Carlton’s farewell to Princes Park, 20 years on

Source : ABC NEWS

Anthony Koutoufides has been a Carlton man since he was 14 years old — and the former Blues skipper still misses the club’s old home of Princes Park. 

Twenty years ago today, Carlton played its final men’s game at the ground, against Melbourne. 

It was also the final game of suburban footy in Melbourne. The last domino to fall, as the old familiar strongholds stopped hosting VFL/AFL matches.

Koutoufides sums up his memories of Princes Park.

“There’s a lot of history at [Princes Park] and I could be biased, but I thought it was the best stadium in Australia,” he says.

“That’s hard to say, because the MCG is the most spectacular stadium in Australia, but just the feel of the place there, maybe because it was our, our fortress, our home, it was just incredible to play [there].

“And I don’t know how many times [we were] down the Heatley Stand end, might be third quarter, last quarter we would kick like eight, 10 goals or whatever, and the crowd would go absolutely crazy.

“So I know it was like 20, 25,000 people, but you felt like you [were] playing in front of 100,000 at the MCG, [it] was an amazing ground, suburban ground.”

Farewell to Princes Park

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Two decades on, the details of the final game itself are a bit of a blur for those involved. What still lingers are the emotions and the theatre of the day, and what it meant to stand up in the club’s traditional home for one last time.

“It was a very sad day for me in particular. I mean, I grew up there. I was 14 when I first entered the football club, and I had the honour to captain the team for the last game there to be played,” Koutoufides says.

“But I don’t know, to me, I wanted to keep it and so [have something] a little bit different. To see all the past players, a lot that I’d played with … and those I didn’t play with as well, just to see their faces, [that] was a very emotional day for all of us.”

‘I was a Collingwood supporter’: Kouta’s young years

Koutoufides’s route to senior footy was not the one we are used to these days.

“I didn’t get drafted. I lived in the Carlton zone at 14, got a letter to try out for their junior development squad,” he says.

“We trained once a week for 10 weeks. You got picked up in a carnival during school holidays. The under-15 team, I made two years in a row, but it wasn’t full-time. And then after that, I was playing under-19s at Carlton, so that was full-time. Had two years under-19s, and then they offered me a senior contract. So I never went through the draft.”

“I started in the 80s, [went on in the] 90s and 2000s. [Including under-15s and under-19s] it went from late 80s here all the way through to 2007.”

The prototype footy player, long before he was a Gladiator on TV, Koutoufides was a dynamic footballer blessed with prodigious marking ability, great co-ordination — particularly with his hands — and an engine to run all day.

Kouta was in his third-last season at Carlton in 2005. He went on to complete his career with the Blues, racking up 278 games and kicking 226 goals and providing another 37 goal assists.

He was also Carlton skipper for three seasons during a tough period for the club, in the wake of salary cap breaches, which led to a fine of close to $1 million and the loss of draft picks.

So what did it mean to Koutoufides to be a one-club man?

“It meant the world to me. I pinch myself how lucky I am. You know, I got seen at a young age of 14, playing in the under-15s two years in a row,” he says.

“I don’t even know if any other player went on to play senior footy from those teams that I played with at Carlton then, but under-19s then quite a few of us obviously went through onto reserves and seniors. So I’m very lucky. There’s a lot they go through the system, and not everyone sticks.”

Asked if he was a mad Carlton fan from early on, he replies: “No, Collingwood, I was a Collingwood supporter!”

“They [Collingwood] were one suburb away in Reservoir while I grew up in Thomastown, which was Carlton’s zone,” he says.

“I never went to too many games. Mum and Dad were migrants. So they had friends that played for Fitzroy. I remember going to watch a Fitzroy game, but no I didn’t really go to live games. I just used to hope and wish I could watch the replays.”

Koutoufides says he played in other suburban grounds while in the reserves in the 1990s, including Arden Street, Windy Hill and Moorabbin.

“[This was] before you know, seniors. I’m not sure I enjoyed any of them! [They were] Not really much fun!”

The day itself

It was another Saturday afternoon in Melbourne — 20 degrees, no rain, a few clouds in the sky. Nothing out of the ordinary, if you didn’t count a historic day at Princes Park.

They came in their thousands and they came from everywhere — on the trains to Royal Park, on the number 19 tram, in their cars.

They walked along Royal Parade or through the park to the old ground, ready to say goodbye to their footy home.

The official attendance that afternoon was 30,052 — and if there were any extras in there they would have to have pole-vaulted the fence, as it was a sellout at Princes Park.

There wasn’t a whole lot of reason for optimism going in. Entering round nine, Carlton sat in 14th place on the ladder, ahead of only Hawthorn and Collingwood.

Two wins from eight games and a percentage of 78. They were scoring a tick above 85 points a game, but the defence was leaking like a sieve, giving up 116 points a game.

Jarrad Waite and Brendan Fevola were the focal points for the Blues, they had 16 and 17 goals respectively going in. But Melbourne was fourth on the ladder, with Russell Robertson and David Neitz featuring up forward in the third-best attack in the league.

Before the game

That Saturday afternoon in the rooms, Denis Pagan stood in front of the gathered Carlton players and delivered his pre-game speech. 

He was in the middle of a tough run as Blues coach, with the team headed for the first of two consecutive wooden spoons. It was an address rooted in Blues history, designed to lift the playing group against the fancied Demons.

“It all began 109 years ago, 22nd June 1897. Since that day, there’s been 961 games [for Carlton]. We embark on [game] 962 and it’s the last game we’re ever going to play here for premiership points,” Pagan said.

“Maybe a few of the young boys are just thinking about getting a kick early in proceedings, that’s OK but understand and accept you’ve got the hopes of 30,000 members, thousands of other supporters from other creeds, cultures and races, who’ve had their roots in the Carlton area and followed this club through thick and thin.

“And think of our supporters, some of whom have been here for decades and followed the club from the times of Horrie Clover to a Harry Vallence to a Bob Chitty to a Bert Deacon to a John Nicholls.”

He focused on the players, emphasising the need for a “team-first operation”, saying “it can’t be anything about individuals.”

“You make sure you come off this ground knowing you couldn’t have given any more for the navy blue jumper. Knowing you’ve done everything you can,” he said.

“If you do that you can be proud. We reckon we can win this game. We reckon we can win if you blokes stick together. Let’s get out there now!”

The players roared as they ran out of the rooms and down the tunnel before being greeted by the fans.

Asked about that time in his career, Pagan is blunt.

“The politics of Carlton and what it was like at that time — division everywhere within the club. I was the coach, pretty much a dead man walking … It wasn’t a very pleasant place to be,” Pagan says.

“[Speeches] varied from week to week and the significance of the game. Just keeping it simple but low key then occasionally really high octane.

“That game against Melbourne I think everyone tried their hardest, when it came the media gave it some publicity. I don’t think you could say it was a romantic moment.

“It was theatrical [what they did to mark the final game]. They did it pretty well. I didn’t get caught up in those things [emotions, romance of footy]. I was a hard-nosed professional coach.”

Koutoufides remembers the presence of many old players among the fans.

“I just remember the emotions of seeing the [former] players … we warmed up outside, on the number one oval, and they were all watching,” he says.

The club had spent the week leading up to the game bringing together old champions of Carlton at the ground, together with the Blues’ 16 premiership cups.

Among those in the crowd were Brownlow Medal winners John James and Greg Williams, 300-gamers, captains and coaches including John Nicholls, Craig Bradley, Stephen Silvagni, Bruce Doull, Ken Hands, Ron Barassi, David Parkin, Stephen Kernahan, Mark Maclure and others.

In the pre-game, there was to be more pageantry involving the silverware.

First came a video montage of moments from the past and people who had made the club great as the cheers echoed in the stands, and the music from the movie Local Hero played.

These moments included Malcolm Blight’s thunderous torp for North Melbourne after the siren against the Blues in 1976, the brilliant mark of the year from 1981 from the late Peter “The Buzz” Bosustow and Craig Bradley’s magical checkside goal from deep in the pocket against West Coast in 1994.

Former stars and captains and their kids walked around the boundary carrying each of the 16 premiership cups. Then Ken Hands, Fred Stafford and other players stepped forward to the stage, to be presented for the first time with the team’s 1945 and 1947 cups as applause rang out around the ground.

Finally, the daughters of Blues alumni carried all 16 cups off the field to complete the proceedings. All that was left now was the anthem and the game.

‘Tribal warfare without weapons’: Pagan on suburban footy

Pagan may have seen himself as a hard-nosed coach, but he acknowledges it was “very, very sad to see it [Princes Park] go, like so many suburban grounds before it”.

“[Suburban grounds were] a real institution, tribal warfare without weapons. I can remember when North Melbourne went to Victoria Park, getting changed under the grandstand at the oval. A short race with everyone pouring beer [on you] and filling their cans with urine [and pouring it on you],” he says.

“When we played at Vic Park, probably the greatest memory I have was coaching North Melbourne, we went there in 1993. We had a big game, Adrian McAdam had a blinder.

“The Collingwood fans streaming up the terraces [leaving]. Standing on the outer wing where I was was an amazing feeling I’ll never forget.

“Of the other suburban grounds — North Melbourne was a greyhound track as well [at Arden Street]. They put wooden seats in in the early 70s. People used to stand on the terraces, there was a great atmosphere when they were full.

“For games against Essendon, Windy Hill was amazing on a Saturday afternoon. Full [ground] was probably 28,000, 30,000.”

There was, perhaps, not the same focus on occupational health and safety back then, or crowd control.

“You’d hear a roar at the footy. After I finished playing, in the 80s (1979) there was an elephant from the circus [at Arden Street]. They blew the siren, and it bolted and people parted like Moses and the Red Sea,” Pagan says.

He agrees that it was a totally different atmosphere.

“No doubt. We lost the tribal atmosphere there [at Arden Street] and at [Princes Park]. They’re [stadiums] big, sterile and a bit bland today.”

One of his vivid memories is of the night competition in the 60s and 70s at South Melbourne, for teams who finished out of the finals.

“You’d come down on a Thursday evening and we played games with very dim lighting.

“A round-robin competition for a night premiership. North Melbourne vs Hawthorn, they were great times.

“For an 18-year-old, you’d get a game in the seniors, sit on the bench, come on after half-time … [It was] tribal. Night games at South Melbourne, players with intensity. It was amazing.”

Pagan says he wanted Carlton to play on at Princes Park — but that the development of the game made it difficult.

“You had to play in front of big crowds. You couldn’t keep going with 30,000 at a suburban ground,” he says.

“You look at the MCG, and you can get 80, 85,000 [to a game].”

Time called for suburban footy

Author and footy historian Francis Doherty says the writing had been on the wall for a while for suburban footy. 

“The league had been shifting this way, and most of the suburban grounds had already closed — in fact all of them except Princes Park, that was the last one to go like Windy Hill in ’91,” Doherty says.

“Moorabbin went in ’92, Arden Street, North [Melbourne] started playing their home games out of the MCG from as early as ’82 and I think by ’85 North had moved permanently to the MCG.

“Some of the original grounds were just deemed to be no longer relevant. I guess, like Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Fitzroy left their original home ground in 1966.

“Hawthorn left Glenferrie Oval in 1973 … financially, they just couldn’t continue because of the size of the grounds, and yeah, they found better deals at other venues, because a lot of the time the cricket clubs were just squeezing them too hard financially.”

Doherty thinks one reason Princes Park survived as long as it did at AFL level was the fact Carlton spent money to upgrade facilities.

“They built the new Legend Stand so basically the entire perimeter of the ground was surrounded by stands — and also John Elliott, their president at the time, had a fair bit of pull,” he says. 

“So I’m sure his influence definitely prolonged Princes Park’s ability to host league games.

“By then [2005], I suppose it was just untenable for Carlton to remain, and there was no doubt the league definitely didn’t want suburban grounds. 

“They just wanted to consolidate football into two grounds in Melbourne. And that’s the way it is now, 20-odd years later.

“So they got their wish, and it’s unfortunate that now just about all of the suburban grounds have been reduced or have had all the terracing knocked down [for] all the outbuildings. They’ll never come back again, unfortunately.”

The ‘Bloodbath’ and the Olympics that wasn’t — Princes Park history

So Princes Park was Carlton’s home ground, with a history of games dating back to 1897. But the ground also became famous for two big events — one that happened, and one that didn’t.

The first was the 1945 VFL grand final, forever after known as the “Bloodbath”.

“The ’45, the Bloodbath grand final, what happened there was the American army had moved into the MCG, so that made the MCG unavailable for games during the Second World War,” Doherty says.

“And that 1945 grand final was played at Princes Park, which gave Carlton a fair advantage over their opponent, South Melbourne. Sixty-two-thousand people went to that game.”

In fact, that day’s final figure of 62,986 remains the biggest crowd ever at Princes Park. Carlton won by 28 points, but the game became known as the “Bloodbath” because of a string of melees and brawls that blew up throughout the fiery match.

Nine players were charged, with seven suspended. Young Carlton star Ken Hands was concussed in the first half, then came back on in the second half and took part in the final quarter melee that brought police onto the ground for the second time that day. Hands reportedly remembered little about the game afterwards.

The other big event at Princes Park, which never actually happened, was the 1956 Olympics. 

In 1952, the Carlton Recreation Ground was announced as the venue, with a proposal to redevelop Princes Park with a new 100,000-seat stadium.

“Kenneth Luke, who was Carlton’s president, then became the VFL president [in 1956]. He was synonymous with the bid, and obviously, to bring the Olympics to Carlton Football Club, to the football ground was just a huge, absolute boon for the club and no doubt, for his ability as a football administrator,” Doherty says.

“He visited several Olympics [venues] just to get ideas and see what would be required to get Princes Park up to Olympic standard.”

In the end in early 1953 a decisive meeting of football, sport and political leaders including Victorian premier John Cain Sr saw the decision overturned and the MCG named as the new location.

“Originally, the thinking was they couldn’t convert the [MCG] playing surface to accommodate a running track around the middle and all the other things that they need to have in the middle of the ground,” Doherty says.

“Eventually it was switched to the MCG, and it’s probably a good thing, because had it not been Carlton’s ground, I mean, there’s not much of it left now, but one thing remains that’s very important in football, and that’s the Gardiner stand, which is one of the oldest, still surviving stands in Victorian football.”

Gardiner was the captain of the very first Victorian colony team in the 1880s.

“He was originally a Carlton player, and then he went into politics, and they built this beautiful old stand that’s still there today, which is great,” Doherty says.

“We know how many of the old stands were demolished over the years, and Richmond is still hell bent on knocking down their old stand, the Jack Dyer stand.”

Doherty says all the old grounds had charm, but were “very austere”.

“Creature comforts were non-existent. Public facilities were usually a wash. There was no seating only around the perimeter. In winter, you stood on the terraces in the rain and the hail and the wind, but that’s the way footy fans loved it back then. I personally think that footy’s lost a lot of its character when we lost the suburban grounds.

“The other thing that clubs lost when they lost their grounds was they lost their home ground advantage, and the dimensions of each ground were different.

“So the home ground [team] knew how to play the ground better than the opposition, because they were playing there all the time. These days, really the only advantage in Victorian football is Geelong.”

Doherty looks back at his own early footy-watching experiences at Moorabbin Oval watching the Saints.

“You’d always stand in the same place surrounded by the same dyed-in-the-wool supporters week after week, and the Saints always had a superstar to delight the fans. In the 60s, it was [Darrel] Baldock and [Ian] Stewart. In the 70s, it was …Trevor Barker, and in the 80s and 90s, it was Plugger [Tony Lockett], Robert Harvey and Stewie Loewe and every ground would be the same.

“Every team has their legends. And, yeah, that’s one thing that never changed in football.”

Another source of support for Carlton was the use of Princes Park by other teams as essential co-tenants.

“So Hawthorn were there from 1974 to 1991 before they moved on to Waverley and Hawthorn built that strange looking stand [at Princes Park],” Doherty says.

“It started fairly tall at one side and then it kind of looked like a wave, went way down and then it straightened out again. It was just the strangest-looking stand that you’ve ever seen in your life.”

The game itself

When Kouta kicked the opening score on May 21, 2005, the Blues led by a point with just under two minutes on the clock. It would be the only time they led all day.

That day at Princes Park the game was gone going into the final term, the home side trailing by 57 points after the Demons’ Russell Robertson had kicked the life out of the contest with four goals in the third quarter alone.

The Blues were kicking to left of screen on the TV broadcast, and that was not the Heatley Stand end.

But was there to be one last spark? One last effort as Carlton said goodbye to their home? There was indeed.

Carlton lifted in the final term, kickstarted by a goal to Brendan Fevola a couple of minutes in. Two minutes later, Nick Stevens booted another and the fans had something to cheer about.

A string of Carlton behinds followed, split by a miss from Melbourne’s David Neitz.

The quarter was half gone, and the home side still trailed by 42 points. But then Fevola kicked his second of the quarter before Eddie Betts snapped one in the 17th minute and the Blues were on a bit of a roll.

It was never shaping as the miracle comeback, and a miss to Matthew Lappin was the only addition for a few minutes. It was getting deep in time on, but the Blues were still coming and Ryan Houlihan snapped one from deep in the pocket to lift the spirits again.

Fev nearly had his third goal of the quarter, but he missed at the 27-minute mark. The crowd was cheering and clapping, but a melancholy air hung over the ground in the twilight as the minutes ran down. 

Finally with 29 minutes gone, Nick Stevens boomed a kick from 50 that went through — and for the 31,318th and final time at Princes Park in VFL/AFL games involving Carlton, the goal umpire signalled a major.

A minute later, as the clock ticked over to half an hour, the ball was kicked out of the middle to the wing, where Stevens took a mark and the siren sounded. The Blues kicked 6.6 to 0.3 in the final term, but it wasn’t enough.

All week, it hadn’t really been about the game itself, rather the elements surrounding it — and now the postscript would see all the emotions come out.

Melbourne’s David Neitz came forward to accept the Ron Barassi Cup, met by a chorus of boos. 

“I congratulate the crowd for a lot of proud moments [here] over the years,” he said.

Then Andrea Bocelli’s glorious voice rang out through the speakers, as Time to Say Goodbye played, and Kouta walked to the centre circle to pick up the match ball before turning and heading across the ground.

He met Carlton legend John Nicholls and the pair embraced. The skipper handed the ball to the man known as “Big Nick”, the three-time premiership player, five-time best and fairest, 300-gamer and former Carlton coach who was an inaugural Legend in the Australian Football Hall of Fame and a selection in the AFL Team of the Century.

Nicholls walked off, with the ball held high. He had a guard of honour of Carlton players, as he left. It was marked as “the final play in 109 years of football at Princes Park”.

He turned at the edge of the boundary and saluted all corners of the ground. As Bocelli and Brightman crescendoed, the final words “Io con te (I with you)” rang out, the siren sounded one last time, and the fans applauded as the tears flowed.

Everyone stood in the stadium and took stock of the end of an era. As a moment to mark the occasion, it was memorable stuff.

“We were struggling, the [Carlton] team, and Melbourne were favourites. Would have been nice to have won, but we just weren’t good enough. We did try, because it was a big game, very emotional game for us. A lot of history behind this ground that was our fortress for so long, but we weren’t able to get over the line,” Koutoufides says.

“I handed over the football to the last one to Carlton’s arguably greatest player of all time, John Nicholls, as we said farewell to everyone.

“I mean, it was hard to accept. There was supporters crying after the game, and a lot of the staff were crying too. The tears were flowing, and it was a sad day to give it away. For whatever reason, we have to move on also, and I’ll never understand why, but I’m sure you know, they’ve got their reasons for it.”

The Blues would move to Docklands as their home ground, and the AFL as a whole contracted to the two big Melbourne venues, Docklands and the MCG.

Redevelopment of Princes Park has seen upgraded admin and training facilities built at the ground, but much of the old grandstands have had to make way.

There is still suburban men’s footy to be had outside of headquarters — Manuka Oval in Canberra and Norwood Oval in Adelaide during Gather Round are the two main examples.

Could a future Gather Round in Victoria bring back suburban games for premiership points? Who knows. For now we can only mark the anniversary and remember the good old days.