“Patience” is a word you probably won’t find in the Carlton vernacular - and it’s fair to say the tolerance of all supporters was tested through the late 1910s, ’20s and early-mid 30s as their teams fell agonizingly short on that one day in September.

In the wake of the team’s 1915 Grand Final triumph over Collingwood, another 23 years would lapse (and three Grand Finals would be lost) before the good guys again savoured Premiership success.

And again it came at the expense of the black and whites.

That was three quarters of a century ago - Grand Final 1938 - when Brighton Diggins captained and coached the Carlton team to its drought-breaking 15-point triumph over Collingwood, 15.10 (100) to 13.7 (85), before a then record crowd of 96,486.

Don McIntyre, who turned 98 in March, was there that day. Named in the back pocket, he is the only surviving member of the 1938 Grand Final team and as such its only surviving pre-World War II Premiership player.

At the time of publication, Don’s whereabouts are unfortunately unknown. A single man, he is now believed to be domiciled in a nursing home, but the club has lost contact with him and members of his extended family.

A 100-game defender for the old dark Navy Blues between 1935 and 42, Don generously donated four precious items of memorabilia for future display at the club - the Terry Ogden Memorial Medal for Most improved Player in 1936; the Angus Travill Medal and Robert Reynolds Trophy for best and fairest in 1937; and the 1938 VFL Premiership Medal.

That happened three years ago and McIntyre respectfully asked that he not be quoted for this story.

But in 2008, in an interview at his then home to mark the 70^th anniversary of the ’38 Grand Final victory, McIntyre’s thoughts turned to the after-match celebrations and to the then captain-coach Brighton Diggins.

“I remember at the premiership dinner in the old Hotel Argus in Elizabeth Street we were all seated and ready to start eating, and there was no Brighton around,” McIntyre said.

“After about ten minutes we saw him coming through the door holding up both hands full of notes . . . he’d been collecting whatever he could from his betting, at double-figure odds, before the season even started.”

The following are Don’s throwbacks to a different time and place - reminiscences of his life as a Carlton player – which he shared in that 1998 interview.

The Great Depression

“Being in the middle of the Depression, jobs were more important than training and as a result all the fellows made sure they did the right thing at work. The main thing was people worrying about how on earth they were going to get jobs and those who did were on low wages and so on, which meant that the standard of living was not very great.”

Joining Carlton, 1935

“I was very impressed from day one with the management of Carlton. They were a remarkably impressive lot of blokes. There was Dave Crone, who was in his last year as President then, followed by Ken Luke who, everyone knows, was such an outstanding man to be in charge of whatever he undertook, Harry Bell was the assistant librarian at the State Parliamentary Library; Bill Bryson treasurer, Horrie Clover was still around, serving on the committee having recently retired; and the whole lot of them were very impressive for someone of my age anyhow, as well as all the other players.”

Princes Park

“For the time, bearing in mind that the real estate wasn’t all that impressive, the Heatley Stand was relatively new and the facilities were just fair. The training room was basically a bare room with a few lockers, tables and what have you and the bathing facilities were just so-so. I well remember being set back the first time I went into the shower room and there was one enormous bath there which took either four or five in and quite often you’d be in there with four or five others because there weren’t enough showers to go around. So Carlton’s facilities back then, when compared with today’s facilities, were equivalent to a third rate country club more than anything else.”

The guernsey

“I wore the No.2. I had no choice in the matter, I was just given it, and it became a very famous number as it turned out.”

‘Soapy’ Vallence

“The outstanding character really in the public eye who was at the last stage of his career, was Harry Vallence. He was a remarkable bloke Harry. He had a very good personality, and got on with people very easily indeed, whether on Sunday social occasions down at Mornington or at other social places around. He had a very good singing voice and after a drink or two he could easily be talked into entertaining the people who were there.”

Training

“There were no lights on in those days and it was quite dark by five o’clock, so those who could turn up for training did.”

Player wages

“The Coulter Law applied and as far as I know, without delving around into anyone else around the place to see if they had private arrangements or not, it was a straight three pounds a week – which, after all, when the basic wage was somewhere between five and six – half a season was particularly attractive to nearly everyone, particularly the players, especially the young married ones.”

The 1938 Grand Final

“The older Southern Stand stretched around to bay 14 or 15 at the time, and then there was quite a lot of standing room. In this particular game, the Grand Final against Collingwood, the ground was closed at half-past one because it was chock a block full. There were 97,000 there and the pressure of the people standing in the area at the sou-west corner where the opening was for the groundsmen and the like to go on, broke the fence . . . and quite a number . . . hundreds or thousands or so, were distributed around the outer side between the boundary line and the fence. Getting into it as far as I was concerned, the crowd was so thick that when you got in through the members area there it was almost like playing a quarter or two before you even got to the dressing room to get in.

My memory of the game itself is pretty dim in the main. I’ve thought about it on a number of occasions. The only impression I have is that there was nothing close or exciting about it, as it was around about the two to three-goal margin most of the time and that’s the way it was at the end. On recollection it wasn’t a very high standard game at all.”

100^th game

“The 100^th game of course was early in ’42, about the fourth game, and I was just ‘so so’ as far as any sort of form was concerned . . . (so) I was very lucky to make the hundredth. I’d been in the Air Force for about 12 months at that stage and on the Monday I was on the troop train going to Townsville and, later on, to New Guinea. So I was very lucky from that point of view to make the hundred.

I had about half a dozen postings around different islands and finished up in the second tour in Borneo on the northwest coast. I was in a unit that was waiting for the RAF to come along and take over and we were very late coming back.”

The Carlton theme song

“I doubted that any of us knew the words. It didn’t rate really highly with us. The song must have been introduced later.”

Grand Final night

“[The celebrations], I found, were a bit tame. I don’t know why – it was just a recollection. I didn’t drink in those days, so that was one thing. They had a couple of entertainers doing the usual things of singing and telling stories . . .  and Harry Vallence was the only one worth listening to when he and a couple of other players got up to sing a song or two. But by and large it didn’t impress me too much, but of course when you’re a non-drinker in that sort of atmosphere it colours the outlook a little bit – and also, you’re a bit weary after having played the game and going on towards midnight after that.

That was Harry Vallence’s last game. It was a nice way for him to go out and he doubled up really, when he went to Williamstown the following year and Williamstown won the premiership.”

About Carlton

“My greatest impression was to go in with a group of people who were keen about the club, so interested in doing well and taking a keen interest in the players too as they came along, and just the general atmosphere - it was a very pleasant, friendly club indeed.”