RICKY Fort fondly remembers the day two of his Carlton heroes paid him a very special visit, in the aftermath of a near-death experience some 50 years ago.

Wearing a No.25 Blues guernsey and laid up with compound fractures in his leg, the then eight-year-old was greeted by the then Club Captain Alex Jesaulenko and Peter Jones at Canberra’s Woden Valley Hospital.

Fort was pictured with ‘Jezza’ and ‘Perc’ on Sunday, April 27, 1975 – the day the Blues defeated an ACT representative team by 46 points in an exhibition match at Manuka Oval – and the photo featured on the front page of the following morning’s edition of The Canberra Times.

Today, Fort is employed as Safety Manager with Delnas Metal Roofing in the light industrial Canberra suburb of Fyshwick. A profile on the company website mentions in part that he is a “proud grandfather of six, a keen (good??) fisherman and Carlton supporter!”.

Now 58, he recently recounted the circumstances, revealing that while he had never before met Jones, “Alex previously lived in the same street as my Dad, Schomberg Street, Yarralumla, so he knew Alex and the family”.

“I spent 11 months in hospital, but I’d not long been in there when the photo was taken because the accident happened in March,” Fort recalled.

“At the time I was training with the Tuggeranong Bulldogs, then known as South Woden, at Lyons Oval. I remember a ball ended up going across the road, I’ve gone to get the ball and someone wiped me out.

“I was a diehard Carlton supporter and so was my Dad, even before ‘Jezza’ – and having ‘Jezza’ and ‘Perc’ there was a big thrill. I was over the moon, and who wouldn’t be seeing Alex and ‘Perc’. They signed my footy and the guernsey I wore had ‘Jezza’s’ No.25 on the back.”

Sadly, those precious items are no longer in Fort’s keep. As he explained: “Mum kept them in a cupboard, but our house later got robbed and they took my guernsey and my footy”.

That said, Fort fully recovered from his dreadful injuries “and I still follow the Blues” – hence his welcome appearance at Manuka Oval for Carlton’s recent Community Clash with GWS.