Happy 90th to Doug Williams

A very happy 90th birthday to Doug Williams today!

 

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From the Blueseum:

 


Career : 1944 – 1951
Debut : Round 11, 1944 vs Footscray, aged 21 years, 162 days
Carlton Player No. 594
Games : 120
Goals : 7
Last Game : Round 12, 1951 vs Hawthorn, aged 28 years, 168 days
Guernsey No. 12
Height : 178 cm (5 ft. 10 in.)
Weight : 70 kg (11 st.)
DOB : 3 February, 1923
Premiership Player 1945 & 1947

A skilled and consistent wingman for the Blues in a fine career spanning eight seasons, Doug Williams was a member of Carlton’s legendary 1945 and 1947 Premiership teams, as well as the losing Grand Final side of 1949. He was recruited from Yallourn in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley in 1944, and rarely missed a match in his first five years.

Deceptively tall and slender, Williams was quick, agile and strong overhead. A typical wingman of that era, his style of play was to provide a link between defenders and forwards, so he rarely ventured into attack. In his 120 games of VFL football, he kicked just seven goals. Nevertheless, he was widely regarded as one of the better centre-line players of the post-war years.

Williams was given his first opportunity at senior level for the Blues in July 1944, in a Round 11 match against Footscray. On that typically wet and windy afternoon at the Western Oval, Carlton’s scoreless last quarter was costly, and Footscray got home by three points. Williams’ impressive first-up effort however, ensured that would retain his place in a promising Carlton side for the rest of the year.

In Doug’s second season, Carlton got off to a very shaky start. Three heavy defeats in a row sent the Blues tumbling to the bottom of the VFL ladder, before a stirring mid-year revival culminated in a 53 point thrashing of Footscray in the last of the home and away rounds. That win snatched a finals berth for the Blues, and set the stage for one of the most sensational and controversial final series of all.

In August 1945, World War II ended when the Japanese Government signed an unconditional surrender to the Allied nations. Seven years of widespread death and destruction was ended at last, and the VFL proclaimed the 1945 flag – to be contested by South Melbourne, Collingwood, North Melbourne and Carlton – as the Victory Premiership. Instead, it has gone down in football history as the ‘Bloodbath’ Grand Final.

Carlton’s path to the ’45 Premiership was littered with the carcasses of North Melbourne and Collingwood, who were both vanquished in hard, spiteful games on the way to a deciding clash with the hot flag favourites South Melbourne. For Doug Williams, gaining a place in that Premiership play-off topped off a good season. He had missed just two games since his debut, and followed up his selection in the Victorian state side earlier in the year by controlling his side of the ground in Carlton’s Preliminary Final win over Collingwood.

On that sensational day, Doug lined up against South’s Billy King, who, like Williams, was considered a star in the making. King later paid tribute to his opponent for keeping him out of the fierce physical clashes – some within the rules, but most without – that began in the second quarter and intensified as the Grand Final degenerated into a series of rolling brawls.

There were passages of good football – even when the rain came in the second half – but they were instantly forgotten amid the mayhem. Eventually, the Blues’ inspirational captain Bob Chitty led his team to victory by almost five goals in a match that resonated through the league for years afterward. Nine players were reported, on fifteen charges. The eight found guilty were handed suspensions totalling 68 games.

Carlton’s eighth VFL Premiership in 1947 is fondly remembered for the last-minute goal by Fred Stafford – a celebrated snap-shot that won the ultimate football prize for the Blues by one point – and for the outstanding leadership of our first-year captain, Ern Henfry. A champion centreman from WA who led by example, the key to Henfry’s game was his superb disposal, which brought those around him into the game.

Among those to benefit most from his new captain’s influence was Doug Williams. He, Henfry, and Fred Fitzgibbon (himself notorious for his part in the 1945 Finals battles) made a formidable combination across the middle of the ground for Carlton, and as a combination, were a driving force for the Blues throughout the ’47 finals and beyond.

When Carlton shaped up to Essendon in 1949 Grand Final, Williams, Henfry and Fitzgibbon plunged into the fray together once more. But this time, neither they nor their team-mates had any answer to a rampaging Essendon. Spearheaded by their young full-forward John Coleman, the Bombers blitzed the Blues by 73 points – bringing to an end a golden era of three Grand Final appearances in six years by the team from Princes Park.

Perhaps inevitably, Carlton began a period of stagnation in 1950. After almost a decade of joy, the champions who had sustained the Blues through the tough football campaigns of the war years had reached the twilight of their careers, and the team began fading to the lower half of the ladder.

On a wet Saturday afternoon in July at Glenferrie Oval, after Carlton beat Hawthorn by 17 points, Williams brought the curtain down on his senior career in the navy blue number 12 guernsey. He wasn’t quite finished however, and stayed around long enough to celebrate one more flag, when Carlton beat Essendon by 12 points in the 1951 Reserves Premiership. In a fitting finale, Doug was the master of his side of the MCG once more on Grand Final day, and walked off the ground a winner for a third time.

The following year, Williams was appointed captain-coach of Tasmanian club North Launceston, and took the Robins into the NTFA finals at his first attempt. But home was calling for Doug and his wife Margaret, and in 1953 they returned to the Latrobe Valley. There, Doug rounded out a long and memorable career with one last season for the Morwell Tigers, which included another premiership, and to cap it all off – a Best and Fairest.

Happy 50th to Darren Ogier

A happy 50th birthday to Darren Ogier!

 

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From the Blueseum:

 


Career: 1985-1987
Debut: Round 7, 1985 vs Sydney
926th Carlton Player
Games: 13
Goals: 15
Last game: Round 16, 1987 vs West Coast
Guernsey No. 34 (1987), 49 (1985 – 1986) and 52 (1982)
Height: 184cm
Weight: 81kg
DOB: 2 February, 1963

Think about the revolving door of players tried and tested at full forward throughout the 1980s: Ross DitchburnWarren RalphWarren McKenziePhil PoursanidisMichael GallagherPeter Sartori

… the list goes on. Darren Ogier was one of the merry-go-round who never quite established himself, despite being a prolific goal kicker in the Reserves. His claim to fame was being the first Blue to sport a genuine mullet, which obviously proved inspirational to another young, impressionable recruit, a certain S. Kernahan.

Ogier, due to limited opportunities headed to North Melbourne for the 1988 season. While at the Roos’, he played two games and kicked three goals, the last of those two games was against the Blues where he potted two goals. The following season (1989), he headed north of the border to Sydney where he played a further eight games and kicked 16 goals. His last two games for the Swans he kicked 5 goals against Footscray, then 4 goals against the Eagles. Then he never played VFL football again! His VFL career was a total of 23 games and 34 goals at three clubs spanning five years.

In 1991, while living in England, Ogier guided the Earls Court Kangaroos to the British Australian Rules Football League premiership. He was an assistant coach at the Northern Bullants from 1998 to 2001 and served as the senior coach of Katamatite in 2006. The following year he joined the Murray Bushrangers, of the TAC Cup, as an assistant coach and was promoted to senior coach for the 2010 season.

Darren Ogier was originally recruited from Northern Suburbs club Hadfield.

Ogier also played with the Blues Little League in 1974.

Happy 60th to Mike Fitzpatrick

A happy 60th birthday to Mike Fitzpatrick.

 

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From the Blueseum:


Career : 1975 – 1983
Debut : Round 1, 1975 vs Geelong, aged 22 years, 67 days
Carlton Player No. 850
Games : 150
Goals : 150
Guernsey No. 3
Last Game: Elimination Final, 1983 vs Essendon, aged 30 years, 218 days
Height: 191 cm
Weight: 91 kg
DOB: January 28, 1953
Premiership Player: 197919811982
Premiership Captain: 19811982
Captain: 1980-1983
Best and Fairest1979
Carlton Hall of Fame (1992)

When the Prime Minister of South Africa’s Cape Colony, Cecil Rhodes, died in 1902, he left one of the world’s great legacies. The multi-millionaire bachelor directed that his fortune be used to provide scholarships to outstanding young men and women from the British Empire and America, on the proviso that candidates must have demonstrated a combination of “scholastic excellence, sporting prowess and strong character.”

One of Western Australia’s brightest young men won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1975. His name was Mike Fitzpatrick. While studying Engineering at the University of WA, he was also playing WAFL football for Subiaco, on the verge of an outstanding VFL career that would see him afterward recognised as one of the great captains of the Carlton Football Club.

By late 1974, Fitzpatrick had already notched up 97 senior games with Subiaco. A mobile, skilful ruckman, he was targeted by several VFL clubs before Carlton won his services. He arrived at Princes Park and celebrated his 22nd birthday before making his debut in round one, 1975. At 191 cm and 91 kg he gave away height and weight to many opponents, but he was clever, athletic and an outstanding mark. Adept at assessing his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, he was a fierce competitor who hated being beaten. “Fitzy” played every game that year, and by season’s end was already considered a future captain of the Blues.

His studies took him to England’s Oxford University in 1976 but he was able to return for the latter part of that VFL season, including two losing finals matches. He was away again throughout 1977 and managed just two appearances in 1978. After his full-time studies were completed, Fitzy and indeed, all Carlton supporters, were keen to have him back in 1979 – and he didn’t disappoint. With Fitzpatrick and the wiley veteran “Percy” Jones making up a formidable ruck division, the Blues had a great year, topped off with a fighting 5 point Grand Final victory over Collingwood. Fitzy had a superb final series; showcasing his tenacity and an ability to lift himself and his team on big occasions. He was a popular and deserving winner of Carlton’s Best and Fairest award.

Soon after the glory of the ’79 Premiership, ructions split the Carlton Football Club when President George Harris was tipped out of office and replaced by Ian RicePercy Jones retired as a player to take on the coaching role, and Mike Fitzpatrick was appointed captain. It was a popular decision all round, and The Blues began 1980 as flag favourites. Carlton went to top of the ladder after the home & away rounds, only to let themselves down by losing successive finals to crash out of contention. This brought an end to Percy Jones‘ senior coaching career. His place was taken by former Hawthorn Premiership coach David Parkin, who happily, found an immediate empathy with Fitzpatrick. Both were committed to success in every way, and both were prepared to pay the price for that success. Together they were a daunting proposition, committed to making amends for past failure.

Driven by that disappointment in 1980, Carlton finished the 1981 home & away rounds on top of the ladder by percentage over Collingwood, and went on to face the Magpies in the Grand Final. On that special day, Fitzpatrick rucked tirelessly all match against Peter Moore, and had the better of the Brownlow Medallist as the Blues won their thirteenth Premiership by a comfortable 20 points. Bruce Doull won the Norm Smith medal for Best on Ground, with Fitzy next best in the votes.

Season 1982 should be remembered as one of Carlton’s greatest ever. Not just for the feat of winning consecutive Grand Finals, but rather for the enormous physical effort required by every member of the team to defend the title. In a tough season, Fitzpatrick was inspirational on countless occasions. Always dangerous in attack, he regularly pushed forward to deliver vital goals when they were most needed. And when emotions spilled into confrontation, the captain was always there to fly the flag. He may have been a man of books, but he always stood ready to look after himself and his smaller team-mates when required.

Carlton began the ’82 finals in third spot behind Richmond and Hawthorn. In a torrid Qualifying Final against Hawthorn, Blues’ stars Wayne Johnston and Peter Bosustow were reported and subsequently suspended for two weeks and one week respectively. Carlton steamrolled the Hawks in the second half to win by 58 points. Then on the following Saturday, Carlton were no match for Richmond in the second semi-final. As always, the Tigers relied on physical pressure to unsettle their opponents. They hit hard and hit often to beat the Blues by 23 points; giving away 62 free kicks to Carlton’s 36, on the way to a week’s break and a place in the Grand Final.

While Richmond had their week off, the Blues met Hawthorn once more in the preliminary final. Bosustow had returned, but Jimmy Buckley and Mark Maclure didn’t come up at training. On selection night David Parkin and the match committee swung Fitzpatrick to centre half-forward to cover for Maclure, and Wow Jones into first ruck. In another fierce, physical clash, Leigh Matthews ran through Carlton’s Rod Austin in the first few minutes. First on the scene to even up was Mike Fitzpatrick, and soon there were prostrate Hawks aplenty. That incident sparked the Blues. Enough was enough and they refused to take a backward step from that moment on. When “Curly” Austin ran back out onto the ground after half-time, the whole team lifted further to win by five goals.

After three successive gruelling matches, Carlton were at long odds against Richmond in the Grand Final. The Blues regained JohnstonMaclure, and Buckley, while the Tigers were at full strength, rested and confident. As expected, Richmond went hard at the man and the ball from the opening bounce. Spot fires broke out all over the ground as Carlton slammed on two goals in the first two minutes, while commentator Lou Richards couldn’t take it all in and exclaimed, “this is the toughest opening ever!”

At half time Richmond had clawed their way to an eleven point lead, but Carlton had had four more scoring shots and an edge in general play. Fitzpatrick and big Wow Jones were on top of the Richmond rucks, Bruce Doull was impassable in defence and Wayne Johnston was brilliant in the centre. Coach Parkin demanded that his players take the initiative in the third quarter. He sent wingman Wayne Harmes to the back pocket, and captain Fitzpatrick to centre half-forward. Both moves were justified as the Blues ran rampant. Fitzy was the focal point in attack, marking strongly twice to kick telling goals as Carlton slammed on 5.4 to Richmond’s six behinds for a 17 point lead at three-quarter time.

As the fresher and fitter of the two teams, Richmond were expected to finish strongly, but that didn’t happen. The Blues were magnificent in that last quarter as wave after wave of Tiger attacks foundered on the rocks of the Carlton defence. Mike Fitzpatrick limped off the MCG late in the quarter with a satisfied grin on his face and appreciative applause swelling around the ground. The final margin was 18 points. Fitzy had won his third Premiership medal – his second as captain.

That ankle injury, and others to his hip and hands, plagued Mike throughout the 1983 season. When he and his beloved Blues limped into the finals that year, only to lose the first elimination final, he knew it was time to call it a day. Tributes from friends and foes everywhere poured into Princes Park when he announced his retirement after 150 inspirational games and 150 goals in his familiar number 3. He was 30 years old. A marvellous sporting career had ended, but there were more impressive achievements ahead.

With a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) from the University of WA, as well as a Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) from Oxford University to his name, Mike Fitzpatrick has been as spectacularly successful in his subsequent business career as he was on the football field. After a couple of seasons as Vice President of the AFL Players Association, he spent time in New York with the giant financial house Merrill Lynch before returning to Australia to senior positions with the Victorian Treasury and Telecom Australia. He then founded Hastings Funds Management Ltd and continues as the company’s Managing Director. He has also been Chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, a member of the Melbourne Park Tennis Centre Trust, and a Director of the Carlton Football Club.

In 1992, Fitzy was elected to the Carlton Hall of Fame. In early 2000 he was named on the bench in Carlton’s Team of the 20th Century. In 2003 he was appointed to the Board of the AFL Commission, and in March 2007 he became one of the most powerful and influential figures in the game, when he succeeded Essendon’s Ron Evans as AFL Chairman.

Cecil Rhodes would surely have approved.

Happy 60th to Rod Austin

A happy 60th birthday to Rod Austin.

 

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From the Blueseum:

 
Career : 1972 – 1985
Debut : Round 6, 1972 vs Geelong, aged 19 years, 100 days
Carlton Player No. 835
Games : 220
Goals : 20
Last Game : Round 12, 1985 vs Footscray, aged 32 years, 140 days
Guernsey Nos. 45 (1972) and 21 (1973–85)
Height : 180 cm (5 ft. 11 in.)
Weight : 80 kg (12 stone, 8 lbs.)
DOB : January 26, 1953
Premiership Player: 1979
Carlton Hall of Fame (1997)

Rodney Austin was born on Australia Day in 1953, and recruited by Carlton from the vaunted local college team Holy Child / St Dominic’s. With his thick mop of hair and an awkward kicking style, he was quickly dubbed ‘Curly’ by his team-mates – some of whom saw a resemblance to one of the Three Stooges. But there was nothing slapstick about the way ‘Curly’ went about his football. In time, he developed into a versatile, consistent defender who was rarely beaten for an entire game. One of the most popular players of his era, he won Premiership glory with the Blues in 1979, and was cruelly denied a place in both the 1981and ’82 flag sides by injury.

Austin wrote his name into Australian Football folklore in July, 1977 at Princes Park. Standing in for Geoff Southby at full-back against Hawthorn, he kept the Hawks’ champion full-forward Peter Hudson goalless on one of just two occasions in Hudson’s brilliant 129-game, 727-goal VFL career. Although he gave away eight centimetres in height and at least two kilograms in weight that day, Curly’s steely concentration proved too much for Hudson, setting up one of the great individual rivalries of the decade.

Two years later, Austin returned from injury on the eve of the finals, and was named as a reserve for the Grand Final against Collingwood. On a sodden MCG, in front of more than 112,000 fans, the Blues beat their fiercest rivals by five points, thanks to some desperate late brilliance by Wayne Harmes. With just a minute or so on the clock, Harmes’ committed chase, dive and swipe at the ball in the right forward pocket delivered the ball to Ken Sheldon, who goaled to seal Carlton’s twelfth Premiership. Curly was in a back pocket on the siren, having come off the bench early to allow Harmes to push forward.

The Blues finished the home and away rounds of season 1980 second on the ladder by percentage, only to crash out of the finals after successive defeats. Coach ‘Percy’ Jones was promptly sacked, and former Hawthorn captain and Premiership coach David Parkin appointed in his place. Austin blossomed further under Parkin’s coaching, playing solid, dependable football throughout 1981, in a rock-hard Blues defence.

After topping the ladder in ‘81, Carlton crushed Geelong by 40 points in the second semi-final. Curly was as solid as always in a back-pocket that day, before a groin muscle tear sent him limping off late in the game. That blow ruled him out of the Grand Final side, and he was watching from the stands the following week as his relentless team rebounded from 21 points down in the third quarter to skittle Collingwood for the second time in three years.

Carlton’s superb 1982 back-to-back Grand Final victory over Richmond came after one of the toughest finals campaigns in this clubs’ long and proud history. Ending the home and away rounds as the third of five finalists, Carlton beat Hawthorn in the Qualifying Final, lost to Richmond in the Second Semi, then faced the Hawks again in the Preliminary Final for a the right to play Richmond for the flag.

David Parkin knew the key to victory over Hawthorn was to limit the influence of their champion Leigh Matthews, and the man he turned to was Curly Austin. Barely five minutes into the game, however, Matthews hit Austin with a classic shirtfront, and knocked him senseless. After being revived on the field, Curly refused to be taken off. He ran back to his position, chested Matthews with an attitude that said; ‘is that the best you can do?’ then proceeded to cut the Hawks’ gun forward out of the rest of the game. Carlton won by five goals, Austin won the Blues’ Best Player award, and looked forward confidently to his Grand Final appearance – at least until midway through the next morning’s training run.

During one of the drills that Sunday, Curly was accidentally kicked in the thigh by team-mate Frank Marchesani. Deep bruising appeared and by Tuesday afternoon it was obvious that Austin wouldn’t be playing. On Grand Final day he was laid up in a hospital bed, as Carlton – led magnificently by captain Mike Fitzpatrick and ‘The Dominator;’ Wayne Johnston – upset the Tigers to win the Blues’ fourteenth Premiership. As a testament to the club’s regard for Curly, coach Parkin and a group of senior players made his hospital ward one of their first destinations that night, taking the Premiership Cup along with them.

That was to be Austin’s last chance at further Premiership glory. Nevertheless, he continued playing consistent and reliable football for three more seasons before retiring as a player after Carlton’s early exit from the 1985 Finals. Never one to take anything for granted, disappointment or regret over those two missed Premierships was never an issue with him. He has always maintained his gratitude at being a Carlton Premiership player, saying that only a comparative few experience winning a flag, and he treasures the achievement.

After hanging up his boots, Curly accepted an offer to be on the match committee in 1986 under Mick Malthouse, and later he would coach the Reserves team at Footscray, this included coaching the reserves to a premiership in 1988. In 1989 he was appointed senior coach at Fitzroy for two years, and in 1994 and ’95 he was in charge of the Victorian State of Origin team. Always a popular figure at Princes Park, Curly was elected to the Carlton Hall of Fame in 1997.

Austin’s son, Nick Austin played a reserves game for Carlton in 2002. Nick’s sporting prowess was with the Carlton Cricket Club in the Premier League as a left-arm opening bowler. Nick made history in November 2012 when he played his 200th game of cricket for Carlton. Nick and Rod became the first father-son combination to play 200 games of League football and 200 games of Premier Cricket.

Pleasant Sunday Morning

Attention all Past Players!

 

All past players are invited to attend a Pleasant Sunday Morning  event organised by the Spirit of Carlton Past and Present.

The idea of the event is to bring as many people who were once involved with the club back to the club.

Let’s face it, for players in particular, the final memory of the club for most is not a pleasant one as very few players get to choose the timing of the end of their association with a club.

What we want is for as many people as possible to remember the good times that the club provided, to re-engage and get together at the club to share the good memories together. Whether you played one game or one hundred in the U19s, Reserves or Seniors we all share the connection to the Carlton Football Club. So bring your family and enjoy a special day.

The event is free, drinks will be available as well as a free BBQ.

We would love to see you there. If you have a team-mate who you think would be interested please tell them about this, a flyer for distribution is available through THIS LINK.

Current players will be attending the early part of the event after a recovery session so take the opportunity to come along and see the present as well as the past.

 

Place: Visy Park

Date: Sunday 3rd March, 2013

Time: 9:30am-1:30pm

 

Please Register your attendance either via email at:

mandy.hunter@carltonfc.com.au

OR

Phone Mandy Hunter on 9389 6256


 

 

 

Happy 87th Birthday to Allan Greenshields

A very happy 87th birthday to Allan Greenshields. Allan is a great supporter of the Spirit of Carlton and attends many of our functions.

Allan at the 2012 SOC Luncheon

 

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From the Blueseum:


Playing Career : 1947 – 1949
Debut : Round 1, 1947 vs Melbourne, aged 21 years 86 days
Carlton Player No. 614
Games : 16
Goals : 2
Last Game : Round 6, 1949 vs Geelong, aged 23 years 119 days
Guernsey Nos. 29 (1947-48) and 19 (1949)
Height : 178 cm (5 ft. 10 in.)
Weight : 74 kgs (11 stone, 9 lbs.)
DOB : January 22, 1926
Premiership Player : 1947

A capable utility who was a reserve in Carlton’s 1947 Premiership team, Allan Greenshields spent three seasons at Princes Park without managing to establish himself in a strong Carlton line-up. He earned the wry nickname of ‘Splinters’ in his debut year, by being named on the bench in ten of his thirteen senior games.

Two of those matches were memorable finals victories over Essendon; the 1947 second Semi Final, and two weeks later, the famous last-minute triumph over the Bombers in the Grand Final. Yet despite that promising start to his career, Greenshields played only three more times for the Blues over the next two seasons, and in 1949 decided that perhaps there were more opportunities elsewhere. He played his last match in navy blue against Melbourne at Princes Park in round 6, 1949, and went out on a high note when he slotted both of his Carlton career goals in a solid 39-point win over the Demons.

Later that same year, he turned out for St Kilda, in the first of 57 appearances he would make as a defender for the Saints in a six-year stay at the Junction Oval.

Greenshields played at various clubs, that included; Rainbow, Pascoe Vale and Coburg.