Sister Madeleine Lawrence - Carlton’s (and perhaps League football’s) oldest supporter - has died peacefully at Young’s Mercy Convent in southern New South Wales at the age of 110.

Sister Madeleine, who lived through each of the Blues’ 16 League premierships since 1906, died in her sleep last Sunday night.

The second of seven children of Patrick and Ada Lawrence, Sister Madeleine (then Catherine) Lawrence was born in Notting Hill on December 8, 1902 towards the end of the Boer War.

Having recently celebrated the 90^th anniversary of her final vows (she was the oldest living nun in the southern hemisphere), Sister Madeleine was but a toddler when Carlton fronted up against Fitzroy in its first VFL Grand Final of 1904.

And she was a girl of four when the team, under Jack Worrall, exacted sweet revenge on the Maroons in the 1906 Grand Final - the first of three premierships in succession with a baker’s dozen to follow.

Having unhesitatingly declared Stephen Kernahan the greatest Carlton footballer ever to lace a boot, Sister Madeleine revealed in a recent interview that she always kept a soft spot for Carlton from the days of silent film, when she boarded a Goulburn-bound train to join the Sisters of Mercy and further her career as a schoolteacher.

“I was always interested in teaching and encouraging children to play football,” said Sister Madeleine, who plied her craft in various primary schools and orphanages throughout the Riverina - Finley and Jerilderie amongst them.

“In those days each of the children I taught followed a football team, still do, and the team that most children at Jerilderie supported was Carlton.

“Of course, you had to take up the same interest as them, and that’s how Carlton came to be my team . . . and if you ask me to name the greatest player? . . . Kernahan.”

Though she lived in retirement at the convent for the past quarter of a century, Sister Madeleine still received the occasional greeting card from an old pupil.

The card would find its way to her room, sometimes beneath the closed door onto which the sign “Gone to Melbourne” was pinned whenever she tuned in to the latest Carlton game on the telly.

“While I don’t expect them to be on the top all of the time because there has to be a sharing of winning, Carlton teams have generally taken all before them,” Sister Madeleine said.

“Whether the team wins or loses, I still watch Carlton play. The interest is still there.”

Late last year, the Carlton Football Club saw fit to grant Sister Madeleine honorary membership, not surprisingly with the imprimatur of her poster boy, the President S. Kernahan.

“Sister Madeleine, the Carlton Football Club extends its very best wishes to you . . . we thank you sincerely for your on-going support of Carlton,” Kernahan said at the time.