THE CARLTON Football Club is the welcome recipient of a lifelong supporter’s extreme generosity, with an 80 year-old woollen guernsey now part of the club’s ever-expanding archive.

The gloriously-maintained long-sleeve garment, carrying the name of the Foy Company’s Gibsonia Knitwear, has been donated (together with a pair of shin guards) by the daughter of the former Carlton back pocket player Arthur Sleith - the Murtoa-born Preston recruit who managed five senior appearances for the Club in 1942 and ’43 while on leave from the Air Force.

Deanne Pierini (nee Sleith), in explaining why she gifted her father’s guernsey to Carlton, said: “I’d already donated an enormous amount of material to the Sports Museum and thought that there might not have been a lot of memorabilia at the Club”.

“Dad was a fairly quiet man and rarely talked about his time at war, but he was stationed in Darwin for four years and four months, and was with a unit that used to collect the debris from crashes planes and ships,” Deanne said.

“He did like to talk about Carlton and he liked to talk about those who went on to become great players like Deacon and Hands.

“My father died just short of his 91st birthday and had the guernsey safely tucked away in the bottom of his wardrobe for many years. I kept the guernsey after he died and decided Carlton might be interested.”

The No.26 which graces the guernsey’s back was one of three numbers Sleith wore for the old dark Navy Blues, together with the numbers 20 and 22. At Carlton, 26 carries the greatest significance for the time, as its previous wearer was the 1938 Premiership full-back Jim Park.

A 128-game player for Carlton between 1932 and ’40, Park turned out for the last time in the Blues’ final home and away match of the 1940 season against Footscray at Princes Park, before enlisting with the Australian Imperial Force in March of the following year.

Tragically, 32 year-old Lieutenant James William Park was killed while leading his men into action in defence of an important Allied airfield at Wau on February 9, 1943, leaving behind a wife Marjorie and infant daughter Joan.

Sleith turned out for Preston the previous year, but when the VFA went into recess in 1942, was one of a number Association players recruited to the League. In the Second Round of ’42 against South Melbourne, he completed his senior debut for the Blues with Coburg’s Bob Atkinson (a future Carlton captain) and Sandringham’s Wilf Atkinson - a Spitfire pilot who lost his life when his plane was shot down over the Aegean Sea some 15 months later.

Called away for wartime duty, Sleith couldn’t be considered for Carlton selection again until July 1942. Home briefly on leave, he wore the No.20 into the Round 10 match with Melbourne at the MCG, and three weeks later warmed the bench when the Blues met South at Princes Park.

Nine months lapsed before Sleith earned a recall for what would be his fifth and final on-field appearance, at home to Collingwood, this time wearing the No.22. He was then seconded to Darwin, where he served for the duration of the war with an aircraft recovery unit, finding and transporting crashed or damaged aeroplanes to repair depots.

At war’s end, and after pondering a League return, Sleith ultimately resolved to return to Preston to round out his playing career. He then crossed the border to take up a coaching role with Jerilderie, then Yeoman in northern Tasmania, before returning to Victoria to manage the long-gone Hotel Sarsfield by the Nicholson River just outside of Bairnsdale and then the Malmsbury Hotel.

“When he came back to Melbourne he worked at CIG (and played cricket for the company), and in between worked as a tailor . . . he used to make his own suits,” Deanne said.

Sleith’s later years were quietly spent at the family home in West Preston, and he died in December 2008, his wife Valma having pre-deceased him.

The Carlton Football Club would welcome either the donation or loan of match-worn club guernseys for future display and is particularly interested in sourcing any guernseys relevant to the period 1910 – 1922. If you are able to assist, please contact Tony.DeBolfo@carltonfc.com.au.