Betty Herrick’s steadfast loyalty to Carlton spans the past three quarters of a century - and she has the 75 seasons tickets to prove it.

But it’s only now that she’s taken the tickets from the shoebox and had them framed, as constant visual reminders of a lifetime of joy her football club and its players have brought.

Of the 75 coupons in Betty’s keep, 11 of them correspond with Carlton premiership seasons, from her first in 1938 through to the last in ’95. She’s been there for all of them, “The Bloodbath” included, and as she readily attested “I’d love to be there to see the Blues win another”.

In 2009, when she kindly agreed to participate in a club membership promotion, Betty took time out to reflect on her unswerving allegiance to the only team old Carlton knows, revealing that the love was territorially-driven.

“I lived in Brunswick, at 49 Victoria Street, and most of the people who lived in Brunswick followed Carlton,” Betty said at the time.

“Mind you, some other members of my family followed Fitzroy, because ‘Dinny’ Ryan was a friend of my sister and mother. In fact, Dinny was with us the night he won the Brownlow Medal in ’36. He heard his name declared on the radio then cycled over to the old Fitzroy ground in Brunswick Street. ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn was also another friend. I visited ‘Chicken’ when he broke his leg and I signed the plaster cast.”

But what of the ’38 triumph?

“I remember Jack Carney on the wing, Harry Vallence at full-forward and the coach Brighton Diggins,” she explained. “I was 14 years old then, and I sat with a couple of my work friends in bay 12.”

Work friends at 14? “Oh yes,” came the reply. “By 1938 I’d left St Ambrose’s Primary School and had started work at Davies & Coop, a textile factory in Lygon Street. Davies & Coop made the first windcheaters and I used to pack them. They also made singlets and underwear for the soldiers during wartime.”