For years the “Tris di pasta Donnini” dish - that’s Donnini’s delectable trio of pasta on a plate - has reigned supreme at Lygon Street’s famous family eatery.

But mine host Marco Donnini has vowed to rename the Italian speciality “Tris di pasta Silvagni” for at least the next seven days, in tribute to Carlton’s drafting of young Jack - the third generation member of football’s equally famous clan.

As was the case in 1958 when Sergio first turned out in dark Navy Blue, the Asti is flowing at Casa Donnini in acknowledgment of the fact that the Carlton-Silvagni-Lygon Street synergy endures, at least for the term of Silvagni Mark III.

“Now that Jack has been drafted, I’m only too happy to rename the dish ‘Tris di pasta Silvagni’ for a period of time,” said Donnini, who heard Jack’s name called by the old man and Carlton’s resident List Manager Stephen.

Marco Donnini with his three sons Frankie, Rocky and Leo. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)
Marco Donnini with his three sons Frankie, Rocky and Leo. (Photo: Carlton Media)

“I am so pumped about this. It’s so exciting. Speaking on behalf of the family, which is itself a third generation family business in Carlton, this is a Donnini-Silvagni marriage made in heaven.

“The fact that my father opened an Italian restaurant with Jack’s father Stephen in the 1990s also rubberstamps that association.”

“The Silvagni name is just as important as the Donnini name, and that’s not just in a football club sense but in a suburb sense.

“When people think of Carlton they think ‘Silvagni’.

Donnini noted that the Silvagnis have frequented the restaurant for years, with Jack most recently upholding the family tradition.

“Jack’s been in at least once every couple of weeks and speaking from experience as a father I couldn’t be more proud to have a son like him,” Donnini said.

“He is an outstanding young man. He’s intelligent, respectful and has all the morals and values required to take him on the right path – and he can play footy.

“Jack is a genuine talent. We might all have to wait a while, but the prospect of him running out in the famous Carlton guernsey is very, very exciting.”

The Donnini connection with Carlton and Lygon Street can be sourced to 1952 when Marco’s grandfather, the Italian migrant Nando Donnini, disembarked the passenger ship Florentia.

Nando didn’t take long to embrace the football club, for as Marco’s father Tiberio previously pointed out: “We’re talking the late 1950s – a time when Dad and Ernie Angerame (once the football club’s official barber) sold Carlton membership tickets out of the University Café”.

The Silvagni-Carlton connection can be sourced to 1924, when Stephen’s grandfather, the northern Italian migrant “Jack” Silvagni, lugged his suitcase down the gangway from the steamship Regina d’Italia and into a new life.

Jack had been at sea for seven weeks, and he eventually found digs in Carlton’s Canning Street - but not before he’d spent his first night in the new country sleeping beneath a pile of newspapers by a Moreton Bay fig tree in Melbourne’s Exhibition Gardens.

Stephen’s father Sergio, the middleman in perhaps football’s most famous triumvirate of “Nicholls, Silvagni and Gallagher”, lived in the old single-fronted dwelling on Canning Street for the first 25 years of his life until his marriage to Rita in 1963.

A few years ago, in an interview with this reporter, “Serge” spoke of having to keep a low profile through tough times in post-war Melbourne.


Sergio Silvagni's arrival in the late 1950s helped the Italian community connect with the Australian game. (Photo: Carlton Football Club)

“When the war broke out, a year after I was born, the Italians suddenly became enemies,” he recalled. "The Italians who had taken out citizenship here were all right but Dad never bothered, so after a while he was sent away to an alien camp in Broadford, where he lived in a tent and cut timber.

“I was only about four at the time, but I will always remember him leaving. He was lucky enough to be detained for only a couple of months; some of the Italians served three or four years . . .

“Because the Italians were seen as enemies through the war, I had to be a very quiet and low-key kid, almost introverted. I just kept quiet and kept to myself, but playing sport was a way of assimilating. I started playing football at St. Thomas’ in Clifton Hill. I enjoyed it and it just went from there.”

Sergio Silvagni’s CV at Carlton reads as follows; 239 games for 136 goals from 1958-’71; Premiership player 1968 and ’70; best and fairest 1962 and ’68; leading goalkicker (40) in 1958; Captain in 1964; coach in 1978; Carlton Team of the Century ruck-rover; and two-time Victorian representative.

As for Stephen’s, there are uncanny parallels. 312 games for 202 goals from 1985-’01; Premiership player 1987 and ’95; best and fairest 1990 and ’96; Carlton and VFL/AFL Team of the Century full-back; eight-time Vic rep and seven-time All-Australian.

Today, the Silvagni name is as much a part of the Lygon Street vernacular as Borsari’s Corner. But it wasn’t always the case as Serge explained.


Stephen and Serge Silvagni. (Photo: Supplied)

“I had some friends at Carlton who were playing in the thirds,” he said, “and on practice match days of a Saturday you’d have the thirds, reserves and seniors, and each boasted a squad of 50 players from which to select.

“I was still a schoolboy attending Parade College when I went along to the Carlton ground to try out with my mates. I turned up at half-past nine in the morning to get a run with the thirds, but when the teams were named they said to me, ‘Son, run the boundary’.

“During the course of the game, a few other leftover players got a run, but at the quarter-time and half-time breaks they told me to keep running the boundary. It wasn’t until the third quarter that they put me on their gun full-forward, but I managed to blitz on this bloke.

“”In the end I discovered how lucky I’d been to even make it on the ground. The reason I hadn’t got the call-up earlier was because they knew I could play but they didn’t know how to pronounce my name.”

Jack will have no such worry.