The night may not have finished as we all hoped it would, but for over 570 guests in the President’s Function for the Carlton home game against St Kilda on Friday night, it was a great start to the evening. Indeed it didn’t matter who you supported because H G Nelson provided a wonderful look into a few of the key issues from the 2008 AFL season.

H G (Greig Pickhaver) was the special guest of the Carlton Football Club for the game and he had his view on a number of these issues, including the interchange fiasco, establishment of new teams and a number of other matters that have received media attention in 2008.

Greig is an avid Carlton supporter and he flew to Melbourne from his home in Sydney with his son and daughter (both Carlton supporters) to be at the game. As a long-time Blues fan he was delighted to be sitting at the head table for the function with Stephen Kernahan, Greg Swann and Mike Fitzpatrick. Indeed he watched the game sitting next to the dual Carlton Premiership Captain who is now the AFL Commission Chairman.

While Greig was pleased to be involved with the evening and chatting with the former Carlton greats, there were plenty of guests very keen to catch up with Greig or HG during the night. Carlton premiership players Greg Williams and Adrian Gleeson were two guests who made the time to catch up with Greig during the dinner.

The game result wasn’t what the majority of guests in the dinner were looking for but at least they had a great start to the night, thanks to the wit of H G Nelson (Greig Pickhaver).