It’s been 50 years since Kyneton’s own Jim Buckley took the field for the first time as a Carlton senior footballer - as fate would have it against the team formerly known as Footscray (now Western Bulldogs), this Sunday afternoon’s opponent at Marvel Stadium.

Rewind to Round 11, Monday, June 14, 1976, when James Robert Buckley followed the then acting Captain Peter ‘Percy’ Jones down the race, onto the inhospitable Western Oval and into Carlton history.

At the age of 16 years and 200 days, Buckley joined Ted Pollock as the youngest Carlton player to complete his senior debut - Pollock, having been 16 years 200 days when he turned out for the first time in Round 15, 1930 against St Kilda at the Junction Oval.

As the Western Oval was never a happy hunting ground, Carlton’s 17-point loss (9.10 (64) - 11.15 (81) was somewhat predictable. Jones, the acting captain in Alex Jesaulenko’s absence through injury, led from the front with two goals for the match, while Danny Halloran, who also booted two, was adjudged Carlton’s best player.

Buckley, by his own admission “nearly fell over” when told it was 50 years since he first got the call-up for the Carlton seniors. At the time he was billeted with another hopeful David B. McKay in Snell Grove, Pascoe Vale.

“We’d played South Fremantle at Norwood Oval in what was the Wills Cup the previous Tuesday night, and I kicked six after half-time. On the plane on the way home, Ian Thorogood, who was coach, pulled me up and said ‘You’re in’,” Buckley recalled.

“All my family was there for the game. I came on and copped Terry Wheeler as my first opponent,” Buckley said. “I was pretty light and I actually played with a safety pin jammed into my shorts to hold them up.”

This was the first of Buckley’s 164 senior games for Carlton, which would include the Premierships of 1979, 1981 and ’82 – the latter in the same year he took Best and Fairest honours.

Halloran and the resident back pocket John O’Connell have since died, as has the coach Ian Thorogood.

Higgins, who turned out for his seventh and final Carlton senior game in that match, recently reunited with Buckley at the Spirit of Carlton function in the Victory Room.

“I can remember Jim coming down from Kyneton as a young kid, in what was my second year at Carlton,” Higgins said this week.

“I can also remember the match vividly. I was actually picked to play in the rezzies and when I turned up I was told I’d be playing seniors because Geoff Southby got crook the night before,” Higgins said.

“It was a big moment to play my first full game for Carlton, on the eve of my 21st birthday too. At the time I was part of the first Footscray Institute of Technology phys ed group with Footscray players Geoff Jennings, Peter Welsh and Terry Wheeler, and we still catch up each January at the Port Arlington pub.”

Regrettably, fate dealt Garry a cruel hand as the match progressed.

“The best football lesson I ever got was when I got hold of the ball in the centre, turned around and s..t myself when I kicked it. ‘Percy’ (Jones) gave me the biggest bake and I remember thinking ‘aren’t we on the same side?’. It wasn’t until about a fortnight later that I realised how disciplined you had to be to play at that level.”

To add injury to insult, Higgins suffered a serious ankle injury when he fell awkwardly in the second quarter - and in leaving the ground for urgent medical attention “I remember someone pinching my wife’s backside on the way out”.

“I ended up going to St Vincent’s Hospital, but never underwent an x-ray,” Higgins said.

“It wasn’t until about 18 months later that I had floating bone removed, and I still have the fragments in a jar at home.”

The Carlton team (Jim Buckley’s first senior match and Garry Higgins’ last) - Round 11 v Footscray, Western Oval, Monday, June 14, 1976.

B:                           John O’Connell             Rod Austin                       Kevin Heath

HB:                       Garry Higgins                 Bruce Doull                     Phil Pinnell

C:                           Vin Catoggio                   Barry Armstrong           Tony Pickett

HF:                        David Dickson               Mark Maclure                 Trevor Keogh

F:                           Eric Pascoe                     David McKay                  Jim Buckley

Ruck:                   Peter Jones (c)               Ray Byrne                         Rod Ashman

Res:                      Danny Halloran            Syd Jackson

Coach:               Ian Thorogood