Ninety two year-old Irene Thorpe, in consultation with her daughters Margaret Gabbedy and Maureen Thorp, resolved that the precious item belonged at the football club in the interests of subsequent generations of Carlton supporters.
At Visy Park this week, Margaret (pictured at right) and Maureen completed the handover, before visiting the Carlton rooms and posing for photographs by Charlie’s old No.7 locker.
The cap, upon which the words “VFL Premiers 1915” are embroidered, also carries a blue and white shield later woven into the peak. Known as “The Veribest”, the cap was fashioned by Flinders Street hatmakers Lincoln Stuart & Co. Ltd.
“I’m told players used to play in those caps, which may account for why the peak is slightly worn,” Margaret said.
Incredibly, the long-forgotten cap was only re-discovered in 2011, some 96 years after it was first awarded (and 28 years after Charlie’s death), in Fisher’s old house at 13 Stanley Street, Brunswick.
“Mum always said that there was a cap around, but we never knew what happened to it. That was until last year when my aunt Clarice packed up to move house and the cap finally surfaced,” Margaret said.
According to Margaret, the family was once in possession of other Carlton artefacts like Charlie’s framed Life Membership certificate and a gold medal awarded to him for winning a kicking competition involving St Kilda’s Dave McNamara, but both items have since gone missing.
Born in 1892 to William (a second cousin to the first Labor Prime Minister Andrew Fisher) and Isabella nee Miller, Charles Henry “Spot” Fisher represented Carlton in 111 senior matches, booting 147 goals between 1914 and ’21 - the final season alongside his brother-in-law, the aptly-nicknamed “Sir” Walter Raleigh. Charlie also captained the club in 1919, the same season he took out Carlton’s goalkicking award with 34.
Margaret remembered her grandfather as “a great teller of stories” and a lifelong Carlton supporter who as the club’s No.1 ticketholder eventually relinquished the title to Robert Menzies.
“He played for Kyabram but he was from Cobram originally,” Margaret said. “His mother and father both hailed from Scotland - him in 1856, her in 1863 - and were amongst the first settlers in Cobram, having made their way there from Ararat in a covered wagon pulled by a team of six horses.
“Charlie was on of 17 children. I don’t believe they all survived, but there were triplets and twins in the family. He was a great character, a very generous man and he was tough. When he patted you on the back you stayed patted and he would have gone through them on the football field.
“He was also double-jointed, which meant he could kick anywhere in an arc. My father said he learned more of the craft from Wal Raleigh rather than Charlie ‘because Charlie was a freak who tried to get you to do what he could do and you couldn’t’.”
Carlton has in its keep another Premiership cap of yesteryear, a 1908 cap whose wearer remains unknown.
It is anticipated that both caps will soon be displayed at Visy Park.
