Football League, has died at the age of 84.

Born in the Murray River town of Koondrook in 1932, George Ilsley’s prodigious football talents were such that by 14 he was representing the neighboring Kerang club at senior level.

In 1949 Ilsley joined Eaglehawk for what would become a lifelong association both on and off the field with the Bendigo League’s Two Blues. There in ’53, Ilsley finished runner up in the League’s Best and Fairest to Sandhurst’s Noel Evans – the same year Eaglehawk took the pennant under the watch of its captain-coach, the Carlton Premiership player Ollie Grieve.

By then, Ilsley had made his mark as a big occasion player and matchwinner of renown. Though he stood just 174cm in his long stops (and specially heeled boots) he tipped the scales at 80kg. Ilsley was regarded as the Bendigo Football League’s most accomplished centre half-forward, and performed just as capably in the back half.

During the ’53 season, and almost certainly at Grieve’s urging, Ilsley trialed briefly in five Carlton reserve grade matches. The following year, match permits were arranged and Ilsley turned out at senior level, albeit briefly.

Wearing the No.27 (co-incidentally worn by Grieve who remains Carlton’s games record holder in the guernsey), Ilsley, then 22 years old, lined up on a half-forward flank against South Melbourne, in what was the opening round of the ’54 season.

George Isley, in the lead-up to his first senior game for Carlton, together with Denis Zeunert, Princes Park, 1954.

That Saturday afternoon at the Lake Oval, Graham Kerr, Noel “Nobby” O’Brien and Denis Zeunert also turned out for the visitors for the first time.

Ilsley booted a goal in that game, which went South’s way by five points in a nail biter. The following week he turned out in an injury-depleted outfit which fell 29 points adrift of Melbourne at Princes Park.

Not long after, Ilsley advised coach Percy Bentley that he was going home.

Back at Eaglehawk, Ilsley took over from where he left off, earning Best on Ground status when the Two Blues beat Kyneton to claim the 1957 BFL flag. Between 1958 and ’60 he captained and coached Eaglehawk, before briefly defecting to Northern United in the Golden City Football League.

Flying Ilsley! One of many high-flying marks taken by George Isley for Bendigo against Ballarat, in a best-on-ground performance at Queen Elizabeth Oval in a representative match, 1956.

In 1962, Ilsley was adjudged Best and Fairest in the GCFL, then returned to Eaglehawk to eventually rack up more than 350 senior games. During that time, he also represented the BFL in more than a dozen inter-league matches.

In 1965, Ilsley was appointed Ground Manager for the Eaglehawk Football & Netball Club at Canterbury Park – a position he held until he passed.

Throughout it all, Ilsley was constantly acknowledged for his lofty on-field achievements, as Life Member and Hall of Fame member of both Eaglehawk and the Bendigo Football League; and centre half-forward in the Two Blues’ Team of the Century – a team which included fellow former Carlton players Grieve, Rod Ashman, Alf Baud, Des English, Fred Jinks and Greg Kennedy.

Ten years ago, Ilsley was further acknowledged when Eaglehawk’s Best and Fairest trophy was renamed the George Ilsley Medal.

Ilsley’s eldest grandson, Mick Ilsley, said his grandfather never harboured any regrets about what might have been with his VFL career.

“My grandfather was very content with his life and how it all panned out. He was later asked to try out at Geelong and numerous other League clubs but he just couldn’t be lured down,” Ilsley said.

“He always said football in the big smoke wasn’t for him. He didn’t like the hustle and bustle of city life and he loved the country.

“He was a very quietly spoken man. He didn’t like to talk about himself or his football exploits, and we actually had to talk him into attending the Bendigo Football League Hall of Fame to be inducted because he didn’t want to go.

“This was because he was never one to dwell on the past. It was more about the future and his family.”

Ilsley died suddenly at his home on April 8. He is survived by his beloved wife Mollie, sons Terry, Chris, Mick and Gerard, and their extended families.

A service of thanksgiving for the life of the late George Ilsley will be held in the Mulqueen Family Chapel, 15-25 Bridge Street, Bendigo on Thursday, April 14, at 11.00am. The funeral cortege will leave at the conclusion of the service for the Eaglehawk Lawn Cemetery, by way of Canterbury Park, the home of the Eaglehawk Football Club.

More By Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

 

There is also a fitting memorial piece written Richard Jones on George’s impact on the Eaglehawk Football Club.

https://australianrules.com.au/2016/04/11/vale-george-ilsley-by-richard-jones/

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Jim Clark played 161 games for the Blues from 1943 – 1951. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)

On the eve of the 135th running of the Stawell Easter Gift it’s rather timely that Lesley Clark, daughter of the late Carlton dual Premiership wingman Jim Clark, should share this image of her Dad in his silks and spikes sporting the blue sash earned as a footrunner at Stawell.

The photo was captured 70 years ago – not long after Jim, appropriately nicknamed “Racehorse”, took out the 75 yard sprint at Stawell, in what was the first meeting there in four years since the race was abandoned owing to the Second World War.

“For memory the photo was taken in the backyard of Dad’s oldest brother’s place in Kyneton. He was Lloyd Clark, who played with and coached Kyneton,” Lesley said. “Uncle Lloyd was picked up by Collingwood and was listed to play in 1938 or 1939, but he didn’t want to come to Melbourne and chose to stay in Kyneton.”

“My father very much valued that sash. My brother Greg has the sash now, which is good.”

Jim Clark after the Stawell Gift, 1946. (Photo: Clark family)

In the Carlton Football Club’s ’46 Annual Report, Clark’s effort at Stawell was acknowledged by the club – together with his Most Consistent Player Trophy and long service awards hard won at Princes Park.

Similarly, fellow Carlton footballer Jim Baird was commended for “his outstanding success at the Bendigo and Stawell Athletic Carnivals where he started in 15 races for 11 wins and two thirds including 3rd placing in the famous Stawell Gift”, the nation’s richest footrace.

Ditto Vin Brown, who finished fifth in the Gift and, like Clark and Baird, represented Carlton in the Premierships of 1945 and ’47.

Clark was 22 by the time he had played his part in both the ’45 and ’47 Grand final conquests. A three-time Victorian representative, he would later take out the ’51 Robert Reynolds Trophy (now the John Nicholls Medal) for Club Champion.

By then, Clark was 161 games into his senior career and at the peak of his football powers. But he had played his last game for Carlton – the lure of a new house proving too great for him not to accept the role of captain-coach of Echuca.

Those who might like to contribute old photographs or film to the Carlton Football Club archive are urged to contact the historian on 9387 1400.

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Anthony Pavlou stands proudly beside his painting of Alex Jesaulenko’s moment of brilliance against Richmond in the 1972 semi-final replay. (Photo: Carlton Media)

When long-time Carlton Member Nola Frawley fronted up to the Great Northern Hotel for a writers’ group gathering in December last year, her eye was taken by the metre-square painting of Alex Jesaulenko gracing the pub wall.

The metre-square oil, depicting “Jezza” completing the quintessential giant leap for mankind against Richmond in the ’72 second semi-final replay, instantly captured Nola’s attentions.

But what she couldn’t find was the artist’s signature – nor anything else relating to the artwork’s provenance as the resident publican was relatively new to the establishment.

Nola turned to the club for an answer, and within minutes that answer was forthcoming. The brushman was in fact Anthony Pavlou, son of the late former Carlton player, director and past players’ association President Chris Pavlou, who remembered completing the work around 2003.

“I remember painting it. I reckon it was auctioned off at a Carlton past players’ function and I’d forgotten where it ended up,” Pavlou said.

“I normally include my signature and the year of the painting in the bottom right hand corner, but for whatever reason I didn’t do so for this one. I’d actually forgotten where this painting end up, but I’m happy that it’s at the Great Northern, an iconic Carlton pub.”

Pavlou recalled that the painting took him a fortnight and he worked of photographs of the mark, taken in front of the since-demolished Smokers’ Stand at the MCG.

“It took me a long time to paint because of the faces in the background. I wanted to depict the typical non-excitable MCC members.”

The painting subsequently sold at a Carlton Football Club auction for $3500, although Pavlou has no knowledge of the identity of the purchaser.

But in popping into the Great Northern to renew acquaintance with the painting, which carries the signature of Jesaulenko himself, Pavlou confirmed that he would return to the pub to led his own signature to the canvas.

Another famed Carlton No.25 was also the subject of Pavlou’s artistic skills – the former full-forward Brendan Fevola, whose painting now hangs from a wall of the bar in the Yarrawonga Hotel where “Fev” turned out for the Pigeons in his post-AFL years.

The Fevola painting. (Photo: Supplied)

As Pavlou recalled: “The painting was auctioned with ‘Fev’s Yarrawonga guernsey and the owner of the pub bought it”.

Yarrawonga Hotel publican Tony Mitchell confirmed the story.

“There was a pub ‘do’ at the Yarrawonga RSL about seven years ago and I’d just opened the pub. It was an auction for charity and Fev was just making his grand entrance for the Pigeons,” Mitchell recalled.

“A lot of people have their photos taken by the painting and Fev’s a fan of it too.”

Anthony Pavlou is currently establishing a new art studio and encourages any supporters interested in commissioning him to paint their favourite Carlton player to call him on 0419 761400.

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Former Carlton President Ivan Rohrt has passed away.

Former Carlton President Ivan Rohrt, a member of George Harris’ famed Progress Party and a key figure in the establishment of the old Social Club, has died.

Rohrt, whose role as Melbourne City Councillor proved vital to the club’s interests through a golden era both on and off the field, passed away on Wednesday afternoon in a Camberwell nursing home just a fortnight shy of his 96th birthday.

Rohrt’s son Richard said his father simply died of old age – “and he’d always joked that he’d already seen his epitaph at the club”.

“Dad’s surname was often confused with Jack Wrout’s and he remembered that after Jack died he was sitting in the stands when the cheersquad raised the banner upon which were the words ‘RIP JACK ROHRT’.

“Dad felt terrible for Jack’s family and came home saying ‘I’m really spooked – I’ve just seen my name on an RIP’.”

Ivanhoe Borch Rohrt, the son of a Norwegian-born father and English-born mother, was born in the South Gippsland town of Yarram on March 23, 1920.

In an interview with this reporter for the club’s publication “Out Of The Blue” some years ago, Rohrt talked of how he “always had a soft spot for Carlton”, particularly after fate dealt its hand.

That happened when Rohrt’s father, a local cream carter, was advised by a GP that it was in the best interests of his health to ditch the heavy labor and find employment elsewhere.

In 1940, the Rohrts took over the running of North Carlton’s famous watering hole The Rising Sun Hotel (now the chic Italian food and wine providore Enoteca Sileno) at 920 Lygon Street.

“There were 32 pubs in Carlton and we always reckoned we had the best beer,” Rohrt said of The Rising Sun. “If you didn’t support Carlton then your pub was no good, and that was why I was a Carlton supporter.”

In those carefree days, cars were scarce and supporters would tram it to the pub, down a couple of thirst-quenching ales, then hotfoot it up Richardson Street and through the turnstiles into the old ground. Rohrt, who later combined civic duties with those of his family’s hotel business, unhesitatingly declared Saturday “the busiest day of our week”, and such was the frenetic nature of matchday pub life that he was rarely able to get to Princes Park.

Until one day when Carlton got him.

“It was Melbourne Cup morning 1964 and two fellows came in off the Lygon street entrance. One of them said to me ‘Are you Councillor Rohrt?’, and I said yes that I was a Melbourne City Councillor for 15 years (and a member of three major committees, including the finance and public works committees),” Rohrt said.

L to R, Russell Ohlsen, Ivan Rohrt, Mark Maclure, syd Jackson, Alex Jesaulenko and Ian Thorogood, circa 1976. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)

“Initially I thought they were ratepayers coming to talk to me about a hole in the footpath or something. Anyway I said to them ‘I’ll get back to you when I settle down here’.

“It got a bit quieter in the next half an hour and I said ‘What can I do for you two?’ and the taller man said ‘My name is George Harris and this is Eddie Fakhry. You’re a city councillor – would you be interested in joining the (Carlton Football Club) reform group?’. Naturally I said ‘Well, I’ll have to ask the missus’ and my wife Joan was not fussed. After a couple of days of giving it some thought I rang George Harris and said ‘Yes, I’m prepared’.”

Rohrt believed that he was approached to join the Harris ticket in late 1964 after the late Don Chipp rejected an initial approach. Incredibly, he had never previously met any of Harris’ running mates, but was unfazed nonetheless.

As he said: “It was a very exciting time because it opened up a new era for me, and a hotel keeper being involved in the main sport in the area was a good business move too”.

Not withstanding his role in the Barassi putsch, Rohrt’s impeccable connections with the City of Melbourne ensured that he would be a key player in future negotiations to secure funding for just such an entity – and yet the process took a substantial personal toll.

“It was one of the most stressful times I had in public life. My hotel licence was hanging on it and it was a very worrying time for me. I’d put a lot of time into getting the money for Carlton,” Rohrt said.

“It’s been on my mind now and again for many, many years. After the council meeting  was over and we got this money to build the social club, one of the councillors said to me ‘You’re in a bit of trouble, Rohrt’. I said ‘What trouble?’ and he said ‘you’ve got a pecuniary interest. I said ‘pecuniary interest?’. I thought that was putting a quid in your pocket.

Regardless, Rohrt resolved that it would be in his best interests to step aside, albeit temporarily.

“I rang George (Harris) and told him that because I was a hotel keeper I’d run the risk of losing my licence if I was challenged and there’d be a gaol term associated with this,” Rohrt said.

“I said ‘George, I think I better resign’ and George understood.”

At a subsequent meeting, influential Carlton powerbroker Sir Leo Curtis addressed the faithful and strongly urged Harris to reinstate Rohrt if ever a vacancy became available.

“That (a vacancy) happened a few months after that speech and I was grateful to get back onto the board because I loved the club and helped them so much,” Rohrt said.

The Carlton Social Club was officially opened by the former Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies prior to the first round match with Geelong at Princes Park on April 15, 1968 – the same day the precious talent who was Brent Crosswell made his senior debut in Dark Navy.

By the end of ’69, the social club had generated profits of more than $150,000, vindicating the extraordinary lengths to which men like Rohrt had gone.

A Vice-President at Carlton, Rohrt was later elevated to the Presidency with Harris’ departure. His reign as President was somewhat rocky. On March 31, on the eve of the 1976 season, John Nicholls resigned as Captain-Coach and five days later Secretary Allen Cowie suddenly died.

And yet it was under Rohrt’s watch in that same year that Carlton secured the American-based company Avco for what was then the largest sum ever pledged to a VFL club – $135,000 over three years.

Richard Rohrt said his father was of a time “when Carlton was a family . . . and he loved every minute of it”.

“It really goes back to the old fashioned days when the President and members of the Committee would all gather for training, get their two pennies’ worth in with the match committee and the Chairman of Selectors who was Jack Wrout, then retire to the committee room’s bar where Dad would open up,” Richard said.

“As a man, Dad was tall and well-presented, and nothing was ever a problem. He was one of the longest-serving members of the Melbourne City Council representing the Labor Party and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for anyone. He wanted to represent as many people as he could.”

Rohrt is survived by his beloved wife of 67 years Joan (now 90), son Richard, daughter Susan and six grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are yet to be finalised.

Carlton players taking to the field for Friday night’s Nab Challenge match with Sydney will wear black armbands as a mark of respect to Ivan Rohrt and the club’s late long-serving bootstudder and Life Member Dennis Turner.

Tony De Bolfo, Carlton Media

Former Carlton bootstudder Dennis Turner has died.

Dennis Turner, one of the last of the Carlton Football Club’s bootstudders, has died at the age of 79.

Turner served as a senior bootstudder through the late 1980s and 1990s, having completed a myriad of tasks as Carlton’s Under 19 and reserve grade team manager, commencing in 1969. His brother Hugh also officiated as a Carlton trainer.

Bob Lowrie, who started as a trainer with the thirds at Carlton on the same day as Turner, remembered that Dennis would regularly front up at the club of a Sunday morning to cook breakfast for the players when they left the track.

“Dennis also worked behind the bar at ‘Nick’s Nightclub’. He was a really, really good bloke and I had a lot of time for him. He would do anything for the Carlton Football Club,” Lowrie said.

Turner’s commitment to the club was rewarded with Life Membership in 1988 – the same year in which Premiership players Ken Hunter and David Glascott, together with club dentist Dr Don Hall, were similarly acknowledged.

Laurie Carter, the club’s bootstudder until 2007 who worked at the craft with Turner, Lou Saccardo and the late Frank Finn, remembered that they all served through that transitional phase following the introduction of moulded soles.

“When the moulded ones came in with four stops in the top and two in the heel, some of the players wanted a couple more in the heel, so Dennis and me and the others would knock them in – 13, 15 and 19mm,” Carter recalled.

“Fraser Murphy always went for the 19 mil no matter what the weather was like and Stephen Kernahan always wore screw-ins. He said to me one day that his father once said to him ‘If you’re going to play League football you wear stops.”

Carter recalled that Turner combined duties at Carlton with those as a security guard at the Serum Laboratories.

“In the early days when they’d train in the afternoon he’d work in the morning and knock off early to get to the club. Now they train in the morning so it’s all changed,” Carter said.

“Dennis always did his job, and he stood up for others,” Carter said.