IT JUST had to be on the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast, 2012 edition. The scene where, 11 months after Carlton’s best season in a decade, a shock loss in the penultimate game of the season was the full stop on not only the Blues’ campaign, but also the tenure of former-captain-turned-coach, Brett Ratten.

Gold Coast, 2018 edition. The scene of a brief moment of reprieve in a dire season five years ago, where Carlton ventured north, overcame a slow start and recorded their second of just two wins that campaign, with a number of long-suffering Blues who played yesterday - Dow, Cripps, McKay, Marchbank, Weitering, Curnow and Curnow - featuring on that wet Saturday night. 

Gold Coast, 2019 edition. The scene of the bouncing ball from Jack Bowes’ boot over the head of Mitch McGovern, breaking Blue hearts and confining the team to a 0-4 start.

Gold Coast, 2020 edition. The scene of the home of the hub, where the Blues enjoyed victories over the Western Bulldogs and Sydney in the company of only each other plus a few socially distanced in the stands, with plenty under lockdown back at home in Victoria. 

Gold Coast, 2022 edition. It was even the scene of the team’s first blemish under Michael Voss four rounds in, where Patrick Cripps went down in the first quarter. Back then, the perception of ‘no Cripps, no Carlton’ was shared by many.

Both at the ground and in Navy Blue homes all over the country, you could excuse them for thinking Round 23, 2023 may have been a case of history repeating. The location was the same, and the script was coming to fruition all to see.

The bloody Gold Coast, 2023 edition. The scene where Carlton got overwhelmed out of the blocks, falling behind by 40 points and not really able to fire a shot, with everything to play for - again - in the last game of the season. 

There was even the sub-plot of Cripps coming from the ground in the first quarter (“we’ve been here before”), with his influence largely quelled for the rest of the game. No Cripps, no Carlton?

Not this time.

On Saturday afternoon, this wasn’t a team that was worried with who was or wasn’t out there. Nor was it one that was suffocated by pressure: rather, it rose to it. Sure, it wasn’t always pretty, but it got the job done — a job which had been sitting idly on the to-do list for a decade.

And despite the red seats, the plethora of Navy Blue in the stands very much came with the team. There aren’t any official figures of how much of the 19,000-strong at Heritage Bank Stadium ventured to the home of the Suns in support of the Blues — but let’s just say it’s safe to can call it the majority. 

There’s a connection between this Carlton group and the fans, and it’s been strengthening by the year. They’ve seen a lot of these players develop from draft day; they’ve endured the hurt when it hasn’t been easy; they’ve watched them stay.

So when Charlie Curnow started his run when the Blues needed him most, he beckoned to the Carlton faithful crowded behind the goals almost immediately.

Get us going.

That they did.

Stronger together, as Michael Voss would put it.

After years of trips north ultimately being associated with disappointment, if not heartbreak, the way the Blues overturned a 40-point deficit into the most improbable of five-point wins - thus sealing a spot in September after years of toiling - will go a long way to alleviating those emotions, the hope that blue skies up north now doesn’t just refer to the weather.

Time will tell, but hopefully from a Carlton perspective, gone are the days of associating trips to Carrara as ‘the bloody Gold Coast’, but rather ‘that bloody Gold Coast game’ which occurred on Saturday 19 August 2023. 

The job’s not done, of course. If Michael Voss has his way, the Gold Coast game will be just a footnote - a chapter - in Carlton’s ever-developing, ever-fluctuating story.

But for a man that has been all about keeping the bigger picture front of mind, even he was happy to take a second to delve into what the win meant for the thousands of Carlton fans invested in the game, the season, the team, the Club.

“That was a big moment,” Voss said.

“Since I started, that goal has been clear, about what our direction needed to look like. We’ve had to work through a lot of things as a team and we’ve had an extreme amount of adversity: there’s a great story in behind that. We’ve taken a lot out of it, and we hope we can use it moving forward.

“We’re playing finals footy. It hasn’t been said for a while at this club.

“I’m pleased that I’m saying it.”

Whatever happens from here, it’s a day that will live long in the Navy Blue memory. The bloody Gold Coast game.