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THE FORMER Carlton half-forward and self-confessed green thumb Simon Verbeek had just completed a rose inspection at Flemington Racecourse when he decided to make an impromptu beeline to IKON Park.

Not since 1991 – the last of his three seasons as a flanker in the days of Kernahan, Bradley and Silvagni – had the 38-game forward in the No.15 set foot in the old stomping ground on Royal Parade.

And like all former players, he was truly gobsmacked by what he saw.

“I cannot believe the changes,” Verbeek said after completing his inspection of IKON Park and its recently completed Stage 3 redevelopment.

“Where I’m standing now is where the old Robert Heatley Stand stood, with its little tunnels both inside and out to the changerooms. Compared to now, that’s miles apart.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been back, I can’t honestly remember the last time I was here, and the changes are just incredible.”

The seemingly endless conga line of Carlton premiership trophies at the main entrance made a real impression on Verbeek, but the names featured on the flip boxes and the walls elicited an even greater response.

“I wasn’t part of Carlton at a successful time, so I don’t have that connection with the cups, but when I see the names like Stephen Kernahan, Craig Bradley and Stephen Silvagni that’s when I realise how privileged I was to be here.”

Verbeek – who joined Carlton on the recommendation of his then coach at Oakleigh, the Blues’ 1968 premiership wingman Bryan Quirk – savoured every moment of his spontaneous sentimental journey.

He was photographed by the players’ wall carrying his name and the accompanying number (957) as the 957th Carlton footballer to complete his senior debut since Jimmy Aitken in the inaugural VFL season of 1897.

Later he rested his legs by the old No.15 locker – now the domain of the current keeper of the No.15 guernsey Sam Docherty, and previous keepers Jim Marchbank, ‘Mocca’ Johnson, Bruce Comben and Val Perovic amongst them.

“I wasn’t here for a long time but it’s nice to have been connected to a great club and I’ll be forever grateful for that,” said Verbeek.

“I’m very excited with how the Club is trekking along now. I’m looking forward to seeing more games and savouring more successes – and how good was it that ‘Crippsy’ (Patrick Cripps) won the Brownlow!”

CARLTON’S 79-game half-back Graeme Anderson, a Life Member whose father Frank played off a flank in the Club’s victorious 1938 Grand Final team, has died after a long illness.

He was 83.

Recruited to Carlton under the father-son rule after spending his formative years in neighbouring Brunswick, Graeme was destined to play for Carlton – and yet he was chasing the leather for the Watchem-Corack Football Club (and later Cobram) in north-western Victoria when the Blues came calling, as Frank was then running the local Watchem Hotel.

So it was of no surprise that when Graeme made his way to Princes Park on the cusp of the 1961 season, Frank lent his son his full support by relocating to Melbourne and accepting a coaching role with VFA outfit Preston.

Graeme was duly handed the No.43 later worn with distinction by David McKay and Anthony Koutoufides. It is a matter of record that Graeme was the first Carlton footballer to sport that number on the back of his guernsey, although he later reverted to the No.26.

Named at full-back between Bruce Comben and Brian Buckley, Graeme completed his Carlton senior debut in the Round 9 of 1961 against Essendon, when he followed John Nicholls down the race and onto Windy Hill.

Graeme’s 79 senior appearances took in the coaching tenures of Ken Hands (a close friend of the Andersons as both families were virtual neighbours in East Brighton) and Ron Barassi with whom he also enjoyed a healthy relationship. Under Barassi’s watch, Carlton emerged as a competition powerhouse, but fate would cruelly rob Graeme of the chance to be part of the drought-breaking premiership of 1968, as his son Scott explained.

“Dad talked about getting an injury to his elbow in a marking contest in the ’68 season,” Scott said. “He accidentally punched John Nicholls in the back of a head, broke some bones in his elbow and that was it.”

Graeme’s final senior appearance in Dark Navy came in Round 16 against Footscray at the Western Oval. Eight weeks later, he watched on from the stands at the MCG as his old team took the flag with less goals kicked. By then Carlton’s Best Clubman of 1966 had forged friendships for life – the closest with teammates Kevin Hall and Garry Crane.

Crane – the three-time Carlton premiership player, Club best-and-fairest winner and Team of the Century member – remembered Graeme as “a tight-checking player who was hard to get kicks on”.

“Graeme wasn’t flamboyant, he wasn’t stylish, but he was very effective,” Crane said.

“Funny thing, I got to know him better after football. He looked after me when I took ill and he gave me employment when I didn’t know what to do. It’s taken me a long time to get where I am now and I thank Graeme for his support along the way. He was very helpful and pretty kind. He was a very nice man.”

In the early 1970s, Graeme and Peter Poynton took out joint ownership of the famed watering hole the Carlton Club Hotel on Grattan and Cardigan Street corner, where many a Carlton identity toasted the latest team win into the wee hours of a Sunday.

After selling the pub in 1984, Graeme and his wife Gael, whom he had met in ’63 on an end-of-season trip to Surfer’s Paradise, relocated to Elsternwick (and later East Brighton), and Graeme established a landscaping business. True to his beloved Blues, Graeme employed former players like Tom Alvin and Ken Hunter to lend a green thumb, and through it all he and Gael raised their two children – daughter Jane and son Scott.

“Dad was a very strong family-driven man. He was very loyal and tight with his friends and he was a popular publican at the Carlton Club Hotel,” Scott said.

“Dad loved Carlton and Carlton was in his blood. He was heavily involved with the Carlton Past Players and he served the association as secretary. He had a passion for Carlton like there was no tomorrow, and the same applies for me and my four kids and Jane and her three.

“Dad kept up the connection for as long as he could, but the early onset of Alzheimer’s was what took him away.”

Graeme Anderson died at Benton’s Lodge in Mornington on Monday (7 November). He is survived by his beloved wife of 55 years Gael, son Scott and daughter Jane, their respective spouses Sarah and James, and seven grandchildren.

The funeral service for Graeme Anderson is to take place at Tobin Brothers, 189 Boundary Road, North Melbourne, on Monday, November 21, commencing 12.30pm

Refreshments will be served at the Carlton Football Club (Ikon Park), 400 Royal Parade, Carlton North, from 2.00pm

The Carlton team, including first-gamer Graeme Anderson, which met Essendon at Windy Hill in Round 9 – Saturday 17 June, 1961

B:         Bruce Comben                   Graeme Anderson                 Brian Buckley
HB:       Vasil Varlamos                   Bob Crowe                           John James (acting vcapt.)
C:          Bill Arch                           Berkley Cox                          Chris Pavlou
HF:        Dave McCulloch                Gordon Collis                         Ian Collins
F:          Maurie Sankey                  Tom Carroll                           Martin Cross
Ruck:     John Nicholls (act. cpt.)     Sergio Silvagni                       Leo Brereton
Res:       John Williams                   Graham Gilchrist

Coach:  Ken Hands

THE recent passing after a long illness of Bill Stapleton – the former Carlton reserve grade runner of the mid-1980s and friend and confidante of the Club’s players of the day – has given light to a classic story involving a curtain-raiser once staged at the long-gone VFL Park.

The tale relates to the opening round seconds game of 1986 against Hawthorn, when Stapleton ran for the-then reserve grade coach Col Kinnear. Carlton emerged 17-point victors over the Hawks in that one, with a future premiership player Adrian Gleeson booting four goals in his first appearance in dark Navy.

Mark Kleiman, these days an athlete manager for Kapital Sports Group but back then a Carlton match-day waterboy, recounted the story this week.

“Bill Stapleton was running messages to the players and I was running water off a wing on the opposite side of the ground to the dugout,” Kleiman recalled.

“Suddenly the head trainer, I think it was Steven Tuohy, came over to me saying ‘You better put the fluorescent top on’. It turned out that Col (Kinnear) had given Bill too many messages, and Bill cracked the s….s and walked off.

“It happened just before half time and I ran the entire second half. I remember ‘Goughy’ (the-then Carlton Football Manager Stephen Gough) wasn’t overly impressed at the time, but in the end he saw the funny side.

“I’d always wanted to be a runner too, but that was the one and only time I ever ran.”

Kinnear corroborated Kleiman’s recollections, but with his own unique take on his association with Stapleton and THAT relayed telephone message from the coach’s box which fell on deaf ears late in the second term.

“Bill was running for me in the game at VFL Park and all of a sudden he wasn’t there,” Kinnear said.

“I said ‘Where’s Billy?’ and someone said ‘He’s gone up the race’, so ‘Climax’ (Kleiman) was asked to put on the runner’s top. This was at about the time they were starting to fine runners for running too many messages, which is why ‘Goughy’ gave ‘Climax’ the greatest spray – something along the lines of ‘What the bloody hell are you doing on the ground?’.

“In the rooms at half-time I again asked ‘Where’s Billy?’ and was told ‘He’s gone’. I said ‘Where’s he gone?’ and the comment was that he’d had enough. I took that to mean that he was crook because VFL Park was a big ground, but it seemed he might have got one too many messages – and when I later turned up to the after-match function there was Billy having a beer.”

Kinnear recalled that at the following Tuesday night’s training session, Stapleton was conspicuous by his presence at Princes Park, where the likes of Harmes, Maclure, Marcou and Sheldon each handed the runner a baby’s dummy to suck on.

“And they never let him forget it either,” Kinnear said. “Whenever Billy crossed paths with a former player he was always asked ‘Are you going to spit the dummy today?’ – and that happened for years.”

Stapleton was one of Carlton’s much-valued support staffers – “the bread and butter of the Club”, as he put it.

“Not only did Billy run for me in the reserves, but he helped put out the markers on training nights,” Kinnear said. “He was one of four of us out on the ground, with ‘Parko’, myself and Serge Silvagni as the assistant.

“Billy and Serge used to lay out all the markers for different drills, whether kicking or shepherding or whatever, but halfway through ‘Parko’ would change his mind and they’d have to rearrange them. In the end Billy gave each of the markers a name and within earshot of ‘Parko’ would say ‘Don’t worry Harry,’ or ‘Don’t worry Charlie, I’ll be back to move you on’.

“Bill was a mate of Jimmy (Buckley), and when ‘Sticks’ (Stephen Kernahan) and ‘Braddles’ (Craig Bradley) first came to Melbourne they both lived with Jimmy, so Billy was always around. He was good fun and a good bloke.”

Buckley, the three-time Carlton premiership player and club best and fairest, considered Stapleton – the owner of Ararat Meat Exports and Montara Estate Wines – “one of my best mates”.

“I got Bill down to the Club. I knew him from the meat game. He was a highly respected fellow and a great friend of the Buckley family,” Buckley said.

“Bill ran for the reserves, but was an integral part of the Club. I reckon he was the only runner to be invited on an end-of-season trip, and he joined us in Hawaii because all the boys knew him and liked him. You ask ‘Pera’ (Val Perovic) and any of the other players from that time. They’ll tell you that Bill was like a mentor to them. He was also a good friend of ‘Parko’s’.”

David Rhys-Jones, Carlton’s 1987 premiership player and Norm Smith Medallist, concurred with Buckley’s character assessment of Stapleton – a brother to the dental mechanic Bob Stapleton and the noted Melbourne pop singer Wendy Stapleton.

“No-one had a bad word to say about Bill,” Rhys-Jones said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to get on the wrong side of him because I heard he could go a bit, but I never saw it.

Bill Stapleton’s funeral is to be held at the Essendon Football Club’s Windy Hill venue (“of all places” according to Buckley), from 2.30pm next Monday (October 17) – and already the tributes are flowing.

A notice recently placed by the St. Bernard’s Old Collegians Football Club reads in part – “A man’s man with a cheeky sense of humour, Bill will be very sadly missed by us all. The St Bernards OCFC community sends its deepest condolences to his wife Robyn, daughters Billie and Angie, sons Michael, James, Andrew, Matthew & the extended Stapleton family”. 

Mario Bortolotto, the former Carlton defender whose 30 games included the David Parkin-coached back-to-back premierships of 1981 and ’82, has passed away overnight after a short illness. He was 65.

With Bortolotto’s passing, the first member of the Blues’ successive Grand Final-winning teams of that glorious era is gone.

Originally hailing from Koondrook in Victoria’s northwest, and recruited to Carlton after 14 senior appearances for Geelong through 1979 and ’80, Bortolotto first piqued the Blues’ interest when he kept Mark Maclure in check in a match-winning display in Round 12 of ’79 at Kardinia Park. Though he wasn’t to know it then, Bortolotto’s showing on Maclure was pivotal.

“We got bundled out in 1980 and going into ’81 we thought we needed a big-bodied, physical player who could knock a few blokes around going into 1981 . . . and (Chairman of Selectors) Wes Lofts thought Mario would fit the bill,” the-then Match Committeeman Shane O’Sullivan said.

“We went down to Geelong, saw Mario and told him we needed him to make a decision. He said yes and actually signed a serviette, which went in with his contract to the VFL. He then came to Carlton and fitted in straight away because everyone liked him.”
One of Bortolotto’s closest friends was the 1982 Carlton premiership ruckman, Warren ‘Wow’ Jones. Of Bortolotto, Jones said: “Mario was just a great fellow”.

“When he first came across from Geelong he turned up in a Commodore with an ‘Italian Stallion’ sticker on it. He was Italian through and through, a great family man and his folks were lovely old school people.”

Bortolotto completed his Carlton senior debut in the opening round of the 1981 season, against Richmond at VFL Park – coincidentally, the same game in which Western Australians Peter Bosustow and Ken Hunter also wore dark navy for the first time.
Sporting the No.6 now worn by Zac Williams, Bortolotto pitted his size and strength against the game’s key forwards, amongst them David Cloke on Grand Final day ’82. Having spent all of the ’81 GF in the dugout – and later earning an apology from his coach as a consequence – Bortolotto played the game of his life on his Richmond opponent, having negated Hawthorn’s Michael Tuck in the previous week’s preliminary final.

To think that an ankle injury almost put paid to Bortolotto’s ’82 season.
“Earlier that year, Mario went over on his ankle during training on the No.1 Oval and a couple of us had to carry him in. The sock was the only thing holding his foot in place,” Jones recalled.

“Mario missed a lot of football, played a few reserves games towards the end of ’82, but wasn’t named in the 25-man squad for the finals. He went to David Parkin saying ‘You haven’t included me, can I help out?’ – and ‘Parko’ included him in the squad to train through the finals to get him ready for the following year.

“But when Frank Marchesani ran into ‘Curly’ Austin in a game of soccer on the Sunday after the preliminary final, the selectors suddenly had to find a replacement – and the man who was available was Mario.”

In the post-match victory lap, Bortolotto was famously photographed hoisting the silverware as his premiership medallion catches the sun. The year before he ran the lap in the training top he never got the chance to remove.

A lighter off-field moment involving Bortolotto was also captured on film. The footage, taken on Lygon Street, shows Bortolotto emptying a bucketload of spaghetti over the head of the former Collingwood rover and The Sun columnist Lou Richards – after yet another of Richards’ renowned Kiss of Death predictions spectacularly backfired on him.
In July 1983, Bortolotto featured in Carlton’s pre-season Grand Final victory, again at Richmond’s expense. Then in August, in what was the penultimate home-and-away round of the season, he was reported for striking North Melbourne’s Donald McDonald, which resulted in a two-match penalty and effectively ended his Carlton career.
Bosustow also copped a four-match penalty for an on-field transgression in that contest, and as with Bortolotto he never represented Carlton again.

Regardless, Bortolotto’s three seasons at Princes Park brought him a lifetime of memories shared with some of the greatest players of his or any other era – Fitzpatrick, Ashman, Doull, Harmes (with whom he later ran a sports store), Hunter, Johnston and Marcou to name but a few. Such was Bortolotto’s popularity amongst his contemporaries at Carlton that in 1982 he was also declared Best Clubman.

“He was very down-to-earth and the fact that he was named Best Clubman in ’82 gives you an indication of the quality of the man,” Jones said.

“He was part of an era when we had a lot of talent in the team, and he could come out and player a ripper of a game if given a job. He was tenacious and he played a very physical game. He couldn’t put many games together but give him a job like that one on Cloke and he’d follow it through . . . he really did his job for the team.”

Bortolotto always made it back for the premiership reunions – as was the case in the opening round of this season when he joined fellow members of the ’82 team in the 40-year reunion gathering at the MCG.

But his absence at the Spirit of Carlton reunion of the 1972, ’81 and ’82 teams at Marvel Stadium in late July rang alarm bells for Marcou, who placed a call to Bortolotto’s mobile – only to be told be a family member that his old teammate had become desperately ill with what was later identified as septicemia.

“It’s a very sad day for Carlton. Mario’s passing is a great loss,” Marcou said.
“After he came to the Club from Geelong he lived with me in Thomastown. We lived there for the best part of five years and we had some great times together.

“Mario was a true friend who was always there when you needed him . . . and ‘Parko’s’ move of him onto Cloke in the ’82 Grand Final was one of the great ones.”

Bortolotto spent his final three weeks in St Vincent’s Hospital, during which time his loved ones got to say their goodbyes.

Mario Bortolotto was the 887th footballer to represent Carlton at senior level in League competition.

Awarded Life Membership in 2003, Mario Bortolotto is survived by his wife Birgit, son Marcello and daughters Bella and Stephanie, to whom the Carlton Football Club extends its deepest sympathies.

Carlton’s AFLW players will wear black armbands into Sunday’s Round 3 match with Port Adelaide at IKON Park as a mark of respect.

THE WALLS of the aptly named Victory Room reverberated to the strains of ‘Lily of Laguna’, as members of Carlton’s 1972, ’81 and ’82 Premiership teams belted out the Club’s theme song in celebration of those famous Grand Final victories of yesteryear.

More than 900 Carlton people joined in the chorus, to bring rousing finality to the ’72, ’81 and ’82 Premiership Luncheon – one of the greatest events convened by the Spirit of Carlton.

Earlier, they had heard reminiscences from the key cast members of ’72 – Captain-Coach John Nicholls, rover Adrian Gallagher and full-back Geoff Southby, the Club’s best-and-fairest winner in that same year – and later from 1981 and ’82 Senior Coach David Parkin and captain Mike Fitzpatrick, together with team members Jim Buckley, Phil Maylin and Ken Sheldon.

Those in the house included Carlton’s 1982 premiership ruckman Warren Jones, now living in Sydney; and 1970 and ’72 premiership player Syd Jackson, 1981 and ’82 premiership player Peter Bosustow, and ’82 premiership player Ross Ditchburn, all of whom jetted in from their native Western Australia.

Endearingly nicknamed ‘Farmer’ by way of his kindred links to the five-generation Ditchburn family farm in Kukerin, some 302 kilometres south-east of Perth, Ditchburn was recruited to the Club on the recommendation of his old Claremont and Carlton premiership teammate Ken Hunter.

Though his on-field career spanned just 28 games through two seasons at Carlton, Ditchburn’s friendships with his premiership teammates truly endure.

“It was amazing to get back and catch up with all the boys,” Ditchburn said, in a to-camera interview for the Carlton Football Club archive.

“I cherished every minute I spent with those players. It was just unbelievable.

“There weren’t too many handshakes, only hugs, because that’s how close we are. It’s such a warm feeling when you’re in the midst of those players – and for someone who only played 28 games and was only here for two years I feel so humble to be in their midst.”

Spirit of Carlton Manager Shane O’Sullivan described the reunion, belatedly staged due to COVID-19 lockdowns, as “one of the great Carlton events”.

“The number of people we got to the function ensured that the atmosphere in the room was just electric. The auction got the event buzzing even more and topping it all off were the players on stage singing the song before all the cameras,” O’Sullivan said.

“To see the Carlton members and supporters so happy to mix with past champions was the best part of the day.”

O’Sullivan said that the event had generated funds “to go towards supporting past players who have fallen on hard times with their health or wellbeing”.

“So from the Spirit of Carlton’s past players, a big thank you to all the supporters who attended,” he said. “You were the people who made the day.”

IT’S ALMOST 70 years since Peter Webster first turned out for four quarters with the Carlton seniors. It happened against the old enemy Collingwood in the inhospitable environs of Victoria Park on the afternoon of Saturday 8 August 1953 – and as Webster recalled, the late Murray Weideman also lined up at centre half-forward in his first senior hitout for the black and whites.

“I actually got picked to play on what was my 21st birthday the previous Thursday,” said Webster, who celebrates his 90th birthday this Saturday (6 August).

“I was in the fire brigade and at home in bed at the time because I was on night shift. I remember answering a knock at the door at our house at 761 Drummond Street and standing there was a photographer from The Herald. The photographer asked ‘Are you Peter Webster?’, I said ‘Ýes’ and he said ‘You’ve been named in the Carlton senior team for Saturday’.”

“The photographer was keen on getting a pic, so I took him down to the fire station and he snapped me holding a ‘firey’s’ helmet . . . and I remember there was a celebration at a nearby hall in North Carlton.”

For the local boy who would serve his club through 97 senior matches in seven seasons, Drummond Street was where Webster first got a feel for the leather air conveyance.

“Drummond Street had a grassway through the middle of it and I used to kick a footy there,” he recalled. “I also went to the local Princes Hill Primary School, which was a block away from the ground, and from the time I was a young guy I played for Carlton – a couple of years in the fourths, a couple in the thirds, a couple in the seconds and finally the firsts.

“My background was only ‘Carlton, Carlton, Carlton’ – and it was the same for others like George Stafford, Alan Streeter and Dick Gill, whose Dad Frank was a club champion for years.”

Collingwood got up by 17 points at the Magpies’ nest in that 15th Round contest of ’53, but Webster’s memory of that senior appearance relates to a lovely pre-match moment involving the team’s resident ruckman.

“I remember heading down the race with Jack (‘Chooka’) Howell, who was running alongside with his arm over my shoulder to help me steady the nerves. I thought that was nice,” Webster said.

“It seems so long ago that that happened. Where have all the years gone?”

Ultimately, Webster forged his 97-game, seven-season Carlton career as a centre half-back, sharing defensive duties with half-backs John James and Denis Zeunert, the full back George Ferry, and the back pockets Bruce Comben and an emerging talent named John Nicholls.

Webster saw the best of James and unhesitatingly declares the 1961 Brownlow Medallist the best Carlton footballer of his era.

“I always admired John James,” Webster said. “He was only 5ft 9 and his kicking was a little ragged, but he was as tough as nails. When I saw him approaching the ball I wouldn’t go near him because he’d beat anybody trying to stop him getting it.”

Along the way, Webster pitted his skills against the game’s finest – Footscray’s Ted Whitten (“a player who wanted to play everywhere on the ground”), Melbourne’s Ron Barassi (“got him for about a quarter once when he pushed forward”), Geelong’s Fred Flanagan, South Melbourne’s Ron Clegg, Essendon’s Ken Fraser and North Melbourne’s John Brady – the latter “the best of them” according to the soon-to-be nonagenarian.

“The only message I ever got in a game was to pick up Fitzroy’s half-forward Owen Abrahams, who was a damned good footballer,” Webster said of yet another formidable foe. “(Murray) Weideman and I didn’t get on too well as he used to sneak up from behind, but one day I raced in and laid one on him.”

Webster 97th and final senior appearance for Carlton coincided with the 44-point loss to Melbourne in the 1959 semi-final. At 27, his time at Princes Park was cruelly curtailed by injury.

“I hurt the main ligament on the inside of my right knee in a practice match in my final year, this was my kicking leg and it was wobbling around,” Webster said.

“I sought out a few doctors to get the knee fixed, but no-one was interested. They (the club) even sent me to a specialist in Collins Street, but he wouldn’t touch it either.

“After doing my knee I thought I’d go coaching. Merbein offered me a job of captain-coach for 33 pound a week, plus a house rent-free for the first 12 months, and I was on eight pound a week at Carlton.

“At the time I didn’t even know where Merbein was, but when I found out it was up near Mildura where it was nice and warm and with no rain, I jumped at it, because I never liked playing in the rain.”

Webster recalled the then Carlton committeeman and former Premiership player Jack Wrout trying to talk him out of the Merbein gig.

“Jack said to me ‘You know you’ve played 97 games . . . what about coming down for those three games and starting on the bench to get your hundred up?’. But I’d already committed to Merbein and wanted to honour the agreement,” he said.

Webster took Merbein to the finals in each of his five seasons at the helm, with his teams landing two Premierships from the four Grand Finals in which they competed. When his knee again gave way in the fifth season, Webster hung the high-cuts up for good, but he remained in Merbein with his nearest and dearest for the better part of 30 years.

For the past 15 years, Webster has lived quietly in a retirement villa in Rosebud’s Village Glen – although he still gets a regular round in at the nearby golf course and will this Saturday blow out the 90 candles when family and friends gather for his birthday party at the nearby clubhouse.

To this day, he keeps a place close to his heart for the old dark Navy Blues.

“It’s a long time ago since I last played, but I still have a soft spot for the Club,” Webster said.

“It’s a bit too far for me to come down to watch the players play thesedays, but I never miss when they bob up on the telly, and I look out for Jesse Motlop who wears my old No.3. He’s pretty raw, but he has a lot of ability.

“When I started there I was just a young kid coming through, but I always played for the jumper whenever I ran out.

“In those days every kid in the area wanted to play for Carlton and I was no different. There wasn’t much money around then, but gee, I wish to God I was playing now.”

CHARLIE Curnow’s unofficial fan club probably runs into the tens of thousands thesedays… and chief amongst them is Tony Pickett, who more than 40 years ago carried the exhilarating forward’s No.30 on his back.

Pickett, the former Carlton wingman who today lives quietly in retirement near the Bay of Fires on Tasmania’s idyllic east coast, was a welcome visitor to the place he remembered as Princes Park, having earlier reunited with some of his old contemporaries – the likes of Rod Ashman, Rod Austin, Wayne Harmes, Trevor Keogh, Mark Maclure, Val Perovic and Geoff Southby – over lunch at their traditional inner city go-to trattoria, Maria’s in nearby Peel Street.

Pickett was blown away by the new IKON Park redevelopment – a far cry from the place he knew in his maiden season of 1976.

“This is an unbelievable facility. If you’re a player here you’ve got no excuses,” Pickett, who turns 70 in January, said.

“I remember the Heatley Stand and walking into reasonably dim rooms. There were weights there back then, but only a limited supply, and it didn’t matter whether you were 12 stone or 18: you lifted the same weights.”

Recruited to Carlton from North Launceston on the recommendation of the Club’s 102-game former centreman Berkley Cox – co-incidentally an old schoolmate of his father – Pickett joined Carlton on the eve of the 1976 season (as did the fleet-footed North Hobart wingman Leigh McConnon) and was billeted out to a Reverend and his wife at a premises within walking distance of the ground.

He fared well on Geoff Ablett in a practice match with Hawthorn and was promptly handed the No.30 vacated by the late Vin Waite. As he said with some modesty: “I was lucky in that I think it was Bryan Quirk who retired the year before, so there was a gap on the wing and I happened to be the man on the spot”.

“I can’t remember when it happened, whether on the following Tuesday leading up to the opening round, but they said to me ‘If you sign up you’re in the first game’. Well, how could I resist that? That’s how it all happened really,” he said.

Conscious of the need for speed if he was to progress, Pickett was as ready as he could ever be for the rigours of League football, having worked on his pace in the immediate years preceding the move.

“I was as slow as a wet week when I was 13, 14 and 15, so for about five years in a row I trained with the sprinters who were preparing for the Devonport, La Trobe and Burnie Gifts,” he said.

“Over five or six years I gradually got quicker, I grew a little bit and I cut the gap down – and I became more competitive with it which helped with my football.”

Adjudged the Club’s best first-year player, Pickett booted four goals on debut in what was an opening round baptism of fire involving Collingwood, and was a member of the 20 that fell agonisingly short of North Melbourne in the ’76 preliminary final. Incredibly, he was jetting in and out of Hobart for the first eight games as he balanced his footy with a career in teaching.

Finding his place across midfield, Pickett turned out for the old dark Navy Blues in 60 senior appearances through four seasons in total. Regrettably, an injury to the hip bone brought premature end to Pickett’s career after the Round 11 match with South Melbourne in 1979 – a premiership season under Captain-Coach Alex Jesaulenko’s watch.

In the end, Carlton wingers Peter Francis and the late fellow Tasmanian Michael Young emerged, and ultimately made it to the podium – and that’s football as Pickett readily attested.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” declared Pickett, who also agreed to a substantial to-camera interview for the Club’s archive in reflecting on his time in the League football industry.

“I had a brief but interesting career at Carlton, I made some great friends which is what I remember most of my time here, and I still follow today’s teams from afar – and whenever Charlie kicks a goal I always point the number out to my wife.”

THE dark Navy Blue guernsey worn by the late Carlton ruckman Graham McColl through his one and only senior League season of 1958 has found a new home back at the old ground.

The No.36 long sleeve woollen garment, lovingly maintained by Graham’s wife of 65 years Dorothy, was generously handed over for inclusion in the football club archive, along with various football records of the day, by their son Glenn.

“I think this is the right place for Dad’s guernsey to go. I’d hate to see the old jumper just rot away,” Glenn said.

“I haven’t got any kids to pass the guernsey on to, and with the new Blues museum I think it’s fitting. I know Dad would be chuffed as Carlton meant so much to him.

“The same with the records. They have nowhere to go and I’d rather they go to the club than wind up on eBay.”

Glenn, a Parks Auditor with the City of Melbourne, is, as with his sister Meryl, a lifelong Carlton supporter.

“I was brainwashed from a very early age,” Glenn conceded of his true Blue ties. “When I was about four or five, my grandfather took me to the Carlton ground to watch my Dad out on the field. After the game, my grandfather would take me into the room to see Dad, and I’d go into the inner sanctum with my autograph book.

“Sometimes I’d follow Dad into the rooms at half-time. A memory I have of these experiences is seeing the bootstudders quickly working their craft. The players were so very good to me too and if you ask me to nominate a favourite I have a soft spot for Bruce Doull for the way he went about his football and because he was such a nice man. I also had a great relationship with Rod Ashman.”

Graham McColl, whose association with the Club would endure for more than a quarter of a century – but not as he anticipated – passed away back in March after a short illness in Geelong Hospital.

Recruited to the Club from neighbouring VFA outfit Coburg, McColl – a Life Member of Carlton – completed his debut with Bill Arch and Chris Pavlou in the Round 2 match of 1958 against North Melbourne at Princes Park – but he was just 10 games into his maiden season when he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee.

McColl suffered the injury in the night Grand Final against St Kilda at the Lakeside Oval that September. He resumed training the following March, only to break down with the same injury, and at 24, his League career was over before it had begun.

Princes Park, March 1959. Graham McColl, wearing his No.36 long sleeve guernsey, breaks down with a recurrence of the ruptured ACL incurred the previous September. An anxious Carlton Senior Coach Ken Hands watches on as McColl is assisted from the ground by trainers, and at 24 the budding ruckman’s career is over.

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

In the premiership season of 1981, McColl’s contributions to Carlton as trainer were rewarded with Life Membership – the same year in which three-time premiership player Mark Maclure (who wore McColl’s No.36) and the late Graeme Whitnall were similarly honoured.

By then, McColl’s son had been on hand for each of the five Carlton premierships including the ’68 droughtbreaker, with more to follow. To quote Glenn: “It was a fantastic era for Carlton and I was truly blessed”.

“It’s been a long time between drinks since 1995, with an entire generation of Carlton supporters who haven’t experienced success, so it’s fantastic to see the progress today’s players are making,” he said.

“And the next Carlton premiership will be the greatest of them all because it would have been the hardest earnt.”

In a lovely postscript to this story, members of the McColl family were out in force at Marvel Stadium on Sunday to savour the Carlton team’s 36-point win over the visiting Greater Western Sydney . . . and maybe Graham was looking down.

“I know Mum was especially chuffed to have attended having not been to a live match in about 40 years since Dad last worked at the Club,” Glenn said.

“It was terrific for her and for all of us to be there for the win – a great result for the club – and to see Josh Honey running around in Dad’s old number and kick a goal was a genuine highlight.”

The McColl family and members of extended family at Marvel Stadium on Sunday. Pictured from left to right are Liam Whiteside, Bill Whiteside, Dorothy McColl, Glenn McColl and his partner Jacqui Kinder, Meryl Whiteside (née McColl) and Max Kinder. This photograph was posted at the main change by Meryl Whiteside (née McColl) on Facebook with the caption: “For Dad. Go Carlton, half time”.

FORMER Carlton rover Bruce Williams, a member of the Blues’ 1962 Grand Final 20, has passed away on the Gold Coast after a long illness. He was 83.

Williams, who was receiving palliative care, passed away in the lounge room of his home in Burleigh Waters on Monday, his wife of 61 years Lesley and daughter Krista by his side.

It was on the cusp of the 1959 season that Lesley – Williams’ then girlfriend whom he’d met a local dance – accompanied the Carlton hopeful on the move from Morwell. On arrival, they were billeted out to a home in Linda Street in nearby Coburg, and as Lesley recalled: “We stayed with a lady named Mrs Smith, her husband and their little girl because Mrs Smith took in borders”.

Williams was eight days shy of his 20th birthday when he followed the captain Bruce Comben down the race and onto Princes Park for his first Carlton game – the opening round match of the ’59 season.

Named on a half-forward flank for that match with Essendon, Williams took his place alongside another debutant John Williams (no relation) – whose son Mark also represented the club at senior level – in what was Ken Hands’ first match as Senior Coach. Harry Beitzel umpired that contest, and the home team – with the late Sergio Silvagni at full-forward, booting four of his five match-day goals in the opening term – got up by 14 points.

The left-footed Williams – sporting the No.7 later worn by Wayne Johnston, Brett Ratten and now Matthew Kennedy – made an immediate impression, earning his club’s Best First Year Player Award in season ’59. His 62 senior career games would take in another five seasons as the recognised No.1 rover to Graham Donaldson (and later John Nicholls), all of them under Hands’ watch.

Williams was there in ’62 when the Carlton players, by virtue of a drawn preliminary final with Geelong and victory in the replay, were effectively spent by Grand Final day. But he was amongst the better performers on that last Saturday in September, booting three of the Blues’ eight goals, after accruing six in the three lead-up finals combined.

Ian Collins, Carlton’s 1968 premiership player and later its Chief Executive and President, was a member of that ’62 Grand Final team. Of Williams, Collins remembered a genuine ball winner and a personable teammate.

“Bruce was one of our three on-ballers with ‘Stringy’ (Leo) Brereton and Peter Falconer,” Collins recalled.

“He used to find the ball all right. He wasn’t overly quick, he didn’t have an abundance of pace, but he was a nice kick, he kicked about as many goals as he played games (56) and was a handy player.

“On top of that, he was a real good bloke.”

On completing his time at Carlton, Williams wasn’t lost to the game. After a protracted struggle to obtain a clearance, he was lured back to Morwell as assistant coach by his old Carlton teammate Donaldson, but took the helm with the seniors when Donaldson was hospitalised. He was appointed Morwell’s permanent Senior Coach in 1966 and he later relocated to the Riverina, firstly to Berrigan as its resident coach, and later Ganmain.

“Bruce and I lived in Wagga for some time, and he worked as a bookmaker there,” Lesley said. “But he got itchy feet and found another coaching job in Queensland with Palm Beach. He took Palm Beach to a premiership and we lived in the area ever since.”

Williams was the 724th player to represent the Carlton Football Club at senior level since the formation of the VFL in 1897, and as Lesley explained he supported the old dark Navy Blues to the end.

“He loved Carlton, heart and soul. He watched every match his old team played and he was so encouraged to see the change in the team’s fortunes,” Lesley said.

“Carlton meant so much to him. The Club gave him his start in football.”

Bruce Williams is survived by his beloved wife Lesley, eldest son Craig, daughter Krista Arnold, seven grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.

His youngest son Paul passed away of motor neurone disease 12 years ago.

The Carlton players will wear black armbands as a mark of respect to Williams, in Saturday night’s match with Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

The Carlton team, which included first-gamer Bruce Williams, for the season opener v Essendon – Saturday 18 April 1959 at Princes Park

B:           Bruce Comben (c)                  George Ferry                     John Nicholls
HB:         Denis Zeunert                        Bob Crowe                        John James
C:           Graham Gilchrist                     Laurie Kerr                       John Chick (vc)
HF:         Bruce Williams                        John Williams                   Don Nicholls
F:           Gerald Burke                          Sergio Silvagni                   Leo Brereton
R:          Graham Donaldson (dvc)          Kevin Clarke                      John Heathcote
Res:       Doug Beasy                            Brian Buckley

Coach:  Ken Hands