Dan O’Meara’s Carlton connections can be sourced to the 1800s and span some six generations.
O’Meara’s great great grandmother Teresa McAlpine served as house-keeper for the Carlton Cricket Club’s inaugural President Sir Redmond Barry, while his great great grandfather Walter, a renowned keeper of wickets as the MCG’s resident curator, lived with Teresa in nearby Station Street.
And yet it was only when his father Michael recently delved into the family history, did the depth and breadth of the family’s passion for the boys of Princes Park emerge through precious Carlton postcards, some more than 100 years old.
“I only became aware of the cards a few weeks ago when my father started going through boxes that he’d been left from his family,” O’Meara said at Visy Park this week.
“These cards were passed onto me and my siblings and I really liked them, so I thought the club might be interested in seeing them.”
The tiny keepsakes serve as lovely throwbacks to a grand era of Carlton’s history under Jack Worrall, but also serve as glorious kindred mementoes.
As O’Meara said: “Right from the start my great great grandparents were locals and they supported Carlton in a very successful period through the 1900s, and it’s why the O’Mearas remain staunch Carlton supporters to this day”.
Amongst the postcard images is the unfurling of the first Carlton Premiership of 1906, what is thought to be the 1906 team mid-season, and an outfit of the late 1930s/early 1940s featuring the fearsome Bob Chitty.
And then there’s O’Meara’s favourite.
“It’s probably the postcard from Mary McAlpine (Walter and Teresa’s daughter) to Tom O’Meara,” he said.
“At the time of Carlton’s first Premiership of 1906 they would have been courting because it was the year before they married, and she felt the need to pass on the message of just how happy she felt about the Grand Final win to her future husband.”
Through the O’Meara clan’s generosity, scanned images of these historic postcards have now found their way into the Carlton Football Club archive, as the family’s love for the mighty Blues endures.
As O’Meara said: “I’m one of six kids, all Carlton, and I’ve got three young boys who are all Carlton too – and none of us would have it any other way.”
