Every now and again, a rare and significant throwback to the glory years of football’s pristine past suddenly surfaces – as was the case this week, appropriately enough on the eve of Carlton’s match with its old foe at the MCG.

Through the generosity of the Stafford family, a rare radio 3KZ recording of the second half of the famous Carlton-Essendon Grand Final of 1947 has been forwarded to the club.

The recording includes broadcaster Norman Banks’ famed call of those precious final seconds of the match more than sixty years ago, when Fred Stafford’s snap sealed a famous one-point victory, 13.8 (86) to 11.19 (85), and landed the club’s eighth dark Navy Blue pennant.

It also contains precious post-match interviews with revered Carlton figures like the then President Sir Kenneth Luke, coach Perc Bentley, captain Ern Henfry and Stafford himself.

Stafford, nearing his 83rd birthday, is now battling poor health in a northern suburbs nursing home, but the recording was passed on to Carlton with his best wishes by his son, Fred Stafford junior.

So how did he come by the recording? Fred junior takes up the story.

“I was living at home at the old family house in Fenwick Street, Carlton, and it would have been around 1974,” Fred junior recalled. “Dad and myself went to a game at Princes Park, and we were walking home along the side of the cemetery in Macpherson Street when a fellow Carlton supporter approached Dad and said; ‘Mr. Stafford, I think you’ll enjoy this tape’ . . . and then he walked off.

“At the time the audio wasn’t as meaningful as it is now, and Dad and I are forever grateful for that supporter’s generosity.”

Fred junior, an impassioned Carlton supporter not surprisingly, said that “the one thing about Dad was that he never basked in the glory where you’d be quite entitled to do so”.

“He rarely spoke about it as the years went by. He was extremely modest, and would really only talk about it if people asked him,” Fred junior said.

“But he’s the only one whose ever done it – kicked a goal to win a Grand Final by a point. [Barry] Breen kicked a point in 1966, so it’s a rarity, and if it happened today write your own ticket.

The taped audio recording has now been digitised at the club, with a copy also in the keep of The Blueseum.

To hear Banks’ famous call of the Stafford goal that sunk Essendon, click here.

See also:
Fred Stafford remembers THE goal
Fred Stafford recalls one of the most famous goals in Carlton’s history kicked in the 1947 Grand Final