BRYAN Strauchan running out in Dark Navy? It’s not beyond the realms now that ‘Strauchanie’s’ alter ego Peter Helliar has discovered a forefather who once played for Carlton in the late 19th century.
Helliar learned of his kindred connection during filming for a recently-screened episode of the reality genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are - and it’s fair to say that the Melbourne comedian, actor, presenter and lifelong Collingwood supporter was totally taken aback to discover that his two-times great grandfather Jack Carroll donned the blue lace-up with chamois yoke in the pre-VFL years.
“I’ve tried to get as close to being an AFL footballer as I can by wearing a silly blond mullet wig over the years, but to discover through my ancestry that someone did play at a high level . . . in the early days of what is now the AFL . . . I walk a little taller when I walk through the gates of the MCG now,” Helliar said in an interview with the Nine Network’s Today program.
“There was a shock in there that I wasn’t happy about, being a tragic Collingwood supporter . . . and I don’t want to relive that trauma.”
Helliar’s forefather John Francis (‘Jack’) Carroll was born on 27 January 1865 in Leighlinbridge, a small town on the River Barrow in the Irish County of Carlow south-east of Dublin. Jack was but a toddler when in 1867 in Liverpool he boarded the Melbourne-bound vessel White Star with his older siblings Patrick, Michael and Mary and their mother Julia Menton. In the years following their arrival, Judith and her husband Patrick senior - both natives of Kilkenny - would raise another seven children.
Carroll grew up in the Victorian Central highlands town of Ballarat where he forged a friendship with the great Jack Worrall, aided and abetted by their shared sporting pursuits with the South Ballarat Football Club. In 1884, Worrall (a future Carlton Secretary/Coach in the premiership years of 1906, ’07 and ’08) relocated to Melbourne to play football (and cricket) for Fitzroy – and Carroll, a promising ruckman/forward, followed suit the following year.
The writer and researcher Mark Pennings, considered an authority on the Victorian game in the pre-VFL colonial times, determined that Carroll represented Fitzroy in around 60 senior matches from 1885 to 1887, before joining the ’87 premiership team Carlton in the following year. One of Carlton’s founders George F. Bowen - alias ‘Olympus’ - was obviously onto the move, when in March 1888 he correctly predicted in the Melbourne Punch: “I have heard a pig’s whisper . . . that Carroll is going to throw in his lot with last year’s premiers”.
Carroll represented Carlton in 11 games through seasons 1888 and ’89, as well as a benefit match to raise money for Billy Bates, an English cricketer who was hit in the eye by a ball struck by a teammate whilst bowling in the nets during the Australian tour of 1887/88.
He was also part of a 35-man touring party which boarded the steamship Pateena on tour to Tasmania in June of that year. On arrival in Hobart via Launceston, members of the party including Carroll were photographed for posterity by Anson Brothers Photographers.
Carlton featured in three matches on the Apple Isle – the Queen’s Birthday encounter (23 June) with Southern Tasmania in Hobart; the 27 June match against City at Risdon; and the 30 June game with Souths at the Cornelian Bay ground. A photograph captured at Cornelian Bay is amongst the first Australian Rules ‘action shots’ ever captured.
The parkland adjoining the No.1 oval on the city side of Carlton’s old Princes Park ground is where Jack would have played in the 1880s. The recently-discovered scar tree flanks the field and the spire of the Walter Burley-Griffin-designed Newman College can be seen in the distance.
Carroll chased the leather in these idyllic surrounds for just two seasons before rounding out his career with Footscray in 32 matches through 1890, ’90 and ’91 - his final season as club captain.
In 1887, the year before he joined Carlton, Carroll married Annie Blanchard in Clifton Hill. Between 1887 and 1906, Annie would give birth to nine Carroll children – five of whom would survive into adulthood.
Little more is known of the life of Jack Carroll, who died at the age of 71 in the inner-city suburb of Brunswick on 4 July 1936. He was laid to rest in Coburg Cemetery with his wife who had died 16 years earlier.
It should be said that the Geraldton-born and currently-listed Carlton footballer Jack Carroll is no relation to the aforementioned.
But John Francis Carroll’s kindred links with one P. Helliar are undisputed.
