Bryce Gibbs isn’t sure whether he’ll souvenir a blade or three of grass when he vacates Football Park (AAMI Stadium) for the final time on Saturday night, but he readily admits “I might not clean my boots”.
He’ll be amongst the 22 Carlton players consigned to League football history as the last to play for Premiership points on Football Park, in what will be the 390th and final match staged at the 40 year-old venue.
A fully-fledged Croweater, the 24 year-old feels the poignancy of the moment, for as he said of Football Park: “being a South Australian it’s an Adelaide icon”.
“It’s pretty ironic isn’t it, being an Adelaide boy spending a lot of time around Footy Park playing and training, and to be playing in the last game in front of family and friends,” Gibbs said.
“It’s funny how it works out.”
Gibbs’ emotional ties with the old ground can be sourced to his days as a junior footballer with Paringa Park Primary School – when he represented Paringa on the same bill as the 10th Round match of May 2000 between Geelong and Port Adelaide, Carlton’s opponent in this Saturday’s historic twilight fixture.
“As a junior, the biggest thrill of all was to play a mini-League game at half-time of one of the AFL games,” Gibbs recalled. “I would have been in Year 4 or 5 when I played my first game there at half-time of the Port Adelaide-Geelong match, and we wore the Geelong colours that night.
“I remember getting ready in the change rooms with the team and I think we ended up losing that game. But we didn’t even care, we were just so rapt to have run out onto that oval.”
Bryce Gibbs in action for the Blues earlier this year. (Photo: Sean Garnsworthy/AFL Media)
Gibbs later turned out for the South Australian schoolboys at Under 16 and Under 18 level, and flew the flag for his state in contests with the Vics, at both Adelaide Oval and Football Park.
Did he believe Football Park commanded the same degree of reverence for any self-respecting Croweater as the MCG would a Melburnian?
“Yeah I think so,” came the reply. “Back when I grew up, and Adelaide was winning Premierships it (Football Park) was crazy. All my friends were Crows supporters, but I followed the Kangaroos* so I’d join them there for the occasional game.”
That said, Gibbs is of the view that the transition from the West Lakes venue to Adelaide Oval will prove bitter sweet.
“As bad as it’s going to be not playing games out at Football Park anymore, Adelaide Oval is going to be brilliant, with the old atmosphere on the hill that they’re going to keep, and the fact that the venue is right in the city. That’s got to be good for football,” Gibbs said.
“I absolutely love Adelaide Oval. When I was playing SANFL, and I’m sure it still happens now, they’d stage the match of the round there, and I remember coming through the reserves and playing in the seniors for a couple of years you always looked forward to those games at Adelaide Oval.
“I’m not sure whether it was because of the surface or the atmosphere, but it was great.”
For the moment though, Football Park and Port Adelaide is the focus – and the stakes are rarely greater than Saturday’s.
Club statistician Stephen Williamson has provided the following facts in respect of Football Park;
• Carlton has featured in 26 matches there, winning 10 and drawing once at a winning ratio of 40.4 per cent;
• The Blues were the first team to defeat Adelaide at Football Park in Adelaide’s second game, March 31, 1991;
• the only other time Carlton has met Port Adelaide in the final round of the home and away season at the venue was in Round 22, 1998, when the visitors ran out 54-point winners in Peter Dean’s final appearance;
• Dean is one of four Carlton players to have played his last game for the club at Football Park, together with Stephen O’Reilly and Adam White (Round 21, 2000) and Justin Murphy (Round 19, 2003); and
• Five Carlton players have made their senior debuts against Port Adelaide there – Darren Hulme (Round 10, 1997), Luke Livingston (Round 4, 2002), Callum Chambers and Troy Longmuir (Round 4, 2005), and Zach Tuohy (Round 11, 2011).
* Bryce Gibbs supported North Melbourne because his father Ross, having completed his playing career with Glenelg, represented Victor Harbor – known as the Kangaroos and sporting the North colours.
