There’s a long-held tradition in Neil Jackson’s family, that the clan’s latest arrival, at six months, is wheeled around the Carlton ground in a pram.
“My grandfather was the one who started it when he wheeled my mother around Princes Park after she was born in 1928,” Jackson said. “Mum then wheeled me around after I was born in 1959, and I wheeled my son around after he was born in 1995."
This enduring practice reflects the depths of the Jacksons’ feeling for the Carlton Football Club and the territorial links that can be sourced to the 1880s, when Neil’s grandfather the Berlin-born widower Frederik Willhelm Kahle arrived in Melbourne with his five children.
Kahle, a metal worker by profession, first found lodgings at 614 Rathdowne Street in Carlton North, just a short keg roll from the Great Northern Hotel. He was 64 when he remarried, and his second wife Josephine was 45 when she gave birth to Margaret Theresa (‘Greta’) Kahl, Jackson’s mother.
The Rathdowne Street abode remained in the Kahl family’s keep until 1967 and holds happy memories for Jackson of the days when football was territorial.
“I can remember going to that house all the time,” Jackson said. “The house still exists and it’s still pretty much looks the same as it did in 1967 when it was sold after my grandmother died.
“My grandfather loved Australian Rules football and he loved the Carlton footy club,” Jackson said.
“He used to walk up Pigdon Street to the ground to watch Carlton play, and we’re talking the period from the late 1800s until when my mother was born – and when Mum was old enough they’d walk to the ground together and watch on from the outer because it was cheaper.
“In later years I’d jump in my Dad’s ute for the drive to the ground on matchdays, and we’d stand there beside blokes drinking boxes of longnecks and see the brawls. Like a lot of kids, I turned up in full Carlton gear and waited for the final siren to go so I could run out and have a kick.”
Greta’s formative years took in The Great Depression and the Second World War, and at 17 the school leaver landed her first job at Trades Hall.
“As we had a lot of tragedy in the house through the war with both my grandfather and an aunt dying, Mum wanted to give her first pay cheque to her mother - but her Mum said: ‘No, this is your first cheque, you buy whatever you like’,” Jackson said.
“So what did Mum do? She headed straight across the road to the pharmacy and bought a Carlton membership.”
In the ensuing years, Neil and Greta complete the leisurely match day strolls from his grandparents’ house on Rathdowne Street to Pigdon Street and onto Princes Park, where they’d take their place in reserved seats in the Ald. Gardiner Stand.
To quote: Neil: “The Carlton ground was like a second home, and we were also regulars at the MCG for the Grand Finals of 1968, 1970, ’72, and all the Premierships Carlton were part of. This was just something you did.”
In her later years, when ill health made life difficult for her to leave the house, Greta would deck herself out in dark Navy Blue, warm the set, and follow her match day heroes from the comfort of her living room – and her unswerving loyalty was not lost on the Club.
When Carlton celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding in 2014, a certificate signed by the then President Stephen Kernhan was presented to Greta, in recognition of her 69 years as a paid-up Member.
Greta Jackson died in 2019 at the age of 92, following an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer – and it was her dying wish that a treasured item be forwarded to the Carlton Football Club Archive – a 1950s novelty ceramic football-shaped decanter featuring a hand-painted Carlton figurine completing a towering Cripps-like overhead mark.
The decanter, in pristine condition, was crafted by the Diana Pottery company, which manufactured ceramics in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Marrickville from 1941 to 1970 and was considered the most important Australian maker of such products through the period.
