With Springtime now heralding the AFL finals series, it’s worth turning back the hands to 1945, when Carlton landed the Premiership of Peace and Victory after winning what was paradoxically the most violent of all Grand Finals, the infamous ‘Bloodbath’.
To make it to the big dance with South Melbourne, the Percy Bentley-coached Carlton team, captained by the fearsome Bob Chitty, advanced from an unprecedented fourth placing in what was then a final four format, having knocked off Collingwood in a brutal Prelim, and North Melbourne in the first semi which preceded it.
That happened on the afternoon of Saturday, September 8 – 80 years ago to the day next Monday – on Carlton’s home turf at Princes Park, as the MCG was still occupied by the Americans following Japen’s formal surrender on September 2.
A then record Princes Park audience of 54,846 people – many of them disembarking carriages at North Carlton railway station - filed through the clicking turnstiles to see the Blues take on the Shinboners, in what was the latter’s first senior League final since its admission to the competition in 1925.
Chitty’s men dominated proceedings, leading by as much as 60 points before easing up to win by 26 – 14.10 (94)-8.20 (68). Lance Collins, the boy from Beulah in Victoria’s southern Mallee, booted eight from a forward flank, while Bert Deacon was impregnable at centre half-back.
Prior to the match, the famed photographer Charles Boyles captured the Carlton players and trainers on film for posterity, in front of a since-demolished Robert Heatley Stand packed to the rafters.
They are as follows:
Back row, left to right: Ron Kee (trainer), Bert Deacon, Rod McLean, Ken Baxter, Arthur Sanger, Ken Hands, Jack Bennett, Ron Savage, Wal Alexander and George Harrison (masseur).
Middle row: Hec Maggs (trainer), Fred Fitzgibbon, Vin Brown, Jim Baird, Ron Hines, Bob Chitty (Capt.), Jim Clark, Lance Collins, Doug Williams and Harry Crompton (trainer).
Front row: Percy Gillett (trainer), Clinton Wines, Albert 'Micky' Price and Herb Turner.
