BETTY Plumridge is now 90, her older sister Shirley Orbuck 93 – and while the passing years may have curtailed the ladies’ efforts to front up on matchdays, that shared love of all things Carlton has not waned.

For years the two girls followed their father George Armstrong to Princes Park (and anywhere else that the Carlton players ran out) – and although it’s more than 40 years since George passed on, Betty and Shirley have seen fit to honour his memory by donating the precious Carlton artefacts and publications he collected and safeguarded from as far back as the late 1800s.

Central to the lot of coveted items is a blue cap with distinctive white piping and wire-embroidered “VFL Premiers 1907” script on the front panel, which was awarded to an unknown member of Jack Worrall’s Grand Final-winning Carlton Premiership team that completed the back-to-back leg of the 1906-’08 Premiership hat trick.

Coincidentally, 1907 is the year Armstrong was first recorded as a Carlton Member. He later served the football club as a Board Member (1951-1964) and Vice-President (1960-’64); and was also honoured with Life Membership in 1957.

Similarly, Armstrong was a lifelong devotee of the Carlton Cricket Club. A Second XI team member through the 1920s, he also served as a Committeeman from 1949 and Vice-President from 1959 - combining duties with those as Chairman of Match Committee and Ground Management.

He was also honoured with Life Membership of the CCC in ’61 – all the while serving as Company Secretary of Sutton’s House of Music, which later amalgamated with Brash’s under his watch.

“Dad’s love of cricket was great, but his love of football was equally strong, and as with his brothers he loved Carlton,” Betty said. “Dad’s brother Uncle Wal used to walk around selling tickets at the ground, and Uncle Frank, who is also a Life Member, was on the door for many years.

“Like them, Dad was incredibly loyal to the club and he gave them a lot – and he also did a lot for the kids coming through in the Northern Junior Football League.”

(George Coulthard and Horace Clover, courtesy of the George Armstrong Collection)

As the Armstrong family home was located at nearby Coronation Street in West Brunswick, the sisters were regular patrons at Princes Park from as far back as the 1940s when Carlton Baseball teams shared the ground with their senior counterparts on matchday.

“My sister and I used to go to Carlton with our Mum Ada and Dad. It was handy having someone like Dad on the committee as you could always get tickets,” Betty recalled.

“I remember seeing players like Jimmy Baird walking into the rooms carrying their Gladstone bags. I remember old-timers like Charlie Davey and ‘Mickey’ Crisp, although I never saw them play. In the later years the whole family would gather in the Social Club for pre-match lunch.”

The  Armstrong sisters recently arrived at their decision to commit their father’s items to the Carlton archive due to changing circumstances. 

“About five years ago we thought about selling the cap in the hope that if Carlton made the Grand Final we could buy a couple of tickets and an overnight’s accommodation at the Hilton so that we could wander down to the MCG . . . but obviously that didn’t materialise,” Betty said.

“We stopped going to the football three or four years ago, and recently decided that maybe Carlton was the right home for the cap. It’s nice to known that the cap is there now.”

Included in the Armstrong collection are publications and scrapbooks from as far back as George’s childhood.

Within their sepia-toned pages are glorious photographs of former football club greats – from an incredibly rare image of George Coulthard, Carlton’s first genuine star of the pre-VFL years in civilian attire, through to a full length portrait of Horace Clover, the football club’s greatest player between the wars.

There’s even a postcard pic of “A Young Armstrong”, right arm over, sending down a cricket ball whilst wearing a cap and matching tie.

For the sisters, the preservation of such artefacts at Carlton serve to keep their father’s spirit alive at Carlton – and few have given Carlton more than George and his two girls.