O’Shaughnessy was part of the club’s 16-man committee, serving as deputy to the chairman and inaugural Carlton Brownlow Medallist Bert Deacon in its maiden year of 1965.
But he was a man of many hats.
Brian Xavier Patrick O’Shaughnessy, the second of three sons of John and Violet (nee Marchant) O’Shaughnessy, was born in Melbourne on January 10, 1921.
A Xavier College student from 1933-’37, O’Shaughnessy excelled at a variety of sporting pursuits, whether football, cricket, swimming, tennis, table tennis or high-jumping. In later years, he built an elaborate high-jump structure in the backyard of the family home, where he passionately conveyed the rudiments of high-jumping to his boys Chris and Tim.
“Dad was also a very good public speaker,” Tim explained. “He was actually involved in debating and, as a member of the debating association, was asked by the seminarians to assist trainee priests with public speaking.”
On leaving school, O’Shaughnessy found work with the Colonial Mutual Life Insurance co. for what would prove an all-too-brief tenure. As Tim conceded “he hadn’t yet developed a work ethic and used to steal away to the pictures”. “It probably explains why he was known to people at Colonial Mutual at the time as ‘THAT Brian O’Shaughnessy’,” Tim said.
In late 1941, O’Shaughnessy, then a member of the Citizen Military Reserve Forces, enlisted for wartime service. Assuming duties as a commanding officer on Kokoda, he earned a handsome reputation amongst the troops for fairness, despite labouring with a severe bout of dysentery and dengue fever that rendered him a seven-stone physical wreck.
Before leaving for Papua New Guinea, O’Shaughnessy met his future wife Margery Joy Davies in delightfully unorthodox circumstances.
“Dad was a good dancer and a good skater, and he met Mum at the old St Moritz skating rink,” Tim said. “He was supposed to meet a girlfriend there, but turned up earlier and saw Mum who was there with some friends.
“That night he went home and told his parents ‘I’ve met the girl I’m going to marry . . . so if my girlfriend calls tell her I’ve got a broken leg’.”
Brian and Margery married at the Xavier Chapel in August 1944. Wedded bliss would prevail for almost 70 years until Margery’s sudden passing last September.
Towards the end of the war, O’Shaughnessy and his young bride briefly settled in Emerald where Brian managed a local service station and drove a petrol truck for Caltex. In 1945 the couple relocated to Parkville, forging territorial links with the Carlton Football Club and supporting the old dark Navy Blues from then on.
O’Shaughnessy also ventured into real estate, serving as an agent/sales manager for Abercrombie & Beatty, which catered for the highbrow Toorak end of the property market. He also formed an association with the Camberwell Amateur Football Club, first as coach, later as president, and as a keen golfer regularly teed off at Huntingdale where he ultimately earned life membership.
O’Shaughnessy’s official involvement with Carlton can be sourced to the pivotal year of 1965, when George Harris and the Progress Party assumed board control and landed Ron Barassi in one of the game’s greatest coaching coups. O’Shaughnessy joined Bert Deacon on the newly-formed Carlton Social Committee and under their watch, the committee convened seven Pleasant Sunday mornings and three club dances through the ’65 season.
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Brian O’Shaughnessy and Alex Jesaulenko ham it up in Paris, France.
In the Carlton annual report of that year, Harris was drawn to write: “The Social committee magnificently and untiringly directed by Bert Deacon and his Deputy Brian O’Shaughnessy, have broken all efforts this year and no thanks can adequately compensate the members of the Social committee for the quite amazing time and effort put in . . . ”.
When Deacon stood down in 1966, O’Shaughnessy assumed the social committee chairmanship for what would be the first of four years, as the committee continued to service the Members and supporters with the staging of various player functions. Committee members, including the official Carlton barber Ernie Angerame and the treasurer John Perriam, also arranged for the publication and distribution of the Carlton Newsletter at home matches, which kept Members informed of all club happenings.
In October 1972, in the wake of the team’s famous Grand Final victory over Richmond, O’Shaughnessy accompanied the party of players and officials on Carlton’s World Tour, which took in a match with the All-Stars at The Oval in Surrey in the presence of HRH The Prince of Wales.
Brian O’Shaughnessy meets Prince Charles at The Oval, 1972.
O’Shaughnessy, officiating as goal umpire in that contest, was famously pictured shaking hands with the Prince, and, according to his son, party to the following brief verbal exchange.
HRH: “Who are you?”
O’Shaughnessy: “The lolly boy.”
HRH: “Oh . . . joke.”
Though the 1970s and 80s, O’Shaughnessy’s services were keenly sought by Carlton (and indeed rival clubs) as a Tribunal advocate. In a hearing reported in The Age in May 1982, O’Shaughnessy successfully defended the then Carlton captain Mike Fitzpatrick against a charge of striking the late St Kilda footballer Trevor Barker with a forearm.
In another case involving Colin Hounsell, the “colourfully verbose” O’Shaughnessy (as The Age’s Mike Sheahan wrote) got the South Melbourne rover off a charge of whacking Footscray’s Terry Wheeler. Describing the diminutive Hounsell as a “fleaweight”, O’Shaughnessy was drawn to say: “You wouldn’t think he’d do much damage even if he took aim”.
Two years ago, O’Shaughnessy graciously donated precious home movie film shot by him of the Carlton team’s first training session for the ’65 season under Barassi, at the Balnarring property of the then match committee member Jack Wrout.
On the occasion of O’Shaughnessy’s 90th birthday, former Carlton footballers Rod Ashman and David McKay joined Barassi in conveying their best wishes by way of a video tribute to their old friend.
Another former Carlton footballer and long-serving administrator, the outgoing Etihad Stadium CEO Ian Collins, had been approached by O’Shaughnessy’s son Tim to deliver the eulogy at this Friday’s funeral, but unfortunately had to decline on the basis that he’s heading to the Gold Coast to see his grandson lead Chris Judd and co. onto Metricon Stadium as a club mascot.
Collins fondly remembered O’Shaughnessy as a wonderful character and loyal club identity.
“Brian was a great guy, and he was 91 and a half . . . he was there under the Harris regime and looked after the Carlton Social Committee, which ran all the fundraising activities for the club at the time, including the raffles,” Collins said.
“He was very passionate about the club and very responsible. He had the gift of the gab, could talk underwater, so we got him to be one of the first Tribunal advocates in the true sense, and he did a very good job. He initially represented Carlton players at the Tribunal, but because of his competency many other clubs went with him. He was a great Carltonian, his whole family were Carlton from start to finish and even his grandchildren today are very loyal Carlton people.”
O’Shaughnessy lived a complete life and was, as his son Tim insisted, “irrepressible to the end”.
Survived by his sons Chris and Tim and their families, O’Shaughnessy will be farewelled at a requiem mass at St Peter’s Church Toorak this Friday (August 24) from 11.30am, before his cremation at Springvale.
His ashes will then be returned to St Peter’s, and interred with those of his dear wife Margery in the church’s memorial garden.
