Imagine being asked to go on an all expenses paid footy trip with some of the legends of the Carlton Football Club? How quickly would you say yes? Well your humble correspondent was lucky enough to receive such an offer a few weeks ago.

It turned out that 1982 premiership player, Ross Ditchburn had been battling prostate cancer in recent times and as part of his recovery efforts he wanted to give something back to his community. His community happens to be about 300km South East of Perth in the West Australian wheat belt around the small township of Kukerin.
As soon as the Spirit of Carlton discovered the Ross wanted to hold a Men's Health awareness weekend in Kukerin they made plans straight away to help out. So off to WA trekked Wayne Harmes, Des English, Syd Jackson, David McKay, Geoff Southby, Ken Hunter, Ken Kleiman, Bob Lowrie, Tony De Bolfo and your truly, along with local lads, Richard Dennis and Brad Shine.

There was a very early morning flight then a four hour bus drive until we arrived in Kukerin. We held up pretty well, especially 85 year old Ken Kleiman. Ken was a property steward for many years at the Blues and the camaraderie he had with the players was very obvious throughout the trip. Ken has seen 11 premiership in person, from 1938 to 1995. You could not meet a nicer bloke. For a bloke of 85 he did not miss a beat throughout the entire weekend, he enjoyed it as much as the rest of us.

The first night consisted of some speeches about men's health followed by a sportsman's night hosted by the Blue boys. The reception and hospitality everyone got was second to none. The whole weekend was very busy and was a great success. 56 men had health checks on the weekend, many of whom would not have done so if not for the events of the weekend, Ross' actions may have saved a life or two.

We have tried to chronicle the weekend as best we can on the Spirit of Carlton website. On there you will be able to see some of the stuff we got up to,

www.spiritofcarlton.com

The Spirit of Carlton is trying to reach out more to Carlton supporters online and will be starting to twitter and use facebook on a regular basis very soon.

If you would like to connect to the SOC please link up with us on your favourite social media site and you will get all the news as it happens from the SOC.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/SpiritofCarlton

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/spiritofcarlton

Let's start a conversation, we would love to know what you would like from the Spirit of Carlton.

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The Spirit of Carlton compels you!

That's great news and a great cause.

Now, how about a few more trips to spread the word in Tasmania. Hawthorn have jumped everybody here. We have tens of thousands of Carlton supporters in Tassie. You see them in their stuff all over the place but it just doesn't translate into memberships. Our kids, meanwhile are being exposed to a slick marketing presence by the most successful team of the past 30 years. My own grand daughter arrived home from a school day trip in Hobart with a Hawthorn showbag. They don't even play down here. I had to drag her CFC jumper out of the cupboard and remind her who we are in this family.

It can't be that hard to market such a famous brand and get some more memberships.

Can it?

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

Quite right Blue Sombrero! I remember a recent trip to Tassie and was very surprised by the blanket Hawthorn coverage on the local media, it was very similar to what you see in Adelaide!

The SOC has visited tassie on numerous occassions to fight the good fight, and will do so again.

Maybe there is an opportunity for a more unknown town in Tassie to connect with the SOC and an event similar to the recent event in Kukerin might be possible. When visiting rural areas the locals are very excitied by the presence of some of the SOC legends, maybe something could be possible? We would need help from some local Blues.

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The Spirit of Carlton compels you!