He was in fact the first mascot of the Carlton Football Club.
But who is he?
At last, we can reveal that Samuel Grimes, late of Blackburn, is the wee fellow featuring alongside those Carlton greats such as “Pompey” Elliott, Vin Gardiner and Rod McGregor - men of stature who each played their part in the great Grand Final successes of 1906, ‘07 and ‘08.
Samuel's son Ron isn’t exactly sure of how Samuel’s link with Carlton was first forged, but suspects that it was through Samuel senior, a secretary of the Coburg Cycling Club for some years. As he said: “Dad’s father was involved in the sporting profession in those days and the Carlton ground was close by, so that was probably the link I’d imagine”.
“I don’t know much more about this, other than he was very proud about being the first mascot of the Carlton Football Club,” Ron said this week.
“Unfortunately he didn’t tell me much, but he was very proud of the photos. The words ‘first mascot’ are written on the back of one of the photos we still have.”
Samuel George Grimes, who died on the Monday after his Blues overran Collingwood in the 1970 Grand Final - was born at 177 Fenwick Street, North Carlton, on July 27, 1901. For Samuel, the link with the old dark Navy Blues was purely territorial.
Samuel’s mother, Lizzie Parker, was but a six-month infant when she accompanied her family to Australia. It was 1878, and the Parkers, having got caught up with the Orangemen, fled County Cavan amid sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland. According to family lore, Lizzy was the only infant to survive the voyage too, as she was the only infant breastfed when the ship’s cow was lost overboard in a storm.
Samuel’s grandfather was a bacon curer in the Moreland district, but when the latter died in 1895, Samuel’s father (Samuel John Grimes) and grandmother carried on the family business.
About ten years later, on the passing of the grandmother, Samuel senior and junior relocated to the Mallee, to a place near Pink Lakes.
“They had a square mile of wheat up there and Samuel went up to help his Dad build a house,” Ron said.
It was during this time on the Mallee that Samuel was caught up in a traumatic family happening - the time when his only sibling, a sister Annie, developed peritonitis at the tender age of 11.
“Dad told me he rode across the desert to the small town of Rainbow to find a doctor to treat his sister. When he got there he discovered that the doctor had left for a confinement on the other side of Rainbow barely an hour before,” Ron said.
“In the end, my grandfather drove the girl down to Melbourne in his old Buick, but unfortunately she died there.”
The Grimes family remained near Pink Lakes for seven years of dry weather and couldn’t make a go of it, so they came back and ran dairies - the first in Union Road, Malvern then another in Bellett Street, Camberwell opposite the Camberwell Town Hall. That business, Bellett and Cook Pty Ltd, was a milk distributing business.
Ron remembered his father displaying real ingenuity to survive the Depression years as a dairyman.
“In those days milk was delivered in bottles, with cardboard wads in the top of them. The various milk distributors printed their name and milk quality on each wad, and Dad came up with the idea during the depression to promote a special type of milk for expectant mothers,” Ron said.
“The milk was a bit richer because it had a bit more dairy fat than the normal milk, so Dad entered into a contract with a special farm at Coldstream, where the Jersey herd produced richer milk. This helped Dad get a little more business to help him pay back the loan on the business itself.”
On October 12, 1929, at Christ Church in South Yarra, Samuel exchanged wedding vows with Nancye Victoria Newton. Together they raised three children - Ron, and daughters Laurel and Julie.
In later years, Samuel assumed the role of Vice-President of the Victorian Dairymen’s Association. He survived his wife’s passing by ten years and, following his own death, was cremated at Springvale.
But in an interesting quirk of fate, the remains of Samuel and Nancye will soon be interred in the Grimes family plot, where his sister, parents, grandparents and great aunt lay - in Melbourne General Cemetery, not far from the Carlton ground where the little bloke in the knickerbockers once led the Carlton lads out.
