In this the 150^th year of the founding of the Carlton Football Club, it’s both timely and fitting that The Carltonians coterie group should also be acknowledged.

For it’s 50 years since Carlton’s first and longest-serving coterie group was established - in the club’s Centenary Year of 1964, on the cusp of its audacious signing of Ronald Dale Barassi as captain-coach.

Accordingly, The Carltonians have seen fit to convene a 50^th Anniversary Gala Ball, at which the many grand stories of the club’s premier coterie and its people – the businessmen, corporate executives and entrepreneurs all bound by a common passion for all things Carlton - are to be celebrated.

“This night serves as a genuine celebration of an important historic milestone in The Carltonians’ history,” Carltonians president Vince Loccisano said.

“The Carltonians, particularly in their early years, comprised a lot of very influential people. Many future Carlton board members came from The Carltonians, as well as those who committed significant amounts of money to the football club. You’ve got names like Sam Smorgon, now Carlton’s No.1 male ticketholder, who’s still very much a key figure.

“Then there’s Mark LoGiudice, the current Carlton President, who to my knowledge is the only member of The Carltonians to become President of the Football Club and who remains a member of The Carltonians.”

Vince’s own involvement with The Carltonians can be sourced to his teenage years and through the intercession of his father Ron, a member of the coterie from the early 1970s.

A President of The Carltonians from 2006-2010 inclusive, Loccisano again assumed the presidency this year after accepting the football club’s request to stand for election.

He continues to uphold the tradition set by so many men of stature, beginning with the Melbourne City Councillor Ray Lawson in ’64 and furthered by the likes of Malcolm Payne, Robert Moore, Ralph Rosenfield, Ray Gilbert and Lionel Watts.

Carltonians president Vince Loccisano with Blues president Mark LoGiudice, photographed at a Carltonians function in 2008. (Photo: Supplied)

While none of the original foundation members of The Carltonians are still living (the last of them, William Austin Cook, died on Australia Day 2012 having completed an unparalleled 48 years’ service to the coterie), the likes of Moore and Watts maintain their active involvements.

Moore, a Carlton Social Club member who joined The Carltonians in 1984, remembered the coterie comprising “a great bunch of guys, most of them captains of industry in those days”.

“I was in The Carltonians one year and became secretary,” Moore said, by way of a phonecall from sunny Cornwall. “I then had the magnificent honor of serving as Carltonians President in 1987 - a Premiership year which was normal because we always won them.”

In truth, Moore regarded The Carltonians of the 1980s as Carlton’s “21^st man”. As he said: “We had our functions at the ground, the players always came down to our room and it was amazing what you could get for a grey note in those days”.

Watts, a foundation member of the Carlton Cricket and Football Social Club, has been part of the Carltonians for 33 years, 12 of them as president, five as secretary.

“I’m still involved with The Carltonians, but now I’m sitting back and smelling the roses,” Watts declared.

Watts’ involvement with Carlton spans some 70 years. “I’ve always been a Carlton supporter. I was born in Royal Parade opposite the ground,” he said.

“When I was a small child of five or six I moved to Dimboola. I came back when I was 12 and my grandfather bought me my first junior membership in 1944 . I remember the ’45 grand final vividly. I remember ‘The Bloodbath’, Ken Hands getting his face smashed and Fred Fitzgibbon running on in his civvies. I was watching it all from way up the back of the Gardiner Stand.”

As for The Carltonians, Watts is of the view that it was founded for two specific reasons.

“To the best of my knowledge, The Carltonians were formed to fund Barassi’s acquisition and to act as guarantors to the bank in the formation of the Carlton Social Club,” he said.

Today, The Carltonians are less of a boys club. Women are now actively involved with The Carltonians and juniors are also part of the scene, so the coterie is without question more inclusive than it was through the 1960s, ’70s and even mid-’80s.

But the coterie continues to generate funding for the football club and its players, one of whom, Kade Simpson, The Carltonians have long sponsored - and it has often served as a source of employment for players away from the game.

As for The Carltonians’ legacy, Moore has the final world.

“The great legacy has been the fact that we’ve been great providers for the football club. We’ve raised tremendous funds for things like gym equipment and we’ve supported the players. Those who have been with the Carltonians for the duration have felt a part of the club,” he said.

“In summing up, The Carltonians have experienced their ups and downs but there’s always been a team spirit . . . and we’ve always been there for the football club.”

The Carltonians 50^th Anniversary Gala Ball, celebrating 50 years as Carlton Football Club’s premier coterie, is to be held on Saturday, July 26 at The Plaza Ballroom.

Members can book online at www.carltonians.com.au or by emailing cott@carltonians.com.au