For all the champions they’ve liked to send up, few have endeared themselves more to the Carlton faithful – or the League community at large for that matter – than Anthony Koutoufides.
So it was of no reals surprise then that the League last night saw fit to induct the great “Kouta”, together with the late former Carlton Premiership captain Ern Henfry, into its coveted Australian Football Hall of Fame.
Koutoufides, whose breathtaking 278-game career was punctuated by glorious individual and collective achievement – most notably the Carlton captaincy, two club best and fairests, the AFLPA’s Most Valuable Player award and of course the 1995 Grand Final triumph – was suitably modest in the aftermath of this latest accolade.
“There was talk about me perhaps being inducted into the Hall, but I’ve been out of the game for a little while now and time marches on, so you tend to forget,” Koutoufides said.
“Then I got a letter in the mail about two months ago. I was over the moon, totally blown away by it.”
In saying that, Koutoufides believed his induction served as validation of all that he had achieved in his time at Princes Park.
“This completes my career. It’s the final recognition,” he said. “When I think back to when I was a young kid just wanting to play one AFL game I was over the moon to have done that because at times it seemed almost unreachable. To not only have represented the best club in the competition, but to have also been acknowledged by the AFL for the struggle, the heartache, the blood, the sweat and the tears, makes it all worth it.”
Man enough to admit he knew little of Henfry’s Carlton tenure (he only met Henfry’s son Ken for the first time at last night’s induction ceremony), Koutoufides said he now appreciated the greatness of the West Australian once described by the late Collingwood champion Bob Rose as the finest opposition footballer of his time.
Representing Carlton in two matches on permit whilst on leave from war service in 1944, Henfry, for the record, captained Carlton in all but two of his 84 matches from 1947-52, having stood out for the ’46 season after his clearance from Perth was refused by the WAFL. A dual Carlton Best and Fairest who led Carlton to the 1947 Grand Final, Henfry also tied with Bert Deacon for the Robert Reynolds Trophy in that year – the same year Deacon completed an historic Brownlow victory.
Ern Henfry is chaired off the ground after the 1947 Grand Final. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)
Of Henfry’s recognition, Koutoufides said: “Ern is a most worthy recipient. I can see that now that I’ve learned a little more of the huge impression he made on his players and his club”.
Sharing in Koutoufides’ moment last night was his devoted mother Anna, wife Susie and children Jamie and Monique, together with his brothers Paul and Kristian and their respective wives.
Anthony Koutoufides
DOB: January 18, 1973
Career: 1992-2007
Carlton Player No. 985
Senior Debut : Round 13, 1992 vs Adelaide, aged 19 years, 147 days
Final Game : Round 17, 2007 vs St Kilda, aged 34 years, 191 days
Games : 278
Goals : 226
Guernsey No. 43
Height : 190 cm (6 ft. 2 in.)
Weight : 95 kg (15 stone, 0 lbs.)
Premiership Player: 1995
Leigh Matthews Trophy (AFLPA MVP) : 2000
Best and Fairest: 2001, 2005
All Australian: 1995, 2000
Leading Goalkicker : 1997
Club Captain: 2004 – 2006
AFL Hall of Fame 2014
Ern Henfry
DOB : 24 July, 1921
DOD: January 13, 2007
Career : 1944, 1947-1952
Carlton Player No. 597
Senior Debut : Round 17, 1944 vs Geelong, aged 23 years, 33 days
Final game : Round 17, 1952 v Collingwood, aged 31 years, 23 days
Games : 84
Goals : 20
Guernsey Nos. 5 (1944) and 6 (1947 – 1952)
Height : 182 cm (5 ft. 11 in.)
Weight : 81.5 kg (12 stone, 12 lbs.)
Premiership Captain 1947
Captain: 1947-1952
Best and Fairest: 1947 (tie), 1949
Carlton Hall of Fame (1992)
AFL Hall of Fame (2014)