Carlton, as seen by Jack Dyer
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CARLTON are a side I always liked to play against. We had the formula to beat them. If we looked like losing the wind would change, we’d score after the bell or we’d suddenly play inspired football. They inspired football. They didn’t know how to beat us.
Back in the early thirties they were always a power and to beat them was a feat, but we cost them three Premierships that by rights they should have won. All the time we were paving the way for Collingwood. It was a merry-go-round. We could beat Carlton but not Collingwood. Collingwood could beat us but not Carlton and Carlton could beat Collingwood but not Richmond. There was a logical explanation for our supremacy. Their strength was in their half-forward flankers and our strength was in our half-back flankers. They did everything to break our defence but never succeeded. Year after year the same players kept fronting and we could play them by memory.
Carlton will always be a power in V.F.L. football because of their financial strength. They have been dogged by squabbling committees for years but have always overcome it to be knocking at the four.
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Some of the most stirring battles I have had in football have been against Carlton. There were 50,000 at one match when Mocha Johnson of Carlton was playing at his strongest. Fritz Hefner had to pick him up and see that Mocca didn’t do any damage to our players. I've never seen such a football jumble. It was chaos before the ball was bounced. Mocca walked over to Dick Harris and Hefner tagged behind him.
Gilby, the player Carlton had picked to mind Hefner, followed him across. So Dick Harris walked to the other pocket and his entourage followed. Where one went, they all went. Then Skinny Titus and Carlton full-back Frank Gill walked over while Skinny had a few words. The game started with six in the one pocket. It had to sort itself out. Fritz wouldn’t leave, so Mocca just had to accept him. Mocca didn’t get any victims that day and we won again.
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When you look through the Carlton line-ups in years gone by it’s hard to understand why they didn’t win many more Premierships. Bob Chitty (right) was the most devastating player they had. He was probably the most dynamic half-back flanker the game has produced. Soapy Vallence rates as one of the best full-forwards I have seen. Right through the years they’ve had powerful rucks, strong keymen, but they’ve lacked good rovers. This has had more to do with keeping them out of flags than any other factor.
Ruggedness has been the Carlton tradition and only Collingwood has excelled them in fiery battles with Richmond. The first game I played against Carlton was at Princes Park. Being straight from the bush I didn’t know where the ground was. I was 17 and caught the wrong train and wound up at Reservoir. As the train got further and further into the bush I wondered if we would ever come across Carlton.
Finally I asked a porter and he broke the sad news. I didn’t have any money for the fare back and he said, ‘Well, hop back on the return train and hope for the best.’ Luckily I always left about two hours earlier than I had to to get to the match. It was the only time it paid off. I made it back just in time. We won well and I did pretty good, but I was still having train trouble. I raced up the platform and jumped into one of the dog boxes. It was crammed with Carlton supporters and one of them recognized me. Didn’t I get a nice pay. I sat there, as still as a mouse. I only had to open my mouth and I’d have gone out the window.
That was the longest trip between stations I have ever made. As soon as it stopped again I shot out the door. This time I found a yellow and black carriage. What a change in atmosphere! A very enjoyable trip home. Carlton supporters have never changed. They’re the meanest, the most dedicated, of all. Even Collingwood take second place to the Blues’ supporters when they are really firing.
I’ve seen a fight start in the outer and spread from one goal to the other with clouds of dust coming up like a windstorm.
The rivalry between the clubs was a tremendous crowd-puller. At Richmond we were on top of the ladder. We were unbeaten, Carlton yet to win. Instead of 25,000 there were only 10,000. At half-time the word had gone around, Carlton were in front. Before the second half bounce there were 30,000 crammed into the ground. We slugged it out to the finish and won it by a point.
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The best game between the two clubs was played with Ern Henfry (left) as captain. They couldn’t fit the crowd in. It became so crushed the pressure of the crowd smashed down the fence from the grandstand to goalpost and they spilled over the boundaries. Players plunged through the crowd, no holds barred. It was a wonder somebody wasn’t killed.
We shot to a three-goal lead with five minutes to go and it was all over bar the shouting. We were streaming down towards goal again and Billy ‘Hungry’ Wilson took a mark within kicking distance and incredibly, instead of having a shot, he hand-passed. It went astray and Carlton swung back into attack and goaled. Henfry had been held all day by Ray Stokes, but he suddenly cut loose.
A beautiful pass slammed on another goal. From the bounce they had another in seconds and then Brokenshire, having his first kick for the day, shot one 50 yards back over his shoulder and Carlton hit the front. The Blues had achieved the impossible and got up to win, and since that game they have been having the success and Richmond have been languishing.
Billy Wilson must have thought he was going to get a roast after the match, because he came in crying. I was mad, but said, ‘Let’s go away and weep together.’ I knew how he felt. But I can never understand it. He’s never tried to give a goal to another player in his life. The one day he wasn’t hungry cost us the points.
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Carlton has produced some of the greatest players ever, and long-legged Chooka Howell (right) played the best game I’ve ever seen by a Blues player, yet I was never wrapped in him. He used to squeal like a girl if he got a knock. At Richmond he cut loose, kicking them 90 yards. He had one of those days you dream about, he had 50 kicks and never stopped laughing. I didn’t begrudge him that, but I never forgave him for one thing he did at Carlton.
He upset me when I had Les Jones going well. Les accidentally gave him a backhander in the ruck and Howell went down squealing and wriggling around. The umpire came up and reported Jones for striking Howell. As soon as the umpire reported Jones, Howell got up and kicked the ball 80 yards, so he couldn’t have been hurt too much. Jones got six weeks and never kicked on again. He paid the price for Howell’s staging, as did a lot of others. Howell was the greatest actor the game has produced.
The next year I set Jones on to Howell by saying, ‘Howell gave you six.’ Not that Jones had any chance of catching him, but he warned Howell, ‘If I get near you I’ll kill you.’ Chooka’s long legs took him away as fast as he could go, but he didn’t play too well. Verbal threats kept him down to a very ordinary game—that was his great weakness.
At one stage Howell fell over and Jones went in after him, only to have Ken Hands yell out, ‘He’s kicking him, umpire.’ He wasn’t. He just ran over the top of him. I was arguing with the umpire at the time over Chitty, so he had no hope of pinching anyone. I was a bit hostile on Hands for trying to put Jones in. But he’s gone a long way since then and could have been reported quite a few times himself.
Carlton always dig up good rucks and I doubt if they’ve ever had a stronger quartet than in 1963-4 with John Nicholls, Sergio Silvagni, Sankey and Buckley. If only they weren’t crucified by their perpetual shortage of rovers they’d have played off for a string of flags.
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Bert Deacon (left) was a Carlton Brownlow Medallist, but he should have been a Tiger. We had it all arranged for him to sign with Richmond; his father turned up but not Bert. Carlton kidnapped him from work and locked him in the committee room and didn’t let him out until they had browbeaten him into signing. If we’d picked him up at work he would have been our player.
Another Carlton Brownlow winner, John James, was yet another pirated from us. Maurie Fleming and myself had James, Frank Drum, Les Mogg and a fellow named Hogan in the one room at St. Patrick’s College. All wanted to sign and we had to sort them out. Mogg and James seemed to belong to North under the division of districts. We signed the other two. Doing the right thing we let the others go. I don’t know how James ever got to Carlton, I doubt if they let North know he was in their territory. That’s the price we paid for honesty.
Carlton has been a great club but they are aptly named the Blues. Blues with committee and shortage of rovers has cost them plenty of flags.
Footnotes
An excerpt from Captain Blood: Jack Dyer as told to Brian Hansen. Published in 1965 by Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd.
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