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James William (Go Blues) Comport. Aged 1 x month.  The grandson of a passionate Blues supporter, Stephen Comport

Happy 70th birthday to Vasil Varlamos today!

 

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From the Blueseum:

Career : 1960 – 1964
Debut : Round 9, 1960 vs North Melbourne, aged 18 years, 1 day
Carlton Player No. 735
Games : 44
Goals : 0
Last Game : Round 15, 1964 vs Footscray, aged 22 years, 45 days
Guernsey No. 32
Height : 178 cm ( 5 ft. 11 in.)
Weight : 80 kg (12 stone, 8 lbs.)
DOB : June 17, 1942

Vasil Varlamos was a rugged half-back flanker of Greek parentage who was a popular clubman during his five seasons at Princes Park from 1960 to ’64. Born at Broken Hill, NSW, he was recruited by the Blues as a promising 17 year-old from bayside Mentone, and made his senior debut on the day after his 18th birthday in 1960.

By 1961 Varlamos was established as a regular senior player. A close-checking, hard-at-it type with good concentration, he played his football hard and collected some impressive scalps in his first two seasons, while the Blues posted consecutive mid-table finishes. In 1962, Carlton improved markedly to finish fourth, and fought their way through to meet minor premiers Essendon in the Grand Final. Varlamos made the team as 20th man, but got only the briefest of runs in the final term, as the Bombers proved far too good and won by five goals.

Following that defeat, Carlton went back into decline. Vasil played another 17 matches over 1963-64, until his tenure at Princes Park was ended with his clearance to fledgling VFA club Waverley. The Panthers had been admitted to the Association’s first division ahead of schedule, and were actively recruiting under their captain-coach Ian Thorogood – himself a future coach of the Blues.

That proved to be a fortuitous move indeed for Varlamos, because while the emerging Panthers were a revelation in their debut year, he himself struck a rich vein of form at centre half-back. After representing the VFA in matches against WA and Tasmania during the year, he was one of Waverley’s best when they swept to a fairy tale Premiership with a gutsy 12 point win over hot favourites Port Melbourne in the 1965 Grand Final. Vasil was rock solid in that victory, and his exploits that day made him one of the clubs’ favourite sons.

Varlamos continued to give the Panthers value throughout 1966, representing the VFA in the ANFC Carnival in Melbourne, and holding down the key defensive post right through to another Grand Final clash against Port Melbourne. This time however, the Borough would not be denied, and crushed Waverley by 43 points in gleeful revenge.

Varlamos retired after that second Grand Final appearance for the Panthers, and over succeeding years renewed his association with the Navy Blues. He derived much pleasure from watching the brilliant youngster who inherited his number 32 guernsey – Bryan Quirk – throughout his career, and as at 2012, is still seen regularly at club functions.

Footnotes:

In 1962, Varlamos earned the career-long enmity of Essendon supporters when he ironed out the Bombers’ captain Jack Clarke during a late-season game. Seizing an opportunity, he ran straight through Clarke at a centre bounce, and knocked the Essendon skipper out cold. Pandemonium ensued, while trainers tried to bring Clarke around and Vasil’s team-mates were hard-pressed protecting him from a squadron of Bombers hell-bent on revenge. Clarke eventually got to his feet, but still groggy, he began raining blows on the nearest player – who just happened to be his team-mate, Graeme Johnstone!

In the 1970s and 80s, Vas’ father owned a fish and chip shop in Hughesdale, where he proudly displayed images of his son. A typically proud Greek father, he was always up for a chat about the Blues, while frying up your potato cakes!

In 2004, amid a plethora of Teams of the Century and Best in 100 Years awards, Varlamos was one of four Blues honoured in the Greek Team of the Century. The others were Anthony Koutoufides, Ange Christou and Spiro Kourkoumelis. Alex Marcou and Chris Pavlou were also nominated, but missed out.

Happy 50th birthday to David Rhys-Jones today!

 

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From the Blueseum:

 

Career : 1985-1992
Debut : Round 1, 1985 vs Footscray, aged 22 years, 287 days
Carlton Player No. 923
Games : 106
Goals : 73
Last Game : Round 24, 1992 vs West Coast, aged 30 years, 75 days
Guernsey No. 26
Height : 188cm
Weight : 73kg
DOB: 16 June, 1962
Premiership Player: 1987
Norm Smith Medal: 1987

Superbly skilled, fiery, volatile – these are all apt descriptions of the enigmatic David Rhys-Jones. Originally from Oakleigh Districts, Rhys-Jones was signed by South Melbourne as an 18 year-old and made his debut for them in 1980. At 188 cm and 73 kg, he quickly established himself as one of the game’s tallest and best wingmen. He had pace, balance and wonderful aerial skills – but his short fuse soon had him regularly before the tribunal, and he was not popular with opposition supporters.

Rhys-Jones served the Swans with distinction from 1980 to 1981 (South Melbourne), and 1982 to 1984 (Sydney Swans). He was a crowd favourite with his fierce desire to win any contest he was in. During this time, he played 76 games and booted 39 goals for the Swans.

When South Melbourne were transplanted to Sydney in the early eighties, Rhys-Jones was one of a handful of Swans who asked for a clearance. Eyebrows were raised when it was announced that “Reese” was on his way to Princes Park for the 1985 season. The news was not greeted warmly by many Blues’ supporters, and Rhys-Jones struggled for wide acceptance in his first two seasons – especially when some brilliant games were indispersed with continued suspensions.

All that changed however, on Grand Final day in 1987. Carlton coach Robert Walls created huge surprise early by assigning Rhys-Jones to Hawthorn’s trump card – their champion centre half-forward Dermott Brereton. The Hawks’ star was 2 cm shorter than Jones, 19 kg heavier, and a proven big match performer – but Rhys-Jones played superb, disciplined football all day and Brereton was hardly sighted. Carlton won its 15th Premiership by 33 points. Rhys-Jones won the Norm Smith Medal and the plaudits (at last) of every Carlton fan.

“Reese” went on to play 106 games and score 73 goals for the Blues in a much-interrupted career from 1985 to 1992. It’s a pity that his outstanding natural ability was overshadowed by the fact that he was reported more times in his career than any other VFL/AFL player.

Once retired from the AFL scene, Rhys-Jones headed to Tasmania to coach TFL Club North Launceston from 1993 to 1995, in his last season he took Nth Launceston to a premiership. Rhys-Jones took on the role as playing coach for ‘The Robins’. Rhys-Jones also later coached VFL team Frankston from 1996 to 1998. Rhys-Jones would also later coach DVFL team Heidelberg in 2001. Rhys-Jones entered the world of reality TV when he coached WRFL Second Division team the Hammerheads during the 2002 season.

In later years Rhys-Jones would become a respected commentator for the ABC covering VFL games.

The old boys of Carlton have rallied behind coach Brett Ratten as pressure continues to build on the Blues ahead of their crucial clash with West Coast at Patersons Stadium tonight.

Geoff Southby, Jim Buckley, Percy Jones and Alex Marcou all agreed yesterday that Carlton’s hopes had been hijacked by injury to key players after a barnstorming start to the season.

Preparing to celebrate in August the respective anniversaries of the Blues’ 1972 and 1982 premierships, the quartet gathered at Jones’ well-known Carlton hotel, affectionately known as Percy’s Pub.

Southby, a dual club best and fairest who was named in Carlton’s team of the century in a back pocket, reflected the quartet’s thoughts on Ratten and the club’s rollercoaster season with his belief that injuries had played a rotten role.

“They’re pretty disappointing at the moment in what’s been a tough year,” Southby said.

“We started in a blaze of glory and then went from chocolates to boiled lollies very quickly.

“We’ve had a few injuries, but we’ve also dropped off badly in our intensity at the ball over the last five or six weeks and it’s hurt us badly.

“We’re really going to have to get our act together to get back and be a contender for the eight.

“To finish top four was a reasonable expectation after the last couple of years and it wasn’t beyond them.

“But it’s a tough competition and amazingly competitive.

“Ratts has done very little wrong in his time there. He’s made his way and gradually improved the team and deserves to be where he is at the moment.

“He loves the club … he’s given his heart and soul to it both on and off the field.”

Southby also said he hoped the Blues would be able to revive their season in time for the 30 and 40-year celebrations of their grand final wins, both over Richmond.

The Taming the Tigers luncheon will be held at Etihad Stadium on August 3.

“It will celebrate the wonderful era of the two premierships against the Tigers,” Southby said.

“It’s a great day for the Spirit of Carlton (the club’s past players group) and raising the spirit.

“The lies are getting bigger and bigger by the year, as are the kicks and the stats, so there will be plenty of that going on.”

The AFL is doing a wonderful series of videos on past players and the latest subject is our very own Val Perovic. Watch the following video and enjoy, the Spirit of Carlton even gets a mention!

The Carlton Football Club is seeking to re-engage with any player who wore the Dark Navy Blue guernsey at senior level and who, for whatever reason, never realised the dream of being part of a Carlton premiership.

Of the 1137 senior Carlton footballers since 1897, a total of 956 players weren’t fortunate enough to raise the silverware. Further, a total of 976 Carlton senior players have played 99 matches or less and as such have never been acknowledged on the 100-game lockers – from the Italian-born one-gamer Peter Bevilacqua through to the 95-game Brownlow Medallist and club best and fairest of 1964, Gordon Collis.

It is the surviving members of these two groups with whom Carlton and the Spirit of Carlton Past & Present want to re-connect, in acknowledging their on-field contributions to the club.

The initiative has in part been driven by men like Brett Sholl, who as a 35-game former player from 1992-’94 and member of the club’s losing 1993 Grand Final outfit meets the aforementioned criteria.

Brett is of the view all former Carlton players who for whatever reason may have had issue with the club should now re-connect.

“The immediate feeling when you leave the club is one of disappointment in that you never played in a premiership… and as the years go by you realise that up to now only the premierships are celebrated,” Brett said on a welcome visit to Visy Park recently.

“That leaves you feeling a little bit alienated and when you think that for every Carlton premiership player there’s half a dozen more who aren’t, there’s probably a lot of former players who feel that way.

“In my case we got to the Grand Final, but just couldn’t get the job done. That sometimes makes it even worse, knowing that you got so close to the ultimate but didn’t quite achieve the goal.

“Sometimes these things take time to get over and sometimes it takes other things like family to put it all in perspective. I’ve got a son who’s 12 and interested in Carlton and the game itself and it’s only really now that I’ve been able to look back on my time here with pride because I’ve worked my way through it.”

To that end, Brett sought to make the following personal appeal to all former Carlton players of his ilk, with the club planning a function celebrating Carlton by guernsey number.

“My message to the players and to the club itself is this – re-engage,” Brett said.
“To the past players who wore the guernsey and played one, two, three, 40 or 50 games and who because they didn’t participate in a premiership may not have felt a part of it, it’d be great to see you back at Carlton.

“To the club, it’s important that it realises – and I’m sure it does realise – the significance of the contributions of all those players who wore the guernsey and in their own way help set up the premierships for those others who actually played in them.”

All former Carlton senior players who wore the guernsey in 99 matches or less are urged to contact Tony De Bolfo – tony.debolfo@carltonfc.com.au or admin@spiritofcarlton.com– as the club plans a “coming home” function for Visy Park later this year.

By Tony De Bolfo

Meeting Chris Judd completed a life well-lived for Ken Shaw… and while the boy from Mentone never quite made it to the seniors, he never forgot his time at Carlton when he kicked off the dew in the immediate post-war years.

As Ken’s daughter Julie O’Brien unhesitatingly declared: “Dad was Carlton through and through”.

When Ken died at the age of 83 in January of this year, Julie found amongst her father’s treasured possessions a letter penned by the then Carlton secretary and former player Harry Bell.

Dated February 15, 1947, the letter formally invites Ken to preseason training in what was ultimately a premiership year – but on one condition.

“I should like to point out that there is still an acute shortage of equipment, so would you be good enough to bring along jersey, socks, knicks and boots for your own use, please,” Bell wrote.

Ken couldn’t get to Carlton quick enough.

But while he made a clear impression at reserve grade level, taking out the club’s best and fairest trophy in 1949, Ken never got the senior call-up he so desperately wanted.

“Dad told me that he trained at Carlton for a while but could see he wasn’t going to break into the team,” Julie said. “In those days you trained for a position and Bert Deacon kept him out of centre half-back.”

Ken eventually saw the writing on the wall and so pursued his football career in the sticks. He captained and coached at Echuca, then Nagambie (winning the Morrison Medal for best player in the Goulburn Valley League in ’56) and finally Finley, leading “The Cats” to 1958 premiership glory with son Greg on hand as mascot.

When Ken got the nod as Carlton’s reserve grade champion in ’49 he was presented with a silver teapot for his troubles. He took possession of the receptacle at a presentation before the members who had gathered for the annual meeting at Princes Park on the evening of February 1, 1950.

Almost sixty years later, during a break in a Carlton school clinic at Finley Recreation Reserve in August 2008, Ken approached Chris Judd for a photographed armed with his prized possession, the silver teapot.

The Carlton captain, then relatively new to the club in the wake of his much-heralded transfer, duly obliged… and Ken cherished the moment.

“What a great honour and privilege to meet such a wonderful player,” Ken said at the time. “Even better now that he is at Carlton.”

Happy 60th birthday today to Hon Peter Hall!

 

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From the Blueseum:

 

Career : 1971 – 1974
Debut : Round 12, 1971 vs North Melbourne, aged 19 years 22 days
Carlton Player No. 829
Games : 36
Goals : 13
Last Game : Round 20, 1974 vs Fitzroy, aged 22 years, 81 days
Guernsey No. 31
Height : 182 cm (5 ft. 11 in.)
Weight : 80 kg (12 stone, 8 lbs.)
DOB : May 27, 1952

Peter Hall was a classy utility who won Castlemaine Football Club’s Under 19 Best and Fairest award in 1969. That fine season by the 17 year-old impressed Carlton’s scouts, including our Chairman of Selectors Jack Wrout, who was very keen to get the youngster into the Old Dark Navy Blue.

Hall told Wrout that his main aim in life was to obtain a University degree or two, but while he was studying, he would be happy to pull on his boots for Carlton. He enrolled in an Arts Degree course at Monash University in 1971, and played his first match for the Blues in June of that year against North Melbourne at Princes Park. Carlton dominated all day to thrash the ‘Roos by 91 points, with rugged full-forward Ricky McLean kicking seven goals.

While Hall was a stylish player with good pace and balance, he was more at home in the spaces of a half-forward flank than taking on the ruck-roving role he was expected to compete for. Carlton’s brilliant midfield division of that time boasted the names Jesaulenko, Gallagher, Keogh, Robertson, Quirk, Chandler and three or four others, so places in the side were hard earned.

For all of these reasons, plus the pressures of his studies, Hall managed only five senior appearances in his first two seasons. But coming off a brilliant, record-breaking Grand Final win over Richmond the previous September, some of Carlton’s big guns went off the boil in 1973, to give Peter and some of the other lesser lights their chance to shine.

In 1973, Hall had his best season for the Blues, holding his place at half-forward for 20 matches. Carlton finished third on the ladder, only to fall to a rampaging Richmond in the Grand Final. Hall missed out on a place in all three finals – squeezed out each time by the return of proven big match performers.

Peter rounded off his career at Carlton in 1974, playing another 11 games before he and fellow fringe dweller Lance Styles were cleared to West Australian club Subiaco, as part of the wheeling and dealing to get champion ruckman Mike Fitzpatrick to Princes Park. But after only a brief stay in the west, Hall returned to Victoria and graduated from Monash with majors in Mathematics and Psychology. He then accepted an offer to captain-coach prominent LaTrobe Valley club Traralgon for the 1976 season, while also beginning a new working life in the provincial centre as a secondary school teacher. His new adventure in the bush was to prove spectacularly successful.

At Traralgon, he twice won the League’s Best and Fairest player award, while coaching his team to the 1978 and 1980 Premierships. He then switched clubs to Morwell, and took the Latrobe Valley Tigers to another flag in 1985.

In 1988 – on the back of his high profile and sporting success – he stood for election to Parliament as a National Party candidate and won his seat with a comfortable majority. Since then, he has risen to hold a number of senior positions with the Nationals – in particular, as Party Leader in the Legislative Council, holding the shadow portfolios of Education and Resources and Environment. On election to Government in November 2010, Peter was appointed Minister for Higher Education and Skills, and Minister responsible for the Teaching Profession.