WITH the AFL season at an end and players reloading for the impending pre-season campaign, it’s rather timely to revisit (within reason) a footy trip of almost 60 years past – in this instance the Carlton tour to Surfers Paradise, specifically the Chevron Hotel, in 1961.
In the club’s ’61 Annual Report, the then President Lew Holmes hailed the Chevron as “the best hotel at which a Carlton party has ever been at, and the boys spent much of their time in the beautiful ground surrounding the swimming pool”.
Featured in the accompanying image captured at the Chevron’s Paradise Room on that particular sojourn is a who’s who of Carlton players and officials of the 1950s and ’60s - from John James, John Nicholls and Sergio Silvagni, through to Perc Bentley, Jack Wrout and the resident Carlton Social Secretary Clarrie Gange (standing in front of the famous CFC monogram resplendent in club suit and tie).
Clarrie Gange officiated as Carlton’s Social Secretary for seven years, from 1955 through to ’61, the year players and officials frequented the Chevron. In that time the Social Committee of which Gange was part ably assisted in many and varied social evenings and pleasant Sunday mornings throughout the seasons.
As Secretary, Clarrie served the 12-man Carlton Social Committee led by President Norm Holdsworth – the grandson of Isiah Holdsworth who established the family undertaking business at 366 Lygon Street in the late 19th century. In 1927, Holdsworths conducted the funeral of the notorious Melbourne underworld figure ‘Squizzy’ Taylor – a lavish affair complete with gold ornamented coffin, white horses and flower-laden drays for which the company was never paid.
Clarrie’s contributions to Carlton were truly valued. As the then President Lew Holmes noted in the 1960 Annual Report: “We thank all members of this Committee for the work they did for the Club during the year, and, in particular, our energetic Social Secretary, Mr. Clarrie Gange, for the very able manner in which he performed his many duties”.
But who was Clarrie Gange? The woman with all the answers is Clarrie’s long-time sweetheart Bronwyn Large, who recently completed a sentimental journey back to the old Carlton ground with Clarrie’s great grandson Trevor Gange.
(Clarrie Gange and Bronwyn Large dancing at the Carlton FC Annual Ball in the Exhibition Building’s Royale Ballroom in 1960)
Over a cuppa in The Carlton Cafe, 88 year-old Bronwyn confirmed that the Gange family originally hailed from South Gippsland, specifically the town of Dollar, where Clarrie was born on November 12, 1914.
Sometime later, the Ganges relocated to a home at 27 Cassels Road, just off Moreland Road in Brunswick - hence the territorial connection with Carlton.
“Clarrie was always Carlton for as long as I knew him . . . mad Carlton,” said Bronwyn, whose friendship with Clarrie was first forged through the friendships shared by their respective mothers.
“He never played football to my knowledge, he was more of a musician. Like his brother Arthur he played saxophone, but he also played clarinet, string base and at times sang. Music took up most of his time, particularly after 1946 when he took over the Galleon Coffee Lounge in Acland Street from a fellow who owned The Astoria in the city.
“All the identities, radio station performers and dance bands played there . . . and that was Clarrie’s life.”
Prior to the Second World War, Clarrie was conspicuous by his presence in dance bands on cruise ships such as the ‘Oronsay’ and ‘Orcades’ which sailed between Australia and America. In 1937, on the strength of his global forays, he rounded up a troupe of American and Canadian musicians and singers to form a dance known as ‘Clarrie Gange and his Americanadians - a Melbourne sensation.
For four years from 1941, Clarrie committed to the war effort in signals, but he also found time to entertain the troops. A clipping from The Argus of July 5, 1941 reads: “Members of the AIF at Darley camp will be entertained on Sunday evening by a large party or leading radio and stage artists. The entertainment, which has been arranged by Mr. Clarrie Gange, musical director, Glaciarium, will be broadcast over station 3UZ from 8 to 9 pm”.
As a consequence of the war, Clarrie experienced on-going battles with intermittent bouts of malaria which, according to Bronwyn, later precipitated recurring heart problems.
But the show must go on and so it was that Clarrie and his orchestras of renown frequented the many and varied ballrooms and music venues in and around Melbourne, including the long-gone ‘Green Mill’, later renamed the ‘Trocadero’ and then the ‘40’ Club on the site of what is now the Melbourne Arts Centre. Clarrie’s bands, all influenced by the swing bands so popular through the United States in the 1930s and ’40s, also played to audiences of more than 2000 at St Kilda’s ‘Palais de Dance’.
(Bronwyn’s 1964 Carlton FC season’s ticket, clipped at the Round 7 match with Fitzroy at Princes Park (Saturday, May 30) – the last game she and Clarrie saw together as Clarrie died hours later.)
Bronwyn’s personal memories of the Carlton Football Club and Clarrie are all pleasant, for these were days spent with her much-loved husband-to-be. Casting an eye around the vastly-different surrounds of the place she once knew, she remembered the many and varied preparations for matchdays at the old Princes Park ground.
“Clarrie and I used to go to the market on a Friday afternoon, then come back here. We used to freeze upstairs (in the since-demolished Robert Heatley Stand) getting pies, pasties, salads and refreshments ready on the Friday night before the match, because you couldn’t prepare them on matchday,” she said.
“The place was just so cold – a little bit different to what it is now – but they were great days because Carlton was such a friendly place.”
In the early 1960s, Clarrie took on the management of the Lemon Tree Hotel at the corner of Grattan and Rathdowne Streets - a place regularly frequented by Carlton footballers of the day, including the Nicholls brothers Don and John. Bronwyn remembered Clarrie returning to the pub following Princes Park games with the warning that a handful of players were on their way - “and I had to organise something for them to eat as there were no counter meals back then, only counter lunches”.
“By then, Clarrie was scaling down his commitments to Carlton as Social Secretary because he was beginning to experience health problems by then and he really shouldn’t have taken the Lemon Tree on . . . but he knew I was there to look after him,” Bronwyn said.
In November 1963, over a dinner at The Windsor to celebrate Bronwyn’s birthday, Clarrie proposed. To quote Bronwyn, “Clarrie pulled an engagement ring out of his pocket and placed it on my finger, where it’s been for the past 55 years”.
The future bride and groom were to have married on August 18, 1964 at St Margaret’s Anglican Church in Ripponlea . . . but they never made it down the aisle.
Eight weeks before the wedding, on the night of Saturday, May 30, and just hours after Clarrie and Bronwyn saw their beloved Blues beat Fitzroy by a point at Princes Park, he collapsed and died in her arms.
“The day before I remember Clarrie’s color wasn’t good, but I didn’t say anything,” Bronwyn recalled.
“The following evening we had dinner at my family’s house, 4 Huntington Grove in Coburg. He said to me he wanted to take a few things out to Tooronga Road where he was then living and where we were probably both going to live. He said ‘I’ll go now’, so we both stood up and not long after he slumped into my arms.
“I tried to save him from hitting the floor, but it didn’t matter in the scheme of things. He just sighed and that was it. It happened at eight o’clock, about three hours after the match and the Carlton players wore black armbands the following weekend.”
(Bronwyn with the photograph of herself and Clarrie dancing.)
If Bronwyn, who’s remained single her entire life, takes any comfort from her deeply personal loss it’s that Clarrie Gange - musician, bandleader, entertainer, musical entrepreneur and Carlton nut - lived his 49 years to the full.
“Clarrie was a fun-loving person. He always saw the funny side of things and he had a go at anything and everything. For instance he was a Coburg councillor for a period of his life, he was a racing man and he was a boxer also. He took a lot of keeping up with I can tell you,” Bronwyn said.
“Clarrie really loved the Blues, so much so that he convinced me to switch from Essendon – although we always had a two-shilling bet whenever the two teams played.
In a lovely postscript to this story, Bronwyn graciously donated hers and Clarrie’s 1964 Carlton season’s tickets - each clipped at Round 7, the last game they ever saw together.
Also handed in to the club for posterity was Clarrie’s secretarial tiepin and a number of precious photographs, including one of him and his beloved Bronwyn engaged in a quickstep, presumably to the strains of ‘Lily of Laguna’ - at the club’s 1960 Annual Ball on the Exhibition Building’s Royale Ballroom parquetry.
