ON THE eve of Naughton’s Parkville Hotel’s 150th anniversary celebrations, a select number of its loyal former patrons – Carlton’s revered premiership players of the 1980s – have reunited over lunch at the famous watering hole.

Carlton’s dual premiership captain and former AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick was in the room, as was the three-time premiership coach David Parkin. So too were Rod Ashman, Rod Austin, Jim Buckley, Des English, David Glascott, Ken Hunter, Warren ‘Wow’ Jones, Alex Marcou, Peter McConville and Val Perovic, along with Norm Smith Medallists Wayne Harmes and David Rhys-Jones.

Absent at the time the team photo was taken were Glascott and Parkin, in what was perhaps his first foray into the Royal Parade public house.

Rhys-Jones said that the function was organised by the Sydney-based Jones, who was on the wrong end of a breakdown in communication when the previous catch-up was abandoned at the last minute.

“A little while back some of the boys organised a catch-up, then cancelled it – and they forgot to tell ‘Wow’,” Rhys-Jones said.

“‘Wow’ lobbed from Sydney but didn’t realise it was cancelled, so he sent out 20 invitations to this one – and although five were away, 15 turned up.”

The salubrious surrounds of Naughton’s bear little resemblance to those Rhys-Jones remembered in his eight seasons as a Carlton senior footballer. As he said: “It’s a bit different now than when it was . . . . only drunken footballers and uni students back then”.

“In the old days most of the blokes who lived down south used to go there on Monday nights after training – blokes like ‘Sellers’ (Mark Maclure), Tom Alvin and ‘Deany’ (Peter Dean) – and Jimmy (Buckley) and ‘The Dominator’ (Wayne Johnston) went there too,” Rhys-Jones said.

“We’d knock down half a dozen pots then go home.”

Naughton’s Parkville Hotel has been recognised as one of Melbourne’s oldest, continuously licensed hotels. Until 2006, only two families had ever owned the pub.

The hotel’s fascinating story was recently documented by Charles Reis, the grandson of JB Naughton, who graciously availed the following details.

Naughton’s was established as the Port Phillip Agricultural Hotel and commenced trading in 1873 at a time when Parkville was still rural in character and is built on the site of Melbourne’s early Hay, Corn and Horse Market. The first application for a licence in 1872 was rejected on account of the proposed hotel’s proximity to Melbourne University, but this was overturned on appeal 12 months later allowing trade to commence. As Parkville’s population grew and the area become increasingly urbanised, a tram line was laid along Royal Parade. It was about this time that the hotel was renamed the Parkville Hotel.

History records that John Bernard Naughton purchased the hotel in 1916, a week after his marriage. His new wife, Mary Elizabeth Hickey, was herself born in a hotel – the Edinburgh Castle in North Melbourne.

Through the 1920s, JB Naughton acquired the adjoining properties in Royal Parade and in 1924 extended the hotel to its present size (with the bottle shop added in 1941). For nearly 20 years covering the period from the Depression through to Melbourne’s Olympic Games, JB Naughton also served as a councillor representing the people of Parkville at the City of Melbourne.

JB’s civic involvement became so synonymous with the hotel, that it became locally known as Naughton’s Parkville Hotel, or as recalled by one prominent CEO, simply ‘Johnny Naughton’s Hotel’. The present name was formally adopted for the business by his daughter Nancy and her husband Kevin Reis following JB Naughton’s death in 1963.

The rich history of Naughton’s has been largely shaped by its colourful patrons. Prior to the gentrification of Parkville, customers in the corner bar comprised an eclectic mix of the inner-city working class juxtaposed against aspiring university students from Melbourne’s leafier suburbs. Future barristers, surgeons and scoundrels stood shoulder to shoulder with battlers and workers. Legend has it that Sir Robert Menzies, for years the Carlton Football Club’s No.1 ticketholder, enjoyed a quite ale in the corner bar while studying law at Melbourne University.

His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a patron at Naughton’s Parkville Hotel on a previous visit to Melbourne, while Australia’s first satellite, ‘Australis’, was designed on the back of a beer coaster there.

One of the nation’s most accomplished writers, philosophers and social commentators, Cyril Pearl, requested that the ABC record its television tribute to him at the hotel – and ‘Aunty’ obliged.

The pub even became the subject of a book penned by Jim Young entitled ‘Any Old Eleven’ about the Naughton’s Old Boys Cricket Team of the 1980s.

In the 1970s a series of rolling strikes by bar staff saw virtually every hotel in Melbourne forced to close its doors – except Naughton’s. Nancy Naughton and her husband Kevin Reis were able to continue trading with the help of their nine children (who lived in the residence above the hotel). Even Kevin’s brother, a Catholic Priest, swapped his religious collar for a barman’s apron to help keep the doors open.

On the footpath flanking the noted establishment on Royal Parade stands a steel bench seat at which Stephen Kernahan belted out an extraordinary version of the Tammy Wynette classic Stand By Your Man on the Monday after the Blues’ meritorious 1987 Grand Final victory.

The hotel’s structure is still largely original, with its bluestone cellars and a flat roof that commands a panoramic view across Parkville to Royal Park. The corner entrance is consistent with early Victorian hotels, and the general character of Naughton’s is largely unchanged to that of a century ago.

More than a million students have passed through the university since the hotel was built, many of them simultaneously earning a diploma in the school of life from their time in the ladies lounge or saloon bar of Naughton’s Hotel – and just as many football devotees who have saluted the latest victory at JB’s old haunt.

In celebration of its sesquicentenary, Naughton’s Parkville Hotel, together with the Parkville Association (whose President is the former Carltonians coterie President Robert Moore) convened an evening in which the Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp and members of the Reiss family (the original owners of Naughtons Hotel) addressed invitees.

WITH the passing of Ron Barassi at the age of 87, so ends a glorious life dedicated to the great Indigenous game – and as the football world remembers a giant, thoughts at Carlton turn to the behind-the-scenes machinations which led to what remains – almost 60 years on – the most audacious signing in League history. 

The following story, a slightly abridged version of which appeared some time ago in the publication Out Of The Blue, reveals how the city’s powerbrokers of the day came together to wrest Barassi from the Melbourne establishment’s grasp and revive Carlton’s flagging fortunes as Captain-Coach. 

Barassi’s personal recollections of the monumental sliding doors moment in his life, also follow, in his own words.   

Barassi to the Blues

The signing of Ron Barassi as captain and coach of the Carlton Football Club in late 1964 undeniably remains the most audacious signing in league history. How did Carlton, on the end of its team’s worst standing in 100 seasons of existence, wrest the game’s greatest name from the clutches of the Melbourne establishment?

Over the years, many have laid claim to their part in the push to “Get Ron” from the Redlegs to deliver the old dark Navy Blues from the football backwater. Back in 1995, when surviving members of George Harris’ famed Progress Party gathered for the 30th anniversary of “Barassi to the Blues”, all magnanimously declared it a joint effort.

In truth, the push for Barassi was on in earnest months before the Progress Party swept into power at Princes Park – and central to it were two leviathans of the city’s business sector, a prominent Melbourne solicitor and a fearsome former Carlton footballer who forged an equally imposing reputation as both a powerbroker and a kingmaker.

The four men – Sir Leo Curtis, Sir Maurice Nathan, Graham Emanuel and Laurie Kerr – were also bound by an unswerving loyalty to the Carlton Football Club.

A story which in part tells the whole in respect of their unqualified allegiance relates to Sir Leo and Sir Maurice. It is a tale told by the late Ken Hands, who was six seasons into his senior coaching tenure when forced to make way for Barassi.

Hands, a dual Carlton premiership player whom John Nicholls long regarded as his mentor, well recalled the pair rubbing shoulders with well-heeled supporters as far back as the war years.

“I don’t know what it’s like now, but a lot of supporters used to come into the rooms afterwards – people like Maurie Nathan and Leo Curtis,” Hands said.

“There was a group who used to meet over lunch in Lonsdale Street before Carlton games. They’d have their little punt on the game, and quite often through ’45 and ’47, if we won, we’d probably get an extra couple of quid.

“That’s how the money came about. Perc Bentley might announce ‘If you win by three goals today there’s two pound a man’, and if you’d get three quid to play and two quid on the side, it was pretty good.”

Sir Leo, Sir Maurice, Emanuel and Kerr have all since died, and, at the time of writing, only one member of the Progress Party – Gordon Newton – is still around to shed any light on the stunning coup to secure Barassi on a three-year term at a cost of £9000 plus bonuses.

But Kerr’s widow and the Carlton’s Football Club’s No.1 female ticketholder Vivienne Kerr, together with the great Ronald Dale himself, drew on their collective memories to detail the behind-the-scenes machinations which ultimately led to football’s most audacious signing.

“Maurice Nathan loved Laurie, and Leo was one of our dearest friends. I always used to go to the footy with Leo and Maurice Nathan and we’d sit together. Laurie delivered a speech at Leo’s 90th birthday party, we were all best friends and a great part of our friendship was our love of the club,” Vivienne said.

“In mid-1963 – I can’t remember the date but one Sunday night – Sir Leo Curtis phoned Laurie. The discussion went that perhaps Laurie might sound Ron Barassi out, so Laurie arranged a luncheon with Ron, I think at the Hotel Australia.

“Laurie was very satisfied emerging from the lunch. He didn’t put Ron in an embarrassing position by saying ‘This is what you must do’. It was just to sow the seed. This was what Laurie did, and that was how he operated. He did some amazing things in his life.

“It was maybe 10 months later that Ron was approached by Graham Emanuel and Kevin McEncroe on behalf of all members of the [Carlton Football Club] board to put the thing to Ron.”

Vivienne said that her husband and Barassi had forged a lifelong friendship when the two were locking horns in Carlton-Melbourne contests through the Redlegs’ halcyon days of the 1950s.

“Laurie and Ron had built a rapport with each other from their playing days, and Ron delivered the eulogy at Laurie’s funeral,” Vivienne said. “Ron said that the first time he met Laurie ‘was when his shoulder hit mine’, and they were both pretty tough, but they had a great, great relationship.”

There can be no doubting Barassi’s great respect for Kerr. Once asked to name his heroes in life, the game’s famous No.31 volunteered Rupert Murdoch “for proving himself in a diabolically competitive field”, Herb Elliott as “a fantastic guy, and his own man”, Barry Jones, for “a sense of humour and top Australian” and Laurie Kerr for his “ability to get people with him, and a good listener, but tough”.

Barassi also concurred with Vivienne’s take on this chain of events, including the pivotal rendez-vous with Kerr at the Hotel Australia.

“Laurie Kerr rang me up and said ‘What about going to lunch?’ I said yes [to the luncheon engagement] because I really admired his qualities as a person and as a footballer,” Barassi said. “We’d played interstate football together and we’d had battles on the field, but not centreman versus centreman as I was too scared to go into the centre to go against him (laughs).

“I left Laurie about 90 minutes later let’s say, and as I was getting into my car I thought ‘Why would he take me to lunch?’. There was no relevant discussion during the lunch or reason behind it, and I always took it that he [Kerr] was sizing me up for the coaching position.

“I always thought that happened during 1963, but it could have happened in ’64 and I’m not certain on that point – either way, it was certainly some time before the coaching thing came up as a definite proposition.”

Barassi said he never knew that Kerr, Curtis, Nathan and Emanuel had, from the outset, volunteered his name as a prospective Carlton coach.

Vivienne, meanwhile, has denied that the Barassi plan was hatched by Curtis alone, insisting that “they [the clique] would have all chatted about it”.

“Laurie, Leo Curtis, Maurice Nathan and Graham Emanuel were probably the only ones who knew [about Barassi]. The point was that the team was going nowhere and the club was still experiencing the destabilising effects of the Hands-Francis fallout. There’d been all this fighting and upheaval, and they [the club] needed a lift,” Vivienne said.

She also remembered that the initial plan to get Ron was concocted independently of Harris for the simple reason that Harris’s Progress Party had not yet been swept into office. However, she believed that Kerr informed the-then Carlton president Lew Holmes of his initial meeting with Barassi.

It’s worth noting here that Sir Edward Leo Curtis was, at the time, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Sir Leo had forged his handsome reputation as the director of Bradman’s Stores, served as President of the Retail Traders Association, and was also a member of the advisory board of the Mercy Maternity Hospital.

Sir Maurice Arnold Nathan, the chairman of the furniture retailing firm Patersons, preceded Sir Leo as Lord Mayor of Melbourne. He served from 1961-63, about the same period that John F. Kennedy occupied the White House.

By the time Sir Maurice had hung up his chains, the long-serving councillor had actively involved himself in the establishment of Tullamarine Airport, Moomba and the Southern Cross Hotel, and had also headed the Melbourne Olympic Games organising committee.

He would also serve as the VFL chairman and a racing industry board member and formed the Victorian Promotion Committee (the original Victorian Major Events Company) with the-then Premier Sir Henry Bolte.

Graham Emanuel, according to club records, was elevated to the vacant position on the Carlton committee on October 10, 1961. The vacancy had been created following the sudden death on September 12 of Harvey Dunn senior, a former Carlton footballer in the 1920s whose son Harvey junior was the first League footballer recruited under the father/son rule. Ronald Dale Barassi, as it happened, was the second.

Emanuel, who would also serve as a member of the club’s finance committee and as an honorary Carlton Ground Representative, was described in the 1961 annual report as “a professional man of standing”, with the club expressing every confidence “that he will prove an acquisition to our administrative ranks”.

And then there was Laurie Kerr.

Kerr was born Lawrence Kitchin-Kerr on June 25, 1928. Legend has it that he opted for the abridged version of his surname so that it would fit in the Footy Record.

Named as an emergency in the Carlton Football Club’s exalted Team of the Century, Kerr represented the old dark Navy Blues in 149 senior matches between 1950-59. He also pursued a career in journalism, and in the years following his retirement steadily built his public relations empire IPR.

Somewhat paradoxically, Kerr preferred to work in the background. Regardless, he was universally acknowledged in his extraordinary lifetime as one of the country’s great movers and shakers, and the Carlton Football Club was not untouched.

Few would know that Kerr originally supported Collingwood and that his links with Carlton were first forged through Vivienne, who in her childhood years shared her mother’s allegiance to the now-defunct Fitzroy.

“As a wee kid I used to be taken to the footy to watch Fitzroy and Haydn Bunton because Bunton, Frank Curcio and ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn were my mother’s heroes,” Vivienne said. “Laurie loved Collingwood, and he used to ride his bike from Kew to Collingwood, chain his bike up and watch the team play.

“I barracked for Fitzroy before Laurie went to Carlton. I saw the last premiership Fitzroy won. I remember Fred Hughson, Noel Jarvis and Alan Ruthven, and they’re the ones that Laurie subsequently played against.”

Vivienne said that she and Kerr married young. “We had a child and very nearly another, and at that time he was a reporter for The Argus and they sent him to university to do his BA,” she said.

“He was a professional runner and he also played football for Auburn, but not all the time. He was too busy with his studies and they [Auburn] only got him to play when they needed him.”

Vivienne revealed that the first Carlton overtures came when The Argus posted her husband to Canberra to cover parliament.

“My father, Harry Devine, idolised Laurie and couldn’t believe that into his family had come this fellow who was fast and who could kick a football. My Dad had played footy for Carlton and Fitzroy seconds … and he knew Harry Bell, the secretary of Carlton, very well,” Vivienne said.

“My father said to Harry: ‘Laurie’s very good’, and he’d already mentioned the same to Ken Luke because Ken Luke was one of my Dad’s best and oldest friends.”

Vivienne said that on Kerr’s return from Canberra, her father arranged for Bell to visit the home of Laurie and Vivienne in Ivanhoe. She said that following an interview with Bell, Kerr begrudgingly agreed to front for a training session at Princes Park.

“Laurie ran around once while Ken Luke, Harry Bell and Newton Chandler were watching. It was not long after the premiership year, and they needed a new wingman,” Vivienne said.

“Anyway, they called him over and Ken Luke said: ‘You’re in – you’ll be playing in the first game on the wing’. Laurie graduated at Melbourne Uni on the day of the last practice match, and he raced over to Carlton and he played. He sprained his ankle and wasn’t able to play for another 12 weeks, but as soon as he got fit he broke into the Carlton team, against North Melbourne.”

Kerr’s contribution to the Carlton team encompassed all of the 1950s, but it could be successfully argued that his influence was greater in the years after he hung up the No.11 guernsey.

“The Carlton Football Club was everything to Laurie. Playing football for Carlton meant a lot to him,” Vivienne said. “He was loyal to Carlton, loved Carlton and tried to help Carlton in any way that he could. He gave his all for the club.”

Vivienne said that while her late husband never divulged the details of his conversation with Barassi at the Australia Hotel, “I knew what was happening and that they [the Sir Leo Curtis clique] wanted Ron to go [to Carlton].

“I never pried into his [Kerr’s] business but I know why he was approaching Ron, for sure,” she said.

“If Laurie wanted to tell me these things, he would. He definitely told me why he was approaching Ron, and I said ‘Ripper!’.

“It was terrific when Ron came to Carlton. Mind you, I could have killed him when he played for Melbourne. He was so fierce and aggressive.”

A famous photograph captured in the rooms before Carlton’s practice match against St Kilda in early 1965 shows Barassi, hands on hips and resplendent in navy blue strip, delivering the edict to a captive audience of senior players. Behind Barassi can be found a plethora of football identities, from the President George Harris through to the resident club barber Ernie Angerame and the ever-vigilant newshounds Alf Brown and Ron Carter. Also there, head bowed, is Ken Hands, the man who made way for Ronald Dale.

Barassi was one of four men – all of them untried as coaches – known to have been interviewed for the Carlton job. Collingwood’s Murray Weideman, along with Essendon’s Jack Clarke and Bill Hutchison, were all in the mix, but Barassi was the peach. Undeniably, Barassi was torn by his historical links to the grand old flag for whom he and his father so grandly represented, but Harris was relentless in making the great grandson of an Italian migrant an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Ronald Dale Barassi was officially appointed captain-coach of the Carlton Football Club on the night of Thursday December 22, 1964. But more than a month lapsed before Melbourne granted its long-serving premiership player a clearance.

On the night the paperwork finally came through, Barassi was photographed flanked by committeemen Harris, Emanuel, Eddie Fakhry and Rod McLean, each one of them fawning over the club’s recruit of the year.

“As a coach, I have no revolutionary ideas,” Barassi told reporters privy to what was history in the making, “but my ideas are proven ones and I am confident they will work at Carlton.

“I will try to mould the perfect team. No-one has achieved this yet, but if you aim high I think you have a better chance of success.”

Barassi commandeered Carlton to its breakthrough premiership of 1968 and its stunning Grand Final victory in 1970. John Nicholls, who accepted the prized cup on both occasions, said that his old coach brought much of Norm Smith’s and Melbourne’s success and discipline to the table.

“‘Barass’ was very, very good. He was very lucky in two areas – number one, we had the nucleus of a fantastic side which he helped mould, and the second thing was we had a fantastic match committee, of which Rod McLean was initially chairman, and then Jack Wrout, who was wonderful,” Nicholls said.

“Jack had the ability to walk around after Ron picking up the pieces because ‘Barass’ was like a bull in a china shop. He’d knock people down and ‘Wrouty’ would pick them up again.

“[George] Harris was good, the committee was good, Barassi was good and the players were good. And ‘Barass’ probably brought it all together.”

AFL Chairman and dual former Carlton premiership captain Mike Fitzpatrick, in recently proposing a toast to the club’s breakthrough team of 1968, said of Barassi’s legacy: “It’s history now that the Barassi era set off the most successful period in Carlton history – eight premierships over a 27-year period, beginning with the big one in ’68.

“Though Ron was untried in the coaching caper, Carlton knew exactly what it was getting – a ferocious competitor, a supreme motivator and above all else, a winner,” Fitzpatrick said.

“The 1968 Grand Final serves as a salient reminder that success at a football club can only be achieved when everyone from the President and the board, through to the administration, the coach and the players, are committed as one to the common cause.”

Ron Barassi – in his own words

“I received a phone call from a fellow who would become a member of what I later learned to be the new Carlton committee, because there was going to be quite a stoush at the ballot boxes for the members. So I met a couple of guys [Graham Emanuel and Kevin McEncroe], had lunch at a very nice restaurant near the corner of Exhibition and Lonsdale Streets, a favourite haunt of one of the fellows, and I came away from there with what they had in mind from the point of view of the offer.

I got back to work at about half past two or three o’clock I suppose, and I then rang Jim Cardwell the CEO, or secretary in those days, of the Melbourne Football Club, and said to him, ‘Jim, this is what’s happened’. I’ve told Carlton I’ll consider it for a couple of days and say ‘No’ or ‘Let’s talk further’. I told him ‘I think it’s the right thing to do, to tell Melbourne via you’. I didn’t ring the coach, Norm Smith, because I thought it was more of a secretary’s thing, and whether I’m right or wrong on that is irrelevant. Anyway, that all happened on a Thursday.

In those days there was a first edition of The Herald which came out just before noon. And on the Friday morning I got a call from Alf Brown, the doyen of football writers at that time, and he said: “Ron, I believe this has happened – is this so?” He reeled off the circumstances of the Carlton situation, and the figures, and I’ve gone ‘Gee, I thought this was supposed to be confidential’. He then said ‘Ron, what are you going to do?’ and I said ‘Alf, I’ll ring you back in half an hour with my answer’.

I rang Jim Cardwell and said ‘Jim, did you bloody tell Alf Brown?’. ‘No’ came the reply, and I don’t know to this day whether he did or not, so I took it as ‘No’. So I then took it to be one of the Carlton guys. So I rang one and he was out, so I rang the other guy, Graham Emanuel I think it was, and said ‘If this is the way you’re going to run a football club, well forget it’. And that was it.

I then rang Alf, and by Friday it was in the news.

On the Sunday the Melbourne Footy Club held a Christmas party down at the MCG for the kids, and I went down there with my wife and the kids. And Norm Smith said ‘Ah, writing your own stuff these days’ …  you know, a bit of a dig. Other committeemen were giving me dirty looks and I thought ‘Gee, I’ve just knocked back a fantastic offer, chance or whatever you want to call it’ and I got really steamed up. So on my way home I said to my wife, ‘I think I’ll ring Alf Brown to see if this can be regurgitated and I can get the thing going again’. And the rest is history.

I probably drove Carlton mad, but it had nothing to do with money. I just found it extremely hard to leave my Melbourne. I certainly couldn’t have done it just as a player – the coach thing attracted me. And it was interesting because about two years before, and this was probably at the start of the Melbourne problem where Norm Smith was having hassles with the committee and a few of us down at Melbourne knew this, I remember thinking ‘Here’s the best coach in Australia, he’s coached five premierships and played in four, and I thought ‘Who wants to be a coach?. An idiot? Two years later when I had the opportunity, I must have forgotten all about that stuff.

I’d said ‘No’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’, so I’d given two ‘nos’ before the final ‘yes’. By then they threw the heavyweights in, and it wasn’t until very late in the piece that I actually spoke to George [Harris]. He did speak to me for a while, he was quite persuasive and I did take a lot of persuading because leaving Melbourne was where I’d spent my whole life as a kid, where my father played and all that sort of stuff. But I never met him [Harris] until after I said ‘yes’.

At the committee meeting, George got up and officially announced to the committee that I’d been appointed. I then got up and said how pleased I was to have been asked. And after I’d finished, one of the committeemen, Rod McLean, the-then chairman of the match committee, stood up and said “this is terrific – but, Mr President, the match committee knew nothing about this … and that is not right.” And I thought, ‘So this is my first experience of a committee meeting’. (laughs). But that was Rod all over. He was a man of great principle, and whilst he agreed with the end result, he didn’t like the way they’d gone about it. And when you think about it, I don’t know why they didn’t approach the match committee. Anyway, that night was memorable for me on a few counts.

It was hard to make that decision in the beginning, but once made then, well, you’ve got to go flat out to make that decision work – otherwise you’d look stupid. It’s a bit like going for a footy mark in a way – once you decide ‘I’ve got to get this mark’, then everything else goes out the window except the objective of getting that mark. It’s a similar sort of thing really.

It turned out to be the best thing personally for me to happen, particularly in terms of my coaching career, because I didn’t do much here in the way of playing. I became involved with a great group of players and a great committee because they were all determined. They were sick of Carlton being down and out and not doing much, so it was a great time to be here.

Melbourne had just come off a premiership, and if they did read that an explosion was not far off occurring, then they read it better than I did. I was flabbergasted when I got half way through my first season of coaching Carlton when I got the news that Norm Smith had been sacked. I got in my car, drove straight over to the CEO and let him have it. It had nothing to do with me, by the way, and I knew I was doing the wrong thing, but Melbourne in a way has never recovered.

One of the things I learned at Melbourne was that a player and a coach has no hope unless the club is properly administered, particularly over time. You might fluke one premiership, but if you want consistent success, you won’t have it without very, very good leadership off-field. And when I started to think about coaching I thought ‘Well, I’ve definitely got to go to a place that’s properly administered’.

With Carlton, I took a bit of a punt there because who knew what the new administration was going to be like? But on meeting some of them and hearing about the rest I thought, ‘Well, I think it’s going to be pretty good’. So I made a good punt there, because it was a very, very good committee.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not that it particularly phased Don.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Donny was my brother and my friend forever.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Carlton, under Worrall, was on the rise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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