A loyal supporter has related the story behind the story of a curious photograph of a gathering of Carlton greats, at what appears to be an Orlando Wines’ taste-testing emporium in inner-city Melbourne in late 1970.
Shane Coomber recently contacted the club to say that he acquired a signed version of the singular print some years ago. The photo features Carlton’s dual Premiership coach Ron Barassi savouring the Spumante with Premiership players Adrian Gallagher, Barry Gill, Syd Jackson, Alex Jesaulenko, the late Wes Lofts, David McKay, Dennis Munari, John Nicholls, Bryan Quirk and Robert Walls, together with 1970 Grand Final field umpire the late Don Jolley and Roy McKay – an Orlando representative and rabid Blues man.
Lofts, Gallagher, Nicholls, Jolley and Gill are all lazing across wine barrels, as Jolley charges their glasses with Orlando’s finest from the top shelf.
“My father worked at a place called Emerald Wines in North Coburg at the time and his boss, knowing that Dad was a mad Blues fan, gave the original to him – and Dad in turn gave it to me,” Coomber said.
Coomber believed the photograph was captured at some point late in 1970, at a time when an Orlando-backed World Tour involving St Kilda was first touted for Carlton players and officials.
Regrettably the 1971 tour was put on hold for 12 months and the players instead jetted into Sydney and embarked on a three-day “cruise to nowhere” aboard the SS Iberia over the long weekend of January
According to Carlton’s ’71 Annual Report, the much-touted tour came to naught on the basis that “companies who had agreed to sponsor this trip were unable to carry out these promises because of the middle of the year economic retrenchments”.
However, the Carlton-Orlando World Tour of 1972 – which involved a party of 29 senior club players and 22 others drawn from across the country and known as the “All Stars” - did materialize, and the party jetted out to Europe aboard a chartered Qantas Boeing 707 on October 22 of the ’72 Premiership year, taking in such locales as Surrey, Athens and Singapore on the return leg.
Coomber remembered Jolley alluding to the Carlton-Orlando World Tour when he graciously signed the photograph. “Don told me some stories of things that happened on that tour which couldn’t be printed,” Coomber recalled.
“I had copies of this photo made for Ron Barassi, Syd Jackson and Big Nick - all of whom have signed it - along with ‘Jezza’, and Don Jolley, but I’m missing the rest. It’s a great talking point and brings back lots of memories of a great era of a great club.”
David McKay, the only Carlton player in history to have represented his club in three Grand Final victories over Collingwood, remembered Orlando convening the knees-up at its outlet not long after the Blues completed the greatest Grand Final comeback of all-time, against the hapless black and whites on the mighty MCG.
“We accepted an invitation from Roy McKay (no relation by the way) to the outlet, which was in either Richmond or South Melbourne, after the ’70 Grand Final. Roy was a big Carlton man,” said McKay.
“We were also invited to Rothmans’ head office to view the premiere of their color film of the game, which was most pleasing on the eye.”
