In the house were Mike Fitzpatrick, Adrian Gallagher, Wayne Johnston, Stephen Kernahan, Geoff Southby and Robert Walls, together with the Team of the Century Coach David Parkin, and a solid core of Carlton people who for years have lent the club their unswerving support.
Fitzpatrick, Johnston, Kernahan and Walls each regaled some wonderful tales of their unique experiences at the place in interviews with Col Kinnear.
Johnston, considered one of the greatest finals performers of his or any other era, and a four-time Premiership player in a golden era for club, said the unwritten rule in his day was that be acknowledged as a bone fide player you had to perform in September.
“The big stage was where you had to be if you wanted to be a Carlton footballer,” he said. “That was the way it was and there were to be no excuses whether you won or lost.”
Walls, himself a three-time premiership player, remembered how well the club cared for him at a particularly difficult moment early on his career.
“What did Carlton mean to me? I’ll give you a bit of an idea. When I played my first game for Carlton in 1967 my father was in hospital having suffered a heart attack. The next week I played in the seniors and the week after that, but my Dad was still in hospital and then passed away, so he never saw me play senior League footy, but he knew I played which to me was something I’m really grateful for,” Walls said.
“Now (Ron) Barassi took an interest in everyone but I guess he took a special interest in me because he wanted to support me through that tough time...
“I also remember I was going to give school away at that time. I was in form five and I thought ‘I need to go out and get a job to help my Mum’. But people at the Carlton Football Club came home and sat around the kitchen table with Mum and said ‘We’ll look after all his school costs and we’ll give you a bit of money on the side just to make sure you get by’. You never forget that. That’s something you never forget.”
Carlton Legends Robert Walls and Wayne Johnston.
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