Founded in 1864, Carlton F.C.’s current situation doesn’t reflect the greatness of a club that has won the most premierships (16, equal with Essendon) and perhaps been the biggest powerhouse of the 20th Century.
Carlton is one of the four teams still in the AFL today that played the inaugural season of both the VFA in 1877, and the VFL in 1897. Success soon greeted the Blues in the VFL, who under former test cricketer and footballer Jack Worrall won a threepeat of premierships from 1906-1908. While Worrall’s position was listed as the ‘secretary’, he is regarded as the very first coach in the history of Australian Football.
While Carlton would consistently put good performances on the park and pick up premierships through most of the 20th Century, it was the Ron Barassi era that stands out as the Blues’ most successful period. Perhaps the greatest servant of Australian Rules Football, Barassi signed from Melbourne in 1965 as both a player and coach, leading the Blues to securing three flags and contesting five grand finals in a six-year period.
The second half of the 1970 grand final is Carlton’s finest hour to date. In front of a record football crowd in Australia of 121,696 the Magpies led the Blues at halftime by a whopping 44 points, before The Baggers stormed back to win by 10 points.
Carlton continued to have success towards the tail end of the century. Winning three out of four premierships from 1979-1982 represented another period of Blues domination.
However, ever since the turn of the century, it has been another story entirely. In the past 15 years, the hapless Blues have only scraped into the finals 4 times. In the middle of a rebuilding phase, it will take another few years before Carlton’s talented young squad start to put the performances on the park.
