“Unique, different, eccentric, contradictory – you could use all those adjectives to describe him and you could still draw on many, many more.”

So said the long-serving Carlton Chairman of Selectors and Reserve Grade coach Col Kinnear of the late Geoffrey Thomas Luke – “Brother” Luke as he was endearingly known to countless Carlton players and staffers -  who has died at the robust age of 92 after a life well-lived.

At Fawkner Cemetery’s Cordell Chapel on Monday, Kinnear, Carlton’s former Reserve grade Premiership Coach, and long-serving Football Manager and Chairman of Selectors, will deliver a heartfelt eulogy for Luke – Carlton’s long-serving Honorary Physiotherapist from the Lew Holmes years of the late 1950s.

Kinnear himself knew Geoff for almost as long. “I first met him in the early 1960s when I was at University High and he was a physiotherapist practicing in Lygon Street,” Kinnear remembered.

“He came from Swan Hill originally, served through the war in the Navy and from the Navy pursued the profession of physiotherapy. He was one of the first physiotherapists, he worked for a time at Port Melbourne and for many years was in charge of physiotherapy at the Austin Hospital.”

Kinnear believed that Luke’s association with Carlton can be sourced to 1957. His name first appears as Honorary Physiotherapist in the Carlton Football Club’s annual report of 1960, and a quote taken from the General Manager’s report of that year reads: “Geoff Luke, Physiotherapist, was ever ready to treat the many injuries players receive during a hard season . . . ”

So it was for the better part of four decades, during which time Luke touched many souls.

“When players first rocked up they wondered who this old bloke was with all his methods, but in no time they got to love him as a person. They could relate to him in every way,” Kinnear said.

Attesting to that fact is the former Carlton Captain and Premiership player Anthony Koutoufides, who said of Luke: “He was one of the unique characters of the club. He was a very knowledgeable man, he taught me a lot, he was level-headed, had good values and good morals in life”.

From Comben to “Kouta”, such was the sentiment for Brother Luke, for as Kinnear unhesitatingly declared: “From as far back as the 1950s, people who knew him will remember him as a wonderful man”.

“I remember when Phil Pearlstein took over the medical department in 1992 there was only one proviso – Brother Luke stayed,” Kinnear said.

“He had a passion for life, was one of the most knowledgeable men you could imagine, and he could relate to anyone whether 19 or 90.”

For this most engaging of characters, physiotherapy was but one of Luke’s passions. He also maintained an active interest in botany and as Kinnear suggested, “If you put two and two together he looked after players and he looked after players’ gardens”.

“He had knowledge of politics, a knowledge of medicine, a knowledge of botany and a knowledge of nature, but he’d never force that knowledge on anyone - and yet if someone wanted to learn from him he’d only be too willing to help,” Kinnear said.

Complementing the Luke persona was a colorful dress sense which, as Kinnear fondly recalled, led to the odd issue with sponsors. As he dryly suggested: “Brother was always likely to have an Avco top on when it was supposed to be an Optus top or an Optus top when it was supposed to be a Hyundai top or a Hyundai top when it was supposed to be a Nike top - but that was him”.

Of course, the dress sense mattered little in the scheme of things, for what mattered most was the Luke legacy left on the place and its people.

“He was loved and respected because he was Brother Luke. He called everyone Brother – Brother Kinnear, Brother Williams, Brother Buckley, brother Nicholls - and in turn you got to call him Brother. That was the way he was,” Kinnear said.

“It’s a big comment to make, but I don’t think there’d be anyone more respected a person at this football club as a support staff member than Geoff Luke. He was a wonderful Carlton person.”

A Life Member of the Carlton Football Club, Luke is survived by his sons David and Andrew and their spouses, together with his grandchildren and great grandchildren. His wife Paloma, daughter Nikki and son Simon predeceased him.

Geoff “Brother” Luke’s funeral will be held at the Cordell Chapel, Fawkner Memorial Park on Monday, February 17, 2014 at 10.30am, followed by burial in the northern Memorial Park Cemetery, Box Forest Road, Fawkner. There, loved ones will bid farewell to a unique character remembered as “a vibrant, erudite man who touched all who met him”.