In a series of features on Carlton Members representing ten decades of membership
No 1: Myer Brott: 83 years and counting
Myer Brott, at 94 the Carlton Football Club’s longest-serving member.
No 2: Dad’s seat is just what the doctor ordered
Dr Trevor Brott acknowledges his beloved father Myer’s deep power of persuasion as crucial to his on-going support for all things Carlton.
No 3: Ruby a fully-fledged 21st century Blue
Ruby Owen was a regular at Carlton games in Melbourne throughout 2009 alongside older brother Thomas and father Peter.
No 4: It’s The Bloodbath and beyond for true Blue Joan
A proud member of the club since the tender age of four, Joan’s earliest memories of Carlton involve the 1945 Grand Final
No 5: Shane embodies the Spirit of Carlton
Carlton has been a huge part of Shane Morris' life since he became a member on birth in 1950 and still recalls the all the player numbers of the 1950s and 1960s.
No 6: Blue is the colour for Renee and Scarlett
Three week old Scarlett Costa's great grandmother Ida continued a family tradition when she lodged the membership papers for her to become the club's latest member.
No 7: Blue Ben waiting for the next big thing
Ben Shepherd’s 18 years as a Carlton member has seen the best and worst
No 8: Betty Blue still true, 72 years on
Betty Herrick knows that she first became a member in 1938 and she’s still got her ’38 membership card to prove it.
No 9: From Jezza to Judd . . . Mary remains the Carlton constant
Mary Robertson's connection with Carlton has been territorial since she was a young girl in the 1960's.

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Shane embodies the Spirit of Carlton

Shane Morris relates a wonderful tale about the time he entered the players’ inner sanctum deep within the red brick walls of the since-demolished Robert Heatley Stand sporting his father’s old number 3 Carlton guernsey of sorts.

He tells of how his father used to turn out for Carlton Rovers, on one of the grounds adjacent to the main Carlton oval, and how the Rovers guernsey was a dead-ringer for the coveted dark Navy Blue strip with white CFC monogram.

“I was wearing Dad’s number 3 guernsey when the Carlton Football Club’s number 3, Dave McCulloch, had just arrived as a new recruit from Glenthompson,” Morris, now 59, says.

“Now one of the seconds players, John Mickelson, who was taking my sister out at the time, got me into the rooms one day, and Dave McCulloch spotted me and said; ‘Oh there’s a young bloke with my No.3 on his back’.

“I remember saying to him ‘It’s not your number Dave, it’s my Dad’s’, but it didn’t really matter. Whenever I got into the rooms, which was often, Dave used to come over and make a fuss of me, and that was great.”

Another vivid memory of Shane’s is sneaking on at three quarter-time of a game in the late 1950s to hear Jack Carney address the reserves team. “I was only a kid and I don’t think I’ve heard more colourful language used before or since. That was quite a shock,” he says.

Shane’s name first appears on Carlton’s membership books in 1950. He was born on September 14 of that year and reckons his Dad lodged his membership papers with the club the next day.

“I’m not sure how much the membership cost, but it was quite disproportionate to what Dad was earning . . . he wasn’t earning really good wages then and for some years it was a real battle to pay it, but when I got old enough I was able to pay for it myself,” says Shane, a newspaper contractor of more than 30 years experience for the Herald & Weekly Times.

As the Morris family lived in Fenwick Street, between Canning and Station Streets, Fitzroy was the subject of early interest “because we knew a lot of the Fitzroy players”.

“But Dad would also take me to Carlton games because the ground was so close. He would always take a couple of bottles of beer to the footy and I’d stand on the beer carton by the old scoreboard to watch the game,” Shane says.

The fact that the late Fred Stafford was domiciled at Fenwick Street didn’t hurt either. As Shane recalls, “I used to see him walk the dog and Mum would always say ‘There goes the man who won us the ’47 Grand Final’”.

Through the late 1950s and early 1960s, Shane would come to know the Carlton players by number.

“I used to know all the numbers and I still know them now,” he says. “One, Sergio Silvagni . . . two, John Nicholls . . . three, Dave McCulloch . . . four, Brian Buckley . . . five, Ken Greenwood . . . six, Leo Brereton . . . seven, Bruce Williams . . . eight, John Benetti . . . nine, Berkeley Cox . . . and ten, Johnny James . . .

Shane followed Carlton through thick and thin, particularly thin in that period up to and including the 1964 season, in which the team freefell to what was then its lowest standing of tenth in its Centenary Year.

Not that it tested Shane’s loyalties as much as the Pagan years “when my mates used to tape wooden spoons to my door”.

“But I reckon we’ve turned the corner,” he asserts.

In any event, Shane was more than prepared to wear this pain because, like all Carlton members and supporters of his generation, he knows that he’s been well and truly spoilt.

“I’ve seen every premiership since 1968 and there’s not too many games that I’ve missed,” he says.

“I sat in the Gardiner Stand for more than a quarter of a century, “and I even roped my wife into watching with me. And that’s because Carlton has always been such a part of my life.”