Jack Wrout was a Carlton legend. From 1936 to 1944 he played 130 games and booted 266 goals wearing the number 28 guernsey. Records indicate he was one of the best players in Carlton’s 1938 flag win, kicking four goals from centre half-forward.
Wrout’s career ended with a leg injury but later in life he served the club in a number of administrative roles - firstly as a committeeman, and later, as a legendary chairman of selectors.
Coach Ron Barassi with Jack Wrout to his right.
In 1978, after more than 30 years of service to the Club, he resigned from the committee due to ill-health, and was replaced by Wes Lofts. So revered was Jack as Chairman of Selectors that during periods of illness, when he was hospitalised, the match committee would bring in the playing list for his final approval before it was posted.
This week, as the Carlton Football Club embarks on the first leg of its high performance pre-season training camp in the United Arab Emirates, the Wrout family’s little weatherboard holiday home ‘Topsy’ on Balnarring Beach is to undergo renovations. This point would be of little consequence except Topsy is where Jack Wrout invited many famous Carlton Football Club players to stay with his family and train during pre-seasons including Premiership years 1968, 1970 and 1972.
'Topsy' in 2011.
The Balnarring beach hideaway earned its moniker from Jack’s oldest daughter Nancy, who as a child inherited the nickname ‘Topsy’ on account of her curly hair. Jack’s son John Wrout is now in the throes of renovating Topsy where the Carlton boys trained and where, from every window, you get a glimpse of Western Port Bay. Like his father, John is a bighearted Blue who loves to entertain. When he’s not launching his boat into the rolling swells of Bass Strait or entertaining guests with giant crayfish, caught off his Flinders Island property and cooked alfresco on the beach outside his house, he can be seen piloting a phantom ultralight plane visiting the sprawling properties and wineries of the southern Peninsula.
John recalls vividly growing up as the son of a Carlton legend. “Dad loved getting the boys down here to train - ‘Jezza’, ‘Big Nick’, ‘Sergio’, ‘Wallsy’ - they were all up for it. They’d arrive for the weekend and stay out back in the games room - a corrugated iron army hut left there after the war- that was their base. They’d be up before dawn- beach running, ocean swimming, surfing, lots of circuit work and plenty of push-ups.” John points to the floorboards in the front room of the house where little indentations formed after years of players banging down countless pushups on the Huon pine boards. “They’d train all day and then Jack would fire up the barbie - they’d be up pretty late, it was fantastic.” He recalls.
The view of Balnarring beach.
John also reflects on when the players were allowed some recreation time. “Dad had me in charge of the ski boat, the intention was to teach the boys how to ski. I can still remember the day Sergio Silvagni drank almost the entire contents of Western Port Bay. He was strapped into Dad’s skis but just couldn’t get up. He was so bloody strong that even though he was four feet under water he still held on - incredible. Eventually he broke the bindings on the skis but he never let go.”
Some wonderful moments are etched in his memory; like the two times Barassi announced the teams at the house. John recalls, “All the players were gathered and Barassi read each of their names out, it was great. I’m pretty sure one of those years was 1970.” They were pretty special times.
Balnarring Beach is a long way from the ASPIRE Academy for Sport Excellence, where the Carlton team have found themselves based in the capital of Qatar, but the commitment to get the players to an optimum fitness level was as important in Jack Wrout’s era as it is today. “There wasn’t a lot of sports science back then,” says John. “Dad wanted the Blues winning flags, so he tried to make sure the boys were properly prepared for the season. They trained really hard - flat out in fact, but when they were done, they’d stop for a BBQ and a couple of quite beers out on the deck.” That was the way it was back then. It’s hard to imagine players enjoying a beverage after training with the highly restrictive alcohol laws of Qatar but in those days a beer was reward for hard yards. How times have changed
