Introduction...

Your Committee has great pleasure in presenting the 100th Annual Report and Balance Sheet, together with club records and statistics, for your consideration.

It is regretted that the past season, which concluded an unbroken century of Australian Rules football at Carlton, did not produce the results predicted in the last report and the season was a great disappointment to all concerned with the Club. Whilst the very ordinary season of 1963- which followed the wonderful performances of the season before that- scarcely entitled your committee to hope for a pennant in the Centenary Year, as occurred in the Jubilee season, it was nevertheless thought that this important milestone in the history of the club would inspire the team to be among the leaders at the end of the year. Instead, the season was one of the worst experienced and reasons are difficult to find.

Undoubtedly, the loss of four out of the first five games took away a lot of ambition from a young list and despite a burst of three wins soon after, bad kicking militated against any recovery that general team-play improvement may have warranted. Bad injuries did not account for loss of matches to the same extent as usual and suspensions and slowness of some of the usually strong players to find early form placed a handicap on the team from which it never recovered.

Still, the season was not without compensations and when all hope of reaching the finals had passed, the selectors concentrated on giving future prospects every opportunity of becoming senior players in preparation for 1965. Notable examples were Adrian Gallagher and Garry Crane. Your committee too, recognised that a number of gaps have been left since the departure of players like Graham Donaldson, John James, Tom Carrol, and recruiting has been intense. Excellent recruits have been signed and the new committee will have a good nucleus to both choose from and work on to become Carlton players.

Interesting read.

Some things stay the same. Which means we win the flag in four years time!

_________________
THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

Great read Doc!

One thing that strikes me is the honesty with which they addressed their comments. They were even prepared to indicate they couldn't quite put their finger on the full reason for the poor performance.

On a corresponding note, I've been doing some work on the demise of Kodak. Read their annual reports post 1982 (commercial entry of the digital camera) and you'll find lip service to an array of contemporary commercial buzzwords (innovation, empowerment, agility, etc) but very little honesty about their actual predicament. They didn't even give up their executive aircraft leases until they filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Stunning.

I don't read the Carlton Football Club's current annual reports. Are they close to the honesty of 1964 or are they imparting spin like Kodak?

Unfortunately the Annual Reports of today have very few words in them and are not quality documents. The yearbook is Warne-to-Gatting-like spin....but no real focus on the board in either. Perhaps the '64 honesty was too thick given the events that were to follow.

I remember 1964 like it was yesterday. At lest we salvaged something by Collis winning the Charlie

I fear 2014 will be worse

Hopefully the downfall of Essendon* will be the highlight of the year

_________________
Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

So our goalkicking was bad then too.

The more things change...

_________________
Click here to follow TalkingCarlton on twitter
TalkingCarlton Posting Rules

Good read. After that report a few things happened.
EXIT..Lew Holmes.
ENTER.. George Harris.
ENTER.. Ron Barassi.

------------------
In the next 2 to 3 years.
ENTER
Bryan Quirk
Ian Robertson
Vin Waite
Alex Jesaulenko
Peter Jones
Brian Kekovich
Syd Jackson ('69)
Brent Crosswell..........ALL Premiership Players.

Not bad recruiting when added to the nucleus of Nicholls, Silvagni, Gallagher, Crane, Gill Brothers, Hall, Goold, Lofts, Collis, Collins etc.

_________________
The problem with Socialism is, you eventually run out of other people's money.