Fevalenko25
Team Captain
Blue Skies
9:38:49 AM Wed 18 May, 2005
Garrie Hutchinson
carltonfc.com.au
Thankfully, the farewell game means remembering the sublime times we have had at the Oval, rather than the evil moments at the Dome, such as last Friday night. I confess to being one of the thousands who left early, preferring to watch the last quarter on TV alone and in private, rather than among the hissing and scratching Cats around Aisle 18.
Many of those fans have been deprived of success for so long that they don’t know how to enjoy it. Instead they have become bitter and seem to prefer abusing Carlton players and barrackers, instead of celebrating their own outfit.
It’s different for us. Since Geelong last won a Flag, Carlton has won eight, all of them with the Oval as home.
Everyone has their favourite moments, and places, of course. Mine was growing up in the fraternity of the Outer on the half forward flank beside the old Press Box, where the ******* Stand was built, and where there was one of the world’s most fragrant dunnies.
On good days it was so jam-packed that it was (almost) impossible to raise your drinking arm, which was so necessary for a couple of short mates who needed the cans to stand on so that they could see.
Footy was often as violent off the field as it was on it, but not at the Oval (Princes Park was Prince’s Oval or Princes Park Oval, before it was Optus Oval). The oppo hardly raised a squeak in the 70s and 80s because the place was packed with Carlton types, filled with confidence of never losing at home. I can’t remember losing many games until the twenty first century.
There was one – the Malcolm Blight match in 1976, which was so unbelievable that it has become emblematic of the footy philosophies of never giving up and always attempting the impossible.
In those palmy days Carlton was close to the best team in the home and away season, always won at home, but frustrating in the Finals. We should have won a string of Flags in the 70s, the ones won by North and Hawthorn.
Our crowd of bohemian and theatrical types was supremely confident of beating North that June afternoon, so much so that we brought along the Harry Madden sized playwright David Williamson to watch a proper game of footy.
Williamson was writing his play The Club, notoriously about nefarious goings on at Collingwood. As part of his research program we’d organised things such as lunch in the basement of the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street, where Collingwood had been founded, with Lou Richards and other yarners, where tall tales and true of the legendary past were uttered.
Including some about Carlton players, of course, including the story which we had published a few years before about a certain ‘head ruck rover’ who, after ingesting something that was not caffeine, one day at another Oval had watched the trains go by rather than the football …Some of this stuff was reworked and re-imagined in the play.
Williamson, a Collingwood supporter, clearly needed to watch football played at its highest and most successful level which meant watching Carlton at the Oval.
The game proceeded as planned until time on. We were 27 points up at half time, and still 13 in front in time on. Blight kicked four of North’s five, including the first in-competition banana kick that got his team to within a kick.
I can remember shouting “Too late Roos!” as each of the goals were kicked.
And then Blight 75 metres out if it was an inch, over on the Hawthorn side of the centre square, has taken a mark. The siren goes. Blight has a chat with Keith Greig. Greig seems to say well, you might as well have a go. Did they discuss the virtues of a torpie? Left or right spiral Greigy? Carlton players I seem to recall were beginning to edge towards the rooms, not far away. He then let fly with a fat spiral punt that was still going up as it sailed between the big sticks. It gave Geoff Southby a crick in the neck as it kept going up And that was that. Moans rent the air.
Having seen a miracle, I guess we weren’t too downhearted. I said to big Dave, ‘Well you can’t put that in your play, mate, no one would believe it.’
And he didn’t.
So farewell Princes Park, the best place to watch football in the entire world, even when we lost.
http://carltonfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=203392
9:38:49 AM Wed 18 May, 2005
Garrie Hutchinson
carltonfc.com.au
Thankfully, the farewell game means remembering the sublime times we have had at the Oval, rather than the evil moments at the Dome, such as last Friday night. I confess to being one of the thousands who left early, preferring to watch the last quarter on TV alone and in private, rather than among the hissing and scratching Cats around Aisle 18.
Many of those fans have been deprived of success for so long that they don’t know how to enjoy it. Instead they have become bitter and seem to prefer abusing Carlton players and barrackers, instead of celebrating their own outfit.
It’s different for us. Since Geelong last won a Flag, Carlton has won eight, all of them with the Oval as home.
Everyone has their favourite moments, and places, of course. Mine was growing up in the fraternity of the Outer on the half forward flank beside the old Press Box, where the ******* Stand was built, and where there was one of the world’s most fragrant dunnies.
On good days it was so jam-packed that it was (almost) impossible to raise your drinking arm, which was so necessary for a couple of short mates who needed the cans to stand on so that they could see.
Footy was often as violent off the field as it was on it, but not at the Oval (Princes Park was Prince’s Oval or Princes Park Oval, before it was Optus Oval). The oppo hardly raised a squeak in the 70s and 80s because the place was packed with Carlton types, filled with confidence of never losing at home. I can’t remember losing many games until the twenty first century.
There was one – the Malcolm Blight match in 1976, which was so unbelievable that it has become emblematic of the footy philosophies of never giving up and always attempting the impossible.
In those palmy days Carlton was close to the best team in the home and away season, always won at home, but frustrating in the Finals. We should have won a string of Flags in the 70s, the ones won by North and Hawthorn.
Our crowd of bohemian and theatrical types was supremely confident of beating North that June afternoon, so much so that we brought along the Harry Madden sized playwright David Williamson to watch a proper game of footy.
Williamson was writing his play The Club, notoriously about nefarious goings on at Collingwood. As part of his research program we’d organised things such as lunch in the basement of the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street, where Collingwood had been founded, with Lou Richards and other yarners, where tall tales and true of the legendary past were uttered.
Including some about Carlton players, of course, including the story which we had published a few years before about a certain ‘head ruck rover’ who, after ingesting something that was not caffeine, one day at another Oval had watched the trains go by rather than the football …Some of this stuff was reworked and re-imagined in the play.
Williamson, a Collingwood supporter, clearly needed to watch football played at its highest and most successful level which meant watching Carlton at the Oval.
The game proceeded as planned until time on. We were 27 points up at half time, and still 13 in front in time on. Blight kicked four of North’s five, including the first in-competition banana kick that got his team to within a kick.
I can remember shouting “Too late Roos!” as each of the goals were kicked.
And then Blight 75 metres out if it was an inch, over on the Hawthorn side of the centre square, has taken a mark. The siren goes. Blight has a chat with Keith Greig. Greig seems to say well, you might as well have a go. Did they discuss the virtues of a torpie? Left or right spiral Greigy? Carlton players I seem to recall were beginning to edge towards the rooms, not far away. He then let fly with a fat spiral punt that was still going up as it sailed between the big sticks. It gave Geoff Southby a crick in the neck as it kept going up And that was that. Moans rent the air.
Having seen a miracle, I guess we weren’t too downhearted. I said to big Dave, ‘Well you can’t put that in your play, mate, no one would believe it.’
And he didn’t.
So farewell Princes Park, the best place to watch football in the entire world, even when we lost.
http://carltonfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=203392