It has been 10 years since the greatest football club gave us ANYTHING to cheer about... absolute rubbish. Significant blame should be put on that [edit] Ian Collins who screwed us over with his telstra dome deal and [edit] on the day we lost Goddard and Wells and a crap load of money.

It has been 10 years since the greatest football club gave us ANYTHING to cheer about... absolute rubbish. Significant blame should be put on that [edit] Ian Collins who screwed us over with his telstra dome deal and [edit] on the day we lost Goddard and Wells and a crap load of money.

This was the first game I took my now wife to. After Alessio kicked the goal in the last term to put them 17 points up I stood up and went to leave. My missus couldn't understand why we were leaving but I was just too devastated to watch anymore. Anyway, the entire walk down the stairwell (level 3 Ponsford stand) my wife was doing her utmost to convince me to stay. We got to the bottom and I decided to take one last look and sure enough Kouta was lining up to put us 5 points down!! We watched the rest of the game in the standing room and still to this day I remember the crazy atmosphere of the game and roar as Justin Murphy bust through the midfield with seconds to play. I've never enjoyed other people's utter devastation before but gee was it good to see those Bummers fans hurting so bad.....made it oh so sweet!!

Great game but I'll take the 79 GF over it any day.

The day we start suggesting that a preliminary win is comparable to a GF is the day we start wearing black and white vertical stripes and removing at least one of our front teeth and about 75 IQ points.

Agree !

Time to let go.

An incredible match.

Like most, in the lead-up to the game I never really thought that we would actually win. But I remember sitting at the MCG hearing the PA System playing Eiffel 65's song "Blue" before the start of the game and for some reason I felt more confident, as if it were perhaps an omen. My new-found optimism was heightened when Glenn Manton, of all people, kicked the first goal of the game (he only kicked one other goal for the season). It's the sort of little thing that many would overlook but it just made me feel that this game might not go to script.

I remember seeing many Carlton fans giving the team a standing ovation at half-time, to which point we had had one less scoring shot but led by 24 points and had held the all-conquering Bombers to 3 goals in a half and a goal-less second quarter. I remember being slightly concerned about this; while we deserved acclaim for our first-half performance, perhaps we had been slightly premature, as Essendon* would surely hit back (and would surely not be as inaccurate in the second half).

I remember seeing Essendon* completely overwhelm us in the third quarter, my earlier optimism gradually eroded and replaced by a near-hopeless resignation to the feeling that natural order, though it had been delayed, had been brutally restored. However, I remember feeling boosted by Scott Camporeale's goal just before three-quarter-time, which got us to within 10 points. For all Essendon*'s dominance during the quarter, I reasoned, they continued to be wasteful (they kicked 7.7), and we had kicked the final goal for the quarter to bring the margin inside two goals. Manageable, but unlikely.

We all know what happened in the last quarter. I admit that when Alessio goaled early in the last quarter to make it 17 points I couldn't see us winning. But we remember about Kouta's inspirational final term. I remember turning away, not being able to watch as Mercuri's snap in the dying minutes bounced agonisingly towards goal but thankfully through only for a behind. I remember groaning as the ball landed in Wallis' lap with 30 seconds left and just hoped that we could repel one final Essendon* attack. But of course Brown's heroics are legendary and spared us from facing this daunting prospect.

I remember the sheer ecstasy felt in the immediate aftermath of the game; strangers hugging, jumping all over each other and people generally just going berserk. They were amazing scenes at the conclusion of an extraordinary day.

Tell us the story of how you finally got your end away Don.

I never did.