He was born in the year Norman “Hackenschmidt” Clark’s Carlton completed the back-to-back Premiership double of 1915. He would savour each of the Blues’ next 11 Grand Final triumphs along the way. And he would live long enough to be bestowed with the ultimate accolade - a Life Membership of the club as its longest-serving Member for an incredible 88 years.

But Carlton – and football - was but part of the long life of Myer Brott, who died on Tuesday morning of this week after a short battle with ill health at the age of 99.

Myer was just a boy of three when Germany’s signing of the Armistice in a railroad carriage at Compiègne signalled a merciful end to the war to end all wars.

It was November 1918, and the German surrender saw Myer’s native Poland finally regain its independence - an independence reaffirmed through a succession of military conflicts, the most notable the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-’21 when its troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the Red Army.

But by the mid-1920s, Myer and his fellow countrymen were caught in the grip of grave political, economic and military disorder. So desperate were the times that in late 1926, after a coup d’etat took place in Warsaw claiming the lives of almost 400 soldiers and civilians, Myer, his two sisters and his mother, each packed their belongings and fled Poland forever.

Together they boarded the Melbourne-bound steamship Ceph?e at the French port of Versailles, and prepared for a welcome reunion with the Brott family patriarch, Samuel, who had left the old world for the new a year before - himself a victim of the persecution that was rife in Poland back then.

“These were extremely turbulent times and the family was very, very grateful that my grandfather made this decision and got out,” Myer’s son, Dr Trevor Brott said in a recent interview.

Myer Brott, the son of Jewish parents, was born in the Polish town of Lowitch, south-west of Warsaw, on April 15, 1915, ten days before the Gallipoli landing. He was barely 11 when he took those first tentative steps up the gangway of the Ceph?e and readied himself for the long and arduous voyage to the Great South Land.

At a time when everything was in short supply, young Myer displayed some genuine enterprise as the Ceph?e surely chugged its way to the other side of the world.

“Dad told me a very funny story about his time on the ship,” Trevor said. “His family were in the lowest, third class accommodation, and of course the food in third class was not very nice, so my father decided at some point that he would do something about it.

“So he sat between two families in first class and enjoyed first class meals, and this went on for a period of time until eventually someone asked him whose family he actually belonged to.”

Myer, his two sisters Zara and Cipa, and his mother Ester Malka were finally reunited with Samuel on the wharf in Melbourne, on Wednesday, October 12, 1926. Together the Brott clan completed the short trip to inner city Carlton, but there was barely time for an exchange of pleasantries.

As Myer’s older sister Zara later recalled in her memoirs;
 
“My father took us to a small cottage in Canning Street, North Carlton, and after we settled in my father said ‘Well on Monday you’re going to school’. I wasn’t too happy, I thought perhaps I would have had a longer holiday, but my father said to my brother and me, ‘You have had enough holiday already, we’ve been on the ship for two months’.

Myer and Zara were immediately enrolled at the nearby Lee Street Primary School, and while neither child could converse in English, both were quick learners and benefited enormously from the unswerving support of their empathetic teachers.

“The headmaster, Mr Empy, was a clever and understanding man. He realised that the first task with the children, some of them new kids in the class, was to teach them a little bit of English, and the best way to do it was to start from the bottom,” Zara wrote.

“So we all went to the kindergarten room, which was a large room with small tables and small chairs, blackboards and toys and little books. We sat down with Miss May, who was an 18 year-old trainee teacher. She was the one who started teaching us English. All of us were at an age that we could read and write, so she pointed to a table, wrote ‘table’ on the blackboard and we knew what she meant . . . and within six weeks we’d learnt some English.”

Myer’s capacity to learn was such that by 1930 he was personally awarded a gold medal by the former Lord Mayor of Melbourne Sir William Brunton (who two years later would formally open the Robert Heatley Stand) for an essay penned about the British Empire. That medal remains a treasured family heirloom.

On February 10, 1936, at the tender age of 20, Myer, then a science student, voluntarily enlisted for what would be two and a half-year stint with the Australian air force. At that time, Myer cited his residential address as 338 Rathdowne Street in Carlton North - not far from the old Carlton Football Ground - and it was Carlton for whom Myer pledged his lifelong support, taking out the first of 83 annual memberships (so far) in the 1927 season.

“Because my father was living around the corner in Canning Street, friends of his said ‘Come on, we’re going to the footy’,” Trevor said. “The season had started in ’27, he was hauled along to the footy and he’s basically been going ever since.

“My aunt remembers those early days when they all lived in Carlton. She said that whenever the Carlton team lost, my father would walk in the door, not talk to anyone and go to bed without eating dinner.

“Dad used to tell me how good players like Horrie Clover and ‘Soapy’ Vallence were. He told me about Alex Duncan, and ‘Duncan’s Match’ - the day he took 33 marks against Collingwood at Victoria Park . . . and of course he was at the ’38 Grand Final, the ’45 Bloodbath, the ’47 Grand Final and the Grand Final of ’68.

Though he initially embarked on a university course in the mid-1930s, harsh economic circumstance forced Myer to support his ailing father Samuel in the running of Samuel’s women’s clothing factory, Mantle Manufacturers, in Flinders Lane. Then in October 1942, after enlisting for the RAAF during the Second World War, Myer served his adopted country as a morse code operator on Melville Island, until his discharge at war’s end on August 1, 1945.

It was then that Myer pursued what would prove his life’s vocation.

“After the war, someone asked my father what he wanted to do when he got out of the rag trade. Dad replied that he wanted to work outdoors and the fellow suggested he become a builder, which he did,” Trevor said.

In 1948, Myer exchanged wedding vows with Rebecca “Bonnie” Sward, whom he had first met at her home in Rosemont Avenue in Caulfield. Bonnie gave birth to three children - two daughters Karen and Katrina, then young son Trevor - and the post war years were kind to all of them.

Myer’s highly-respected standing in the Melbourne community was such that in 1957 he also became a Justice of the Peace, a duty he carried out with distinction for 50 years.

Until recently, Myer and Bonnie had lived comfortably in an aged care facility in Brighton. Until recently, he had joined Trevor in taking up their reserved seating on Carlton matchdays, some 80 winters since the 11 year-old boy from Lee Street Primary first stood on the weather beaten terraces of the ground he grew to love.

At Carlton’s most recent Annual General Meeting at the MCG in December, Trevor graciously accepted Myer’s Life Membership award on his father’s behalf. To the end, Myer’s beautiful friendship with the old dark Navy Blues endured.

In an impassioned address, Trevor told of his father’s love affair with the Carlton Football Club, first nurtured by the on-field exploits of men of stature like Horrie Clover and Harry Vallence.

“Regrettably, my father’s not well enough to be here today. Robert, my son, and I, are however honoured to be able to accept on his behalf his Life Membership award on this momentous occasion of the club’s 150^th year,” Trevor said in his acceptance speech.

“Overall, I would say my father had three great loves in his life – his country, his family and his footy club.”

As a mark of respect to the late Myer Brott, Carlton Captain Marc Murphy and his fellow team members will wear black armbands for the match with Collingwood at the MCG.