PHOTOGRAPHS of the fire which broke out on the SCG in the final quarter of the Sydney-Carlton match in Round 19, 1982, are amongst a collection of never-before-seen stills recently availed to the Club’s archive.
The collection of more than 300 high-resolution colour photos and negatives has been graciously donated by Michael Baxter, who captured the images with his trusty Olympus MO 10 35mm film camera when he was a member of the Carlton cheersquad through the 1980s and early ’90s.
In the tradition of the late Melbourne social snapper Rennie Ellis, Baxter, an enthusiastic photographer now picture framer by profession, captured a way of life now consigned to football history. The cheersquad-centric images capture milestone moments involving the likes of Bruce Doull, Wayne Harmes and Alex Marcou, and bring into fascinating focus the days when Carlton teams vied for match points at suburban venues such as Arden Street, the Western Oval, Victoria Park and of course, Princes Park.
Of the fateful SCG fixture, Baxter recalled around 60 predominantly teenage cheersquad boarding a hire bus the day before, and finding overnight digs in a local hotel.
“The bus driver used to check for alcohol and cigarettes but as the buses in those days had sliding windows we could get the contraband on board anyway. How we got away with it I’ll never know because we were only kids. But we never lost anyone,” Baxter said.
“These were the days when they were also phasing out the streamers and the torn paper that used to be thrown onto the ground. As a rule we never threw anything until the 20-minute mark of the last quarter, because if you threw the stuff too early the cops would kick you out.
“We used to throw torn paper and old tattslotto cards I’d collect from an old agency near Flagstaff Gardens, and I remember the bloke there saying ‘We’re going electronic, take what you want’. The stuff had to be camouflaged to get it through the gate, and on this particular day at the SCG we topped the boxes of paper and cards with trays of lamingtons to get through. The trays were leftovers from a lamington drive to raise money for the cheersquad earlier that week.”
On arriving at the gates, members of the cheersquad were asked to open their boxes for inspection, but as Baxter recalled “all they saw were cakes” – so the boxes made it through and at the 20-minute mark of the last quarter the papers and cards contained within were released to the heavens.
It was then that an errant cigarette butt or three triggered a mini inferno.
“I was sitting there with another cheersquad member Jason Poli, and I said to him ‘Do you smell something burning it’s getting a bit hot’.
I then looked under the seat and said ‘WTF’,” Baxter said.
“The next thing there were spotfires breaking out on the ground, and cheersquad members jumped the fence to join the cops in stamping out the flames. For memory the game went on as the flames were being doused.
The cheersquad’s paper-flinging antics weren’t welcomed by the SCG’s audience, amongst them the Seven Network’s gamecaller Peter Landy who dubbed them “the clowns in the outer”. And as Baxter recalled: “after the game we were surrounded by security guards and cops, one of which who said: ‘Pack your f…ing things and get out of here’. That night, we were all back on the bus and bound for Melbourne”.
Also Included in the wide-ranging Baxter catalogue are images of the Blues banner he helped craft for the Round 15 match of 1983 between Carlton and Melbourne at Princes Park, on what was presumed to be Bruce Doull’s 300th senior game - but was in fact his 297th appearance after the club was caught out by an alteration to the recording of matches by the then VFL.
Historically, when interstate contests were staged at the same time as the home and aways, players named for their states were credited with a home and away game. But the League’s rule change led to representative matches being recorded separately, and Doull’s actual 300th game would come in the Round 19 contest with St Kilda – which fittingly ended with a 100-point win for the great man.
Doull’s 297th appearance coincided with Wayne Harmes’ 100th match for the Blues and Val Perovic’s 150th VFL outing, and both players were pictured at the foot of the old players race readying to join Doull in breaking the banner. Also visible in the frames are the Coburg recruit Andrew Graham in what was his one and only senior appearance – the same match in which Ricky Nixon debuted.
Present amongst Michael’s vast collection of images are candid crowd scenes from Grand Final day 1982; the Bluebirds completing their on-field pre-match routines; the long-gone Olympic Tyres scoreboard at the Garton Street end of the ground; and the cheersquad’s various interstate bus trips to support their players in contests across the border.
“Football was magic then,” said Baxter, who gave it away when his close friend Dominic Monterosso – who first introduced him to the cheersquad years before - died in 1993.
“The photos are throwbacks to happy times and they all evoke happy memories.”
The full vision of the infamous fire at the SCG is available here.
