For those who aren't familiar with the AFL - welcome to an introduction to my favourite team in the world.
For as long as I can remember, this club has been the cornerstone to the passion in my life. I remember going to my first game as a 5 year old and feeling the intensity of the crowd as we watched on gleamingly. It was pure joy.
I want to take you on a journey through the entire history of this great organisation, from it's inception to now, following the peaks and troughs.
Carlton is born
The Carlton Football Club, nicknamed the Blues, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria.
Founded in 1864 in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, the club competes in the Australian Football League (formerly the Victorian Football League), and was one of the competition's eight founding member clubs in 1897. Its nickname comes from the navy blue colour of its playing uniform.
The Carlton Football Club was formed in July 1864. In the early days, Carlton became particularly strong and having grown a large supporter base.
The VFL continued to operate through World War II. Carlton continued to finish in or near the finals without premiership success through the war, before winning the premiership in 1945, one month after peace. In a remarkable season, Carlton languished with a record of 3–6 after nine weeks, but won ten of the remaining eleven home-and-away matches to finish fourth.
Carlton then comfortably beat North Melbourne in the first semi-final, overcame a 28-point deficit in the final quarter to beat Collingwood in the preliminary final, then beat South Melbourne in the notoriously brutal and violent Bloodbath Grand Final.
Carlton contested two more Grand Finals in the 1940s, both against Essendon, winning the 1947 Grand Final by a single point, and being comfortably beaten in 1949.
Thereafter followed what was Carlton's weakest on-field period since 1902, with the club reaching the finals only four times between 1950 and 1964. Finishing tenth out of twelve and winning only five matches, 1964 was Carlton's worst VFL season to that point in its history.
A change of president at the end of 1964 heralded the most successful period in the Carlton Football Club's history. Between 1967 and 1988, Carlton missed the finals only three times, contested ten Grand Finals, and won seven premierships.
The period of success began when George Harris replaced Lew Holmes as president of the club, after the 1964 season. Harris then signed Melbourne legend Ron Barassi to serve as coach from 1965. Barassi was a six-time premiership player and two-time premiership captain at Melbourne during its most successful era, and at the age of 28 was still one of the biggest names in the game. His shift to Carlton remains one of the biggest player transfers in the game's history.
Carlton missed the finals in 1971, and Barassi left the club at the end of the season, but Carlton returned to prominence the following year, and contested back-to-back Grand Finals. Both matches were against Richmond, with Carlton recording a high-scoring victory in 1972, and losing a rough, physical encounter in 1973.
Of the legendary players from the Barassi era, none was more important than John Nicholls, who captained all three premierships and took over as captain-coach upon Barassi's departure. Nicholls, a ruckman and forward, had played at Carlton since 1957.
Carlton continued to play finals through the 1970s without premiership success, and went through several coaches in a short period of time. After the 1979 season, there was off-field instability at the board level.
Despite the off-field troubles, Carlton continued to thrive on-field, and David Parkin led the team to back-to-back premierships in 1981 and 1982, with victories in the Grand Finals against Collingwood and Richmond respectively. With its fourteenth premiership in 1982, Carlton overtook Collingwood to become the most successful club in the league's history, based on premierships won – a position it has held either outright or jointly with Essendon since.
In 1983, John Elliott took over the presidency from Ian Rice. On-field, the club endured three consecutive unsuccessful finals campaigns under Parkin before he was replaced by Robert Walls in 1986.
Also in 1986, Carlton lured three of South Australia's top young players to the club: Stephen Kernahan, Craig Bradley and Peter Motley. The club reached the next two Grand Finals, losing in 1986 and winning in 1987, both times against Hawthorn. Kernahan went on to become the club's longest serving captain and leading career goal-kicker (738 goals), and Bradley became the club games record holder (375 games)
1995 saw Carlton's next premiership glory, a day that I can only remember in patches as I was 4 years old. It was in this game that my love for the club was born. Champions like Kernahan and a young Anthony Koutoufides captured my attention.
In 2002, Carlton swiftly fell from being one of the most successful clubs, both on-field and off-field, to one of the least successful.
The club had been much slower than others to embrace the AFL Draft as a means for recruitment, so when its champion players from the 1990s began to retire in the early 2000s, on-field performances fell away quickly, and in 2002, the club won the wooden spoon (term given to the last team on the standings) for the first time in its VFL/AFL history.
It was the last of the twelve Victorian clubs to win the wooden spoon. At the same time, the club was starting to struggle financially, due to unwise investments under John Elliott – most significantly, building a new grandstand at Princes Park during the 1990s, at a time when other clubs were finding it more profitable to play at the higher-capacity central venues.
Then, at the end of 2002, it was revealed that Carlton had been systematically cheating the league salary cap during the early 2000s. The scandal resulted in the loss of draft picks and a fine of $930,000, which exacerbated the club's poor on-field and off-field positions.
Carlton's overall position began to improve in 2007, when businessman Richard Pratt, Steven Icke and Collingwood's Greg Swann came to the club as president, general manager of football operations, and CEO respectively.
Although Pratt's presidency lasted only sixteen months, after which he was replaced by Stephen Kernahan, the new personnel stabilised the club's off-field position.
Then, prior to the 2008 season, Carlton was able to secure a trade for West Coast's Chris Judd, one of the league's best midfielders, to join the club as captain. The time spent at the bottom of the ladder also allowed Carlton to secure three No. 1 draft picks – Marc Murphy, Bryce Gibbs and Matthew Kreuzer – who helped the club's on-field position.
Coach and former club champion Brett Ratten led Carlton to the finals from 2009 until 2011, but was sacked with a year remaining on his contact after the club missed the finals in 2012, replaced by former West Coast and Collingwood premiership coach Mick Malthouse.
Under Malthouse, the club returned to the finals in 2013, but fell to thirteenth in 2014. Kernahan and Swann stepped aside in mid-2014, and were replaced by Mark LoGiudice as president and Steven Trigg as CEO.
The club's on-field performances deteriorated drastically in the early part of 2015, and after eight weeks it was bottom of the ladder. The relationship between Malthouse and the club's new board began to deteriorate publicly; and on 26 May, after giving a radio interview critical of the board, Malthouse was sacked; the club went on to finish last.
Former Hawthorn assistant coach Brendon Bolton took over as coach from the 2016 season, taking Carlton to 14th in his first year. In 2017, the club finished 16th on the ladder, and under Bolton's guidance, developed a club record five AFL Rising Star nominees and saw Sam Docherty debut in the AFL All-Australian team as a half-back.
Today is a hard time to support the mighty Blues, as our once great club is enduring a dark time.
Make no mistake, we will be back at the top of the mountain winning premierships soon enough.
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Thanks for reading!
If you have also made an entry to the July Writer's contest, leave me a comment and I'll check out your piece.
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