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This isn't about the players who have played for Carlton over the years from Italian, Greek, Irish etc backgrounds, but the people who log onto the matchday discussion here on TC.
Sixty years ago, my dad used to listen on crackly short wave to Radio Australia to the weekend sports from the tiny islands of Ocean Island and Nauru (see Google search for locations) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was a potpourri of sports, all the races, rugby league, the odd rugby onternational and the various state footy leagues, including the VFL. Hardly ever would he get coverage of the Carlton match but he could at least get a round-the-ground score. When the match was broadcast he was ecstatic.
Fast Forward to the 1970's. I was in the Army in Townsville and had to rely on Monday's paper where, on the page that showed all the 'other' sports apart from Rugby League, I could catch the VFL scores and see how the Blues went. By now, my dad was living in Melbourne and listening to the radio every week with his notebook, writing down every score as it happened in a sort of timeline so he could tell who was doing what and when. At least I could ring him every week and chat about the game, which I continued to do until the day he died a few years ago. His drawers were full of little notebooks with every Carlton game since 1970, documented in his accountant's way.
Fast forward again to the present.
Every week, p(12)terq creates a thread called "Carlton vs whomever, matchday discussion" and posts the radio streaming links so we far-flung Carlton supporters can listen to the game and chat among ourselves during the game. He also puts up the stats at the end of each quarter.
Last weekend against Melbourne, he made the comment during the game that we must have had a record number of overseas people on TC listening and chatting. That prompted mandymd (South Carolina) to comment about the Carlton League of Nations, and I have stolen her words to create the title for the thread.
We had:
Mandymd from South Carolina USA
Taff, from Sweden (ususlly from Beijing but travelling)
Mordan from the UK
Titimus from Cambodia, listening from an internet cafe
NZBlue listening from Aukland NZ with his six-year-old son
Blueslander fron Denmark, who claimed to have Princess Mary and Prince Freddie with him
Yours truly from Mexico
PLUS a host of people from Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Dapto, Sydney and places undeclared, of whom Grofunger was the most prolific poster.
We all had one thing in common, a passion for the Navy Blue and a desire to sit up all night, morning or afternoon and listen as did my dad all that time ago. How he would have loved to have had access to the sort of communications we enjoy today.
I rarely miss a week on TC whilst listening to the game and look forward every week to saying, "g'day," to people I've never met and chatting with them about the game, the smog, the coffee, the pastries and so on.
Hopefully this week, NYTDog (New York) and Beano (Ireland) can make it along. We missed you last week.
If there are any other OS TCers who want to spend a long night listening to the boys go round, please join us and help the Carlton League of Nations grow into something huge.
Thanks to you all and to TC for making Mexico seem a lot closer to Royal Pde.
And to P(12)terq, thanks for putting in the effort. We do appreciate it a lot.
See you at the 'G' against Adelaide.
_________________
Let slip the Blues of war (with apologies to William Shakespeare) (and Sir Francis Bacon, just in case)
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