I posted this at first under the "wog club" thread (great thread that one), but it started to get a bit long winded and off the point, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

I was talking with my dad the other day about how he started going to the footy. Thanks to Blueseum, we were able to work out that all these years, he was mistaken on what he thought was his first game (a year out).

My dad started going in 1944 (not 1943, as he thought), and his first game was the final game of the year. We needed a win or a draw against Footscray to make the finals, and a guy called Harry Hickey (!) kicked a point after the siren to win the game for the Dogs, and knock us out of the 4. The Carlton players claimed it was marked by Bob Chitty on the goal line.

Dad sent me an email when looking up 1944 on Blueseum...



At the 1945 GF, it was so packed that the only place he could put himself to watch the game was the police horse enclosure...he was 12, and watched the whole game with the cops and the horses!

I love the history of our game...it is so rich with tradition and folklore, I wonder sometimes if the younger generation takes if for granted in a way that we never did (maybe because we didn't have the saturation media coverage back then, we had to grasp hold of anything that had anything to do with footy). Maybe fellow posters like BlueBoy Sean can fill us in on whether whether his generation has any interest in the history of the game, and of Carlton. I remember being home sick from school as a kid, reading through the Courage Book of AFL Finals, 1897-1977. I must have read that book a hundred times.

Am interested to hear other people's stories of their memories of their early years of footy, of watching Carlton, and of the stories their parents and grandparents told them. The older the memory, the better.

_________________
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

My first memory of going to the footy was as a 8-10? year old. Not sure of my age, but i remember standing on the outer at Princes Park and I remember feeling very small in comparison to all the adults that surrounded me. I guess it would have been late 1970's that i went to this match.

I went with my Uncle and I don't remember anything about the game. All I remember was the friendly abuse that a much older (about 50 years old)Carlton supporter hurled at aNorth Melbourne supporter (about the same age) and vica verca. It was willing abuse about the merits of each club, but not too aggressive - just loud.

I love hearing about people using the Blueseum to rekindle their early memories of the Blues.

_________________
|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

My first time at the football was as a 10-year old, and we got hammered by the filth by 9 goals. Daicos kicked 5. The result, as well as the ferals surrounding me, turned me off going to the football for a while afterwards

My first memory of a Carlton game was in 1998, Carlton-v-Bulldogs. This is when we used to have a reserved parking spot across the road from Optus in an apartment car park owned by one of my dads auntys.

Dad promised me everytime the Blues kicked a goal he would throw me up in the air, unforunatley for him Big Red kicked 8 and Carlton kicked 20+ goals. We ended up winning by 80 points and i had to walk back to teh car because Dad couldn't hoist me up onto his shoulders afterwards.

One of my first memories of football was at Princes Park with my dad and the crowd yelling out "jail bird" every time Big Nick went near the ball.
Think it was against Richmond 1959?
Men taking 26oz (750ml) bottles of beer out of gladstone bags.
Men wearing gaberdine coats and just about every man wearing a hat.
Small hot air balloons dropping free tickets to some show to the crowd.
Buggsy Combden and Johnny James (No.10)

Big John made his return at the Punt Road oval after he was released from the slammer on the Friday before the match. He was a late inclusion into the side. No-one Knew he was playing. he played at CHF & kicked a couple of sausage rolls.

He was taunted for years with "jail bird".

Do you also remember from that era "The Peanut Man" walking around the ground with a hessian bag filled with little brown paper bags of peanuts shouting "peanuts, a shilling a bag, peanuts"

I used to wear no. 10 on my woollen CFC guernsey ( John James was my hero!)

_________________
Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

I remember the peanut man. My first memory of him was standing on the city side wing at Princes Park in the mid 70s, and then him walking up and down the isles of the Hawthorn Stand in the late 70s. By then, he'd changed his chant (I guess cause we'd gone metric) to "Peanuts...peanuts in the bag".

My vague memory of my first game was against Footscray at PP at the end of '75, but according to Blueseum, we didn't play them at home then. I definitely remember going to the finals and GF in '75, and have a clear memory of sitting in the Gardiner Stand for Round 1, 1976, against Collingwood, and my brother trying to explain to me what Nicholls wasn't coaching anymore.

Other random early memories...

My brothers and I losing dad at Geelong one day, he still hasn't forgiven us for it...
George Ferry at Richmond (Ferry pronounced as only Ian Major could)...
VFL Insurance - 419 7211...
After Jezza's first game as Captain Coach in '78, when we had upset Collingwood at Collingwood (after losing 5 of our first 6 games), the headline in the paper the next day...

"Jezza's Blue Magic Spells Magpie Gloom"

_________________
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

You do know it would take you just a few minutes just to jot down these things in the Blueseum, no?

_________________
|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

The Peanut Man's job was only a part-time. His full time job was as a purveyour of porn at the Mid-City Newsagency in Little Bourke Street, in fact I believe he had a share in that business which had a number of outlets around the CBD of Melbourne.

Not that I was a customer - however our family's restaurant/cafe was not far away.

_________________
"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

I was at the MCG in 1969 (I am guessing here) sitting with my dad and my uncle behind a rabid Richmond supporter. Female.
Big John was struck pretty harmlessly by a Richmond player in a tackle near us. Something tells me it was Neville Crowe and Nick went down as though he had been shot. Crowe was reported and this woman in front of us went troppo and gave the umpy what for. I learned a few new words that day.
Anyway, after the tribunal hearing, there was a photo of the same woman on the front of 'The Sun' crying. Crowe was found guilty and subsequently missed the grand final. It wasn't my first game but for some reason it just sprung into my head.

_________________
Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)

If memory serves me correctly, he got 4 weeks for it, and yes, missed the GF. Pretty famous incident that one.

_________________
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

That was in 1967 - also ended up being Crowe's last game. Bit of a bastard way to go out. I remember reading somewhere that Nick said he was only looking to get the free, not a report...

_________________
Cer 'ch 'n alluog Blues