“You barrack like hell”: Former Blue Strauch reflects on Jenna’s Olympic silver

Former Blue Dean Strauch is happy to be greeted as “Jenna Strauch’s old man”.

By Tony De Bolfo

DEAN Strauch holds close to his heart his four years and five senior appearances in the dark Navy Blue guernsey through the late 1980s.

But since the events of last weekend, the former Carlton half-forward is only too happy to be greeted as “Jenna Strauch’s old man” – having witnessed first-hand his daughter win Olympic silver after swimming the breaststroke leg of the women’s 4x100m medley relay.

Strauch, together with his wife Jane, son Tom and Jenna’s Brisbane-based boyfriend also named Tom, watched on from the Paris Olympic Acquatic Centre’s stands, as Jenna and fellow team members Kaylee McKeown, Emma McKeon and Mollie O’Callaghan earned silver as runner-up to the record-breaking Americans in the final on day nine of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (4 August).

“What we experienced as parents we’ll never experience again,” said Strauch, a day after returning from an unforgettable three-week European sojourn.

Dean Strauch flanked between Adrian Gleeson and Tom Alvin in the team photo for 1987 – a premiership year.

“We were there at poolside, it was nerve-wracking watching on, the adrenalin was running and you just barrack like hell. We were also there for the medal presentation, and we were able to get a photo with Jenna posing with her medal.”

Recruited to Carlton from Golden Square in Bendigo, where his late father Neville for years served as the Blues’ recruiting coordinator, Strauch earned the reserve grade’s best first-year player award in 1986.  Breaking into the senior in Round 17 of that season against Essendon at the MCG, the then 20 year-old first wore the guernsey No.51 on his back, and later Rod Ashman’s 14 until his time at Princes Park ended in the final home and away contest of 1989, versus Brisbane at Carrara.

Such is Strauch’s empathy for his old club that he was aboard a Melbourne-bound train from Bendigo for Friday’s Spirit Of Carlton’s Legends Luncheon as a guest of his old teammate Michael Gallagher, when he conveyed his Parisian experiences over the phone.

Jenna Strauch, Paris.

“The Olympics is the ultimate for athletes at that level, and for my daughter to walk away with a medal is just a great thing. It’s been a long time coming, from when I relocated to Melbourne with my wife and two boys to support her in the opportunity she had to swim and further her career,” Strauch said.

“We told her that if she wanted to do it we’d facilitate it, that we’d be around to encourage her and to pick up the pieces with the lows – and we always said to her ‘if you work hard you’ll get the rewards’.”

Strauch’s unforgettable three weeks included a pre-Olympic catch-up with his sister who lives and works in Bendigo. During that period, Strauch’s other son Ryan managed the family’s plumbing business back in Bendigo, reflecting the level of commitment it takes from many to realise an Olympic dream.

Join us on August 9th to Celebrate our Living Legends

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Join us on August 9th to celebrate the 16 LEGENDS of the Carlton Football Club. Click for tickets: https://corporate.carltonfc.com.au/Catalog/AssetRegister?assetRegisterId=6a5ffa7e-df8b-44fc-af1d-ef0d5876246b FUNCTION DETAILS: Date: Friday 9 August 2024 Time: 12pm – 3pm Location: Victory Room, Marvel Stadium Dress code: Smart casual TICKET DETAILS: Event ticket | $195 per person Spirit of Carlton Annual Luncheon Ticket Includes: Two-course meal including beer, wine and soft drinks Live entertainment Reconnect with Carlton greats

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With all the champions: Celebrating 160 years among some old dark Blues

Riley Beveridge gives readers a peek inside as Carlton champions past and present gather to celebrate the Club’s 160th year.

By Riley Beveridge for afl.com.au

OUTSIDE, in the bustling heart of Lygon St, a middle-aged man in a Carlton beanie peers through the window of an old school Italian restaurant. Almost instantly, his eyes seemingly pop out of his head.

From the outside, you could sense commotion happening within. But on a drizzly Tuesday morning in the middle of winter, no pedestrian – especially not one wearing a Blues bobble hat – could have anticipated what was actually going on inside.

There stands legends of the football club he is proudly representing. Anthony Koutoufides is holding court with Charlie Curnow, Craig Bradley is exchanging tips with Sam Walsh, Syd Jackson is laughing with Patrick Cripps.

Jacob Weitering is sharing a coffee with Bruce Doull, Sam Docherty is lamenting the weather with Ken Hunter, while Eddie Betts is describing a couple of his best goals to an audience of Jesse Motlop and Lachie Fogarty.

To the Carlton fan outside, the scene must have felt like a dream. But, as AFL.com.au experienced, the occasion was the culmination of months spent planning and preparing for the club’s 160th birthday celebrations.

Jacob Weitering is the first one to pull the strip out of a Carlton shopping bag.

The navy blue heritage guernsey, set to be debuted against Hawthorn in round 22 to celebrate the famous club’s 160th birthday, encompasses several eras of the club’s rich and successful history.

It’s marked by a popped collar and the vintage AFL logo of the ’90s. Even the club’s major sponsors, Puma and Hyundai, have bought into the fun and altered their logos to the looks of yesteryear.

“When you first arrive at Carlton as a player, it’s hard not to hear about the incredible history. You see not only the cups when you walk in, but the memorabilia of past players, from Norm Smiths to boots and jumpers,” Weitering says.

“We are a big club with a storied history, so to have some of the champions of the game come back and be involved with the club and something like this, it’s great. The guernsey looks fantastic. It’s going to be great to run out in a collared shirt, I know all the boys are pretty excited about it.”

Weitering holds the jumper up and admires its features. But his attentions are immediately diverted elsewhere, as David ‘Swan’ McKay wants a chat. The duo has been paired together on what is a unique day for the football club.

Weitering on meeting Doull, Heritage guernsey

Key defender Jacob Weitering joined Carlton Media for a chat at the Club’s Heritage guernsey launch.

As part of the birthday bash, Carlton has spent months partnering past and present players to celebrate the history of a club that has won a joint-high 16 V/AFL premierships.

Three members of the last flag-winning team – Anthony Koutoufides, Craig Bradley and Dean Rice – are in attendance, joined by Hall of Famers like Ken Hunter and Bruce Doull, premiership stars like McKay and Syd Jackson, as well as more recent club greats such as Matthew Kreuzer and Eddie Betts.

There is Blues memorabilia stacked everywhere around Johnny, Vince and Sam’s Ristorante in the beating heart of Carlton’s Lygon St and, on various occasions across the morning, the old film photographs and vintage VFL records are perused by the likes of Adam Cerra, Tom De Koning and Matt Kennedy.

Players, both past and present, are whisked away at random times to partake in a photoshoot displaying the fresh jumper. Each time a new group is asked to step into the back room, a different quip inevitably rings out from a former teammate.

“Looking sharp,” Carlton’s current skipper, Patrick Cripps, says to Koutoufides. The topic of that conversation quickly turns to Cripps’ dominance in 2024, the type that is reminiscient of Koutoufides way back in 2000.

Just metres away, Charlie Curnow is enthusiastically pumping the tyres of his former teammate Betts and his recent goalkicking exploits in the country leagues with Wangaratta Rovers.

Much of the organisation for the day’s event owes to the work of the club’s long-time administrator Shane O’Sullivan and the Spirit of Carlton association he’s heavily involved in, a group whose mission statement is to “bring together past players and officials” with the current crop to “renew and build the Carlton spirit”.

O’Sullivan’s work is evident throughout the morning. Past players have been asked to gather at 10am for a coffee, with current Blues players arriving around an hour later after a light session at Ikon Park earlier in the morning. As each of the current crop arrives, the respect they show to the club legends around them is noticeable.

Each player takes the time and care to renew acquaintances with every Carlton great in attendance. Even if it means delaying their scheduled photoshoot for a couple of minutes, no conversation is ever halted.

The morning almost has the feel of a reunion and that’s because, for most of the players involved, it is. Of course, the older players have spent decades in each other’s company. But the new guys are just as familiar with those who have worn the navy blue jumper before them, owing much to O’Sullivan’s work.

“We’ve been fortunate enough to have a lot of the club legends come through in the past and we look up to a lot of these guys,” Walsh tells AFL.com.au. “It’s pretty cool for the club to celebrate its history like this.”

There are hugs, laughs, war stories and even a few tips shared. Lachie Fogarty, in particular, spends much of the morning in the presence of Betts, eager to absorb any lessons that the 640-goal champion – and his former teammate – might be willing to share.

Carlton’s current crop would have been silly not to soak it all in. After all, there were seven premiership players and 17 V/AFL flags worth of experience in the room. But more would arrive shortly.

With the festivities starting to wrap up around lunchtime, in came a few surprise late arrivals. Unbeknownst to many in the room, Jackson had decided to follow the morning with a meal to celebrate his 80th birthday, opting to dine at the same restaurant the event had been held at.

And so, in walked a series of Carlton’s premiership greats of the 1970s – Geoff Southby, Percy Jones and Robert Walls among them – to celebrate their great mate. It was a slightly crazy and unexpected, though fitting way to end the morning.

You can celebrate with us early by joining the Spirit of Carlton Committee and past players at the annual Spirit of Carlton Luncheon on Friday 9 August. Purchase your ticket here.

But a more fitting way to celebrate Carlton’s 160th birthday celebrations, and to celebrate a season that has already promised so much, would be for the current crop of Blues players to add another premiership to the collection later this year. For Walsh, that remains the ultimate goal.

“That’s the motivation for all of us,” he says, admiring the photos of Carlton’s premiership teams of the past.

“‘Braddles’ was saying before, you go through ups and downs and you can’t look too far ahead. We want to be known as that sort of really tough, gritty team. You see the collars we’ll wear in this game and you want to be known as hard workers. We know we’ve got a lot of guys who are wanting the same thing.”

Between-War, on-field leaders inducted into Carlton’s coveted Hall of Fame

Achievements of two Premiership captains and a Premiership captain-coach acknowledged with induction into Hall of Fame.

By Tony De Bolfo,

THE CARLTON Football Club has seen fit to acknowledge the achievements of two Premiership captains and a Premiership captain-coach in the tumultuous years between two World Wars.

Accordingly, Billy Dick and Alf Baud, who led their teams to the respective back-to-back Premierships of 1914 and ’15 respectively – and Brighton Diggins, who commandeered the drought-breaking Premiership team of 1938 – have each been inducted into the Carlton Football Hall of Fame.

The Inductions of Dick, Baud and Diggins bring to 21 the number of Inductees so honoured in 2024 to mark the 160th year of Carlton’s existence.

Back in May, Carlton saw fit to Induct ten prominent figures of the 19th century Challenge Cup/pre-VFA period – Jack Baker, Jack Conway, John Donovan, John Gardiner, Billy Goer, Harry Guy, Robert Heatley, Tommy Leydin, Orlando O’Brien and George Robertson.

Then in June, the Club Inducted eight members of each of its famed Premiership teams of 1906, ’07 and ’08 under Coach/Secretary Jack Worrall’s watch – Les Beck, Jim Flynn, Fred Jinks, George ‘Mallee’ Johnson, Edwin Kennedy, Alexander Lang, Billy Payne and George Topping.

All Inductions were ratified by the Club’s Board on the recommendation of its Heritage Sub-Committee – as were the Inductions of Jack Carney, Neil Chandler and Brendan Fevola (the only surviving member of the coveted 24) in March.

Alf Baud. Carlton player No. 276 and Premiership Player (1914-1915).

Alf Baud

Born Nagambie, Victoria, September 20, 1892 – died West Heidelberg, Victoria, December 5, 1986

Recruited to Carlton from Eaglehawk (Bendigo Football League)

Carlton Player No. 276

At Carlton

53 matches, 16 goals 1913-1915

Premiership Player 1914 & 1915

Captain 1915

The legendary Roy Cazaly, in an article penned for The Sporting Globe newspaper in June 1937, wrote of Alfred Miller Baud: “He (Baud) could play anywhere. I think that Baud by comparison would have made (Haydn) Bunton look ordinary. Baud would have been a football sensation had it not been for the war.”.

Cazaly’s view reflected the universal respect Baud commanded, in a playing career interrupted by global conflict.

Baud made his way to Princes Park in 1913, on the end of a brief but beneficial period with Eaglehawk. He was adjudged best afield for the Hawks in the 1911 Bendigo Football League Grand Final – which in turned piqued the interest of a Carlton talent scouts – and by early 1913 Baud was fronting for training at the old Carlton ground.

Baud completed his Carlton senior debut in May 1913 – the 5th round match with the long gone University team at the MCG – and was prominent in the Blues’ 16-point victory. Finding his nice as a half-forward flanker (with the occasional run in the centre), Baud impacted significantly in his maiden season, contributing 12 goals from 14 matches and earning selection in the Victorian state squad.

However, Baud was relocated to half-back on the sayso of the three-time Premiership player Norman ‘Hackenschmidt’ Clark, who was appointed Carlton Senior Coach in 1914. Clark’s canny call proved correct, as Baud, playing alongside his captain Billy Dick, contributed to his team’s steady rise up the ladder.

Carlton accounted for Fitzroy by 20 points in the 1914 Semi-Final, but a bout of influenza cost Baud his place in the Preliminary Final team which surprisingly lost to South Melbourne the following weekend.

Under  the then competition rules, Carlton, as minor Premier, was entitled to challenge South in the Grand Final, and when Baud was pronounced fit he earned an automatic recall.

Carlton set a League record by naming nine first-year players in that 1914 Grand Final, and famously prevailed by six points in a low-scoring thriller.

That Jubilee Premiership was, however, tinged with apprehension and uncertainty. Only three weeks previous, Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany, and as a consequence Australia and the rest of the British Empire followed suit.

As thousands of young men answered the call of King and country through 1915, the VFL found itself in crisis,  with attendances plummeting and all clubs struggling to field competitive teams.

Carlton was not untouched – and in Round 10 of that troubled season also lost its captain Billy Dick for a mammoth ten-match ban imposed after he appeared on report for striking Fitzroy’s Jack Cooper. Suddenly Baud, at just 22, found himself captain of the reigning Premiership team.

That September, as Carlton prepared to defend its title, Baud, a telegraphist by profession, enlisted in the Army Signals section. Whilst waiting for the inevitable call-up, Baud magnificently led his contemporaries to a first-up semi-final victory over Melbourne and a tough Preliminary final win over Fitzroy – thereby ensuring a second successive Grand Final outing, only this time involving the competition minor Premiers and unbackable flag favourites Collingwood.

When Carlton toppled Collingwood by 33 points in the 1915 Grand Final – a contest described as “one of the grandest that had ever been seen in the finals,” it set the seal on Baud’s reputation as a player and leader of the highest calibre. Two days shy of his 23rd birthday, he etched his name into the record books as the youngest player to captain any club to a League Premiership – a record that would endure for 43 years until Collingwood’s Murray Weideman, at 22 years 216 days, completed the deed in the Grand Final of ’58.

The 1915 Grand Final would be the first of five won by Carlton at Collingwood’s expense, with the conquests of 1938, ’70, ’79 and ’81 to follow.

But the 1915 Grand Final would also prove to be Baud’s swansong. He was called into uniform in 1916, and by March of that year was on his way to war.

Mercifully, Sergeant Baud survived the horror – but only just.

In September 1917, his battery was locked in combat at a feature later known as ANZAC Ridge, when an enemy shell exploded nearby. A shrapnel splinter smashed into the side of Baud’s head, fracturing his skull and severely impacting the sight in his left eye. Quickly ferried to hospital, his life hung in the balance for some days – and were it not for his vim and vigor he wouldn’t have made it. But make it he did, and in March of 1918 he was repatriated to Australia and duly participated in the Armistice celebrations that November.

Baud died in December 1986 at the ripe old age of 94, having maintained a great connection with the game as a member of the Australian Football Council and a much-respected Tribunal panelist.

He is remembered as a modest, humble man who maintained a great love for Carlton and the game, and he thought much of both.

Billy Dick. Carlton Premiership player 1914.

Billy Dick

Born Stawell, Victoria, July 16, 1889 – died Cheltenham, Victoria, November 18, 1960

Recruited to Carlton from Fitzroy (VFL)

Carlton player No. 255

At Carlton

100 matches, 35 goals 1911-1918

Premiership player 1914

Captain 1914-1917

William John (‘Billy’) Dick to this day remains a poster boy for the player who overcame physical disability to compete in the highest level of League competition. A renowned high mark, Dick was noted for his curious habit of turning his face side-on to the right as he leapt for the football – a perfectly understandable trait considering he lost sight in his left eye as the result of an accident in his schooldays.

Despite that obvious physical handicap, Dick strung together 153 senior League appearances (the first 53 of them for Fitzroy) topped the goalkicking tables at each club, and ultimately led Carlton to the 1914 Grand Final triumph.

It’s a little known football fact that when Dick was playing with bayside outfit Brighton at the time of Carlton’s 1906-07-08 Premiership three-peat, he actually wrote to the club requesting an opportunity to test himself at the highest level by way of a trial – only to be turned down by the then powers that be.

Following up with Fitzroy, Dick was quickly welcomed, and rewarded the Maroons’ faith with his aerial strength, versatility and competitive drive in three seasons through to 1910.

Carlton then launched a spirited effort to land the player it had effectively overlooked, and in 1911 it got its man.

By 1912, Dick’s leadership qualities were recognised with his appointment as Carlton Vice-Captain to Jack Wells – and he was called upon by Coach Norman Clark to take over the key defensive post at centre half-back. This was the making of Dick – an outstanding contributor in Carlton’s dramatic six-point win over South Melbourne on Grand Final day 1914.  The Argus correspondent covering that contest noted that throughout the torrid encounter, Dick was “cool and sure in defence’ and clearly the Blues most effective player.

Six months later, during Carlton’s round 10, 1915 clash with the Maroons at Brunswick Street oval, Dick was reported for striking Fitzroy’s Jack Cooper, and for using insulting language to the field umpire. At the subsequent VFL hearing, the second count brought a reprimand – but the first charge resulted in a 10-week suspension that effectively ruled Carlton’s captain out of the 1915 finals series. Club delegates were incensed by the penalty, and vigorously appealed the suspension on the grounds that it was unconstitutional – all to no avail. The League stood its ground, forcing Dick to watch on from the stands on Grand Final day as his Blueboys went back-to-back with an emphatic win over arch-rivals Collingwood.

Though the loss of vision put paid to his wartime enlistment aspirations, Dick continued to turn out for Carlton through those wartime years – and in July 1918, after handing the Club captaincy to Rod McGregor, Dick ended his on-field career where it had begun – at the Junction Oval.

In 1919, Dick chased the leather for VFA club Brunswick, in a landmark player swap that involved a talented wingman named Newton Chandler heading to Princes Park.

Forty-one years later, Chandler was still very much a part of Carlton when Dick passed away at the age of 71.

Brighton Diggins. Premiership player 1938.

Brighton Diggins

Born Victoria Park, Western Australia, December 26, 1906 – died Mt Eliza, Victoria, July 14, 1971

Recruited to Carlton from South Melbourne (VFL)

Carlton player No. 540

At Carlton

31 matches, six goals 1938-1940

Debut : Round 1, 1938 vs Hawthorn, aged 31 years, 118 days

Carlton Player No. 540

Premiership player 1938

Captain-Coach 1938-1940

Brighton Diggins represented Carlton in just 31 matches through three seasons – yet he is forever remembered as one of the most influential football figures of his time.

He was born John Bryton Diggins in the inner Perth suburb of Victoria Park on Boxing Day 1906. He adopted his middle name after his family started using it, and he preferred the spelling of ‘Brighton’ after an uncle of the same name.

Diggins reportedly led a carefree, typical bush kid existence and grew into a tall, superbly fit physical specimen.

After representing his local junior club Jolimont, Diggins was invited to train with Subiaco, and first ran out in 1927. By 1929, the budding ruckman was universally considered a star of the WAFL – and when the Depression hit he accepted an overture to join South Melbourne, and he crossed the Nullarbor in late 1931.

Diggins joined a club on the rise as part of its famed ‘Foreign Legion’ of players recruited from all parts of the country. Not surprisingly, South swept to the 1933 Premiership, knocking Richmond over by 18 points, and Diggins and Bob Pratt were listed amongst the best afield.

The Swans continued as a footballing force, but through the ensuing three seasons stumbled at the last hurdle to be beaten in successive Grand Finals by Richmond and Collingwood (twice). Their cause wasn’t helped through injuries to key players – amongst them Diggins who broke a leg above the ankle – and as a consequence they went into a tailspin.

Carlton’s then Vice-President Kenneth Luke identified Diggins as a future club leader and set out to get his man. Luke’s doggedness was ultimately rewarded when Diggins overlooked a more lucrative offer from the Perth Football Club, and agreed to terms to Captain and Coach the Blues in 1938.

Diggins’ positive presence impacted from the outset. A teammate Creswell (‘Micky’) Crisp observed that “from the moment he walked into that training room, he showed himself a gentleman”.

“He (Diggins) was determined. He was forceful if needed. He never was a bully. His soft way of speaking might have suggested to some a lack of leadership (but) that was their funeral. Diggins was a man’s man – that’s where he succeeded. He drove us, he led us, but he always went with us. He was game. He never once asked us to go in where he would not go himself. I might have said in a shorter fashion that he won our confidence”.

By this time, Diggins was 31 years old, but he pushed himself as hard as he pushed his team. Training was relentless, yet innovative and when the ’38 season rolled around the Blues were fit and ready. The turning point came mid-season, when Carlton rallied late in the game to snatch a one point win over arch-rivals Richmond in a fierce, physical encounter. Brimming with confidence, the Blues completed the home and aways on top of the ladder and three weeks later faced Collingwood in the Grand Final.

Before the encounter, Diggins told his players: “Every man has a job to do and will not let Carlton down. We have no champions. Every player helps his teammate and puts the team first”. In the end, and before a record crowd of 96,834, Diggins’ team won a thriller by 13 points – securing a drought-break Premiership after 23 years.

Prior to the ’38 Grand Final, Diggins had declared that win or lose, it would be his last game. Luke would not hear of it however, and convinced his on-field leader to push on for two more seasons. In the end, he managed just five more matches before World War 2 intervened, and duty called, and his brief but successful time at Carlton was over.

During the war, Diggins served as a Warrant Officer with the Army. At war’s end he coached Mornington Peninsula League outfit Frankston, commandeering his teams to three successive Grand Finals. For a time he also covered League football as a correspondent for The Argus.

Brighton passed away in Mt Eliza at the age of 64 in  1971. Forty-one years later his daughter the late Lauraine Diggins became the first female to be elected to the Carlton Football Club Board of Directors. 

Blues’ former midfielder Berner passes away

Leon Berner passes away at age 88.

By Tony De Bolfo,

FORMER CARLTON centreman Leon Berner, an 18-game player who completed his senior debut for the club almost 70 years ago, has died at the age of 88.

Originally recruited from Melbourne High School, Berner was just 13 when he broke into Essendon’s Under 17 outfit in 1949. Four years later, he joined Carlton, turning out for the Under 19s team under the watch of coach and former forward Harvey Dunn. The “unders”, which included fellow future senior players Brian Buckley and Vic Garra, and the Olympic and Commonwealth Games high jumper and Dallas Cowboys punter Colin Ridgway, reached the Grand Final in 1954 – only to  fall three points adrift of Footscray in controversial circumstances.

Leon Berner, Princes Park, circa 1955

Berner made the cut for the Percy Bentley-coached Carlton seniors as a 19 year-old the following season, completing his debut against Richmond at Punt Road Oval in Round 11, 1955 – on the same afternoon Keith Warburton and the late Dave Browning played their last.

Carlton’s 4th Round match of 1957, against Geelong at Princes Park, would double as Berner’s 18th and final senior game, although in five instances as 19th and 20th man (pre-interchange) he failed to get a run.

In 1958, Berner headed north along Sydney Road to Coburg, where he represented the VFA team under the watch of coach and former Essendon footballer Doug Bigelow. The following year he crossed the border, joining Deniliquin in the Murray League,  and was part of the Rams’ team which lost the ’59 Grand Final against Les Mogg’s Cobram. In the ensuing years he chased the leather for Richmond and Carlton Rovers in the Sunday League, and in 1962 Vermont then coached by a former Carlton teammate Doug Beasy.

In 1964, Berner accepted the role of captain-coach with Metropolitan League club Fairfield – a three-year tenure abruptly ended in 1966 when he broke down with a knee injury. Five years later, the Vermont-based Berner imparted his football knowledge with Heatherdale Juniors. Away from the game, Berner pursued his career as Chief Clerk for the Melbourne Harbor Trust.

Berner’s daughter Joanne Bloomer remembered her father with great affection, and acknowledged his loyalty to his old club.

“Dad was an amazing man. He was loveable, caring and thoughtful. Family was everything and Carlton was everything,” Bloomer said.

“He grew up in Brunswick and lived with his family at 63 Laura Street, so he was within walking distance of the ground. He was a senior player at Carlton for just three seasons – 1955, ’56 and ’57 – but he always supported Carlton, his children have always supported Carlton and so too have his grandkids.”

David Browning and Leon Berner, Ikon Park, Spirit of Carlton function, circa 2016

Bloomer recalled joining her father at IKON Park for a past players gathering a few years ago, during which time he was photographed at his old No.20 locker – a locker later used by Premiership players Wes Lofts, Geoff Southby and Fraser Brown, and now Elijah Hollands.

But that wasn’t Berner’s only cameo appearance, for as Bloomer explained “he loved coming back” – and a photograph dated 2016 shows Berner and Browning standing shoulder to shoulder on the hallowed turf during a Spirit of Carlton past players reunion.

Berner died at Rowville Manor after a short illness on Monday. His wife of 65 years, Dawn, died in 2020.

He is survived by husband daughters Julie and Joanne, son-in-law Glen, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

He was the 694th player to represent the Carlton Football Club at senior level since the formation of the VFL in 1897.

Spirit of Carlton Living Legends Luncheon 9th August 2024

JOIN THE SPIRIT OF CARLTON COMMITTEE AND THE GREATS OF THE CARLTON FOOTBALL CLUB AS WE CELEBRATE OUR LIVING LEGENDS.

Tickets are on sale now for this annual luncheon, with a special match-day package also available where we will celebrate our 160 years as a Club!

FUNCTION DETAILS:

Date: Friday 9 August 2024

Time: 12pm – 3pm

Location: Victory Room, Marvel Stadium

Dress code: Smart casual

PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS BELOW.

Event ticket | $195 per person

Spirit of Carlton Annual Luncheon Ticket

Includes:

Two-course meal including beer, wine and soft drinks

Live entertainment

Reconnect with Carlton greats

BUY NOW/ENQUIRE