AS A four-time Premiership ruckman, best and fairest, coach and director, Peter Jones’ Carlton CV is up there with the best of them – and yet whenever ‘Perc’s’ name is mentioned in dispatches, thoughts invariably turn to the No.19 Sydney Road tram – the former ruckman’s preferred mode of transport to the 10-km dawn run imposed upon the players by Coach Ian Stewart in the summer of ’78.

The story goes that Jones set off on foot from the First and Last Hotel within a short keg roll of Fawkner Cemetery, and huffed and puffed his way as far as Coburg’s Pentridge Prison when the No.19 suddenly came into view.

It is here that Jones’ mate, The Herald’s long-time typewriter-thumper Peter Coster, picks up the thread. In a piece penned back in 2017, Coster, who joined Jones on his Clayton’s run, recalled his stuttering mate’s reaction when he first heard the welcome clickety-clack of the fast approaching green people mover.

“‘B-b-bugger this,’ said Perc as he saw a tram coming down Sydney Road past “Bluestone College”, where George Harris was the prison dentist as well as being the Carlton president,” Coster wrote.

“George might have been in there pulling teeth and looking out through the bars when Jones and I hailed the No 19 tram. We collapsed on board to the astonishment of the early-morning passengers. Some asked Jones for an autograph. Likely Collingwood supporters sneered.

“To save Jones from the wrath of the cockroach, I kept the tram trip out of The Herald story, but as it turned out it wouldn’t have made any difference. Ian Stewart was watching the players as they ran into the car park as we got off the tram.

"The untold story is that dropping the then three-time premiership ruckman to the reserves was because Jones caught the tram.

"The only plus for Perc was that I paid for the tickets."