Some love stories begin with a dance or a dinner party. For lifelong Carlton supporters Dennis and Glenda Garde, it first happened in the outer at Princes Park, on a day when their beloved Blues were busy making history.
It was the afternoon of Saturday, May 15, 1976, and Carlton had come face to face with its nemesis, Richmond. The first quarter was grim, with the visitors piling on six goals to one. Then came the response. The Blues kicked 20 goals to three over the final three quarters, ten of them in the third, and acting captain Robert Walls, the late, great Walls, kicked ten himself, six of them in the second term.
But out in the pocket, on the terraces in the shadow of the since-demolished Hawthorn Stand, something quieter and far more lasting was beginning.
Glenda was there with a girlfriend, as she so often was. Dennis stood alone, watching from a short way off, as he did at most games. Back then, home-and-away football at Princes Park meant the same faces week after week, until even a casual observer began to notice. Eventually, one of them did something about it.
“We’d see the same people every game, and I kept seeing this guy, so I said to my friend, ‘I’m going to go and say hello,’” Glenda remembered.
“It was for no particular reason. I don’t know why. But anyway, I went and stood with Dennis.”
Perhaps some part of her knew. It was, to borrow from Humphrey Bogart, the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and the romance that followed moved with the speed of a Carlton third quarter.
“The following week, Carlton played St Kilda at Waverley, and we went out for dinner that night,” Dennis said. “We didn’t get to that game, but we went out for dinner.
“Then the next week we played Geelong, and from then on we just started going to the football together – and what a year it turned out to be with Carlton finishing top at the end of the home and aways and Collingwood bottom.”
Dennis and Glenda had truly found each other, and from then on never stopped fronting to Carlton games together. They married in 1977, and will next year celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and five Premierships earned in that time.
In 1990 the Gardes became proud parents of twins – a son Tom and a daughter Alexandra, both raised in the Navy Blue tradition as naturally as other children learn to walk . . . although Alexandra took a little persuading.
To quote Glenda: “When we all first started going, our daughter wasn’t particularly into football. She’d take a book to read, but after a while the interest in the book got less and less, and the football got more and more”.
Today the twins are both children are dyed-in-the-wool Carlton. Tom, now based in England, sets the alarm for the wee hours to watch Cripps and co. play and texts members of the clan throughout each game, particularly when gimme goals are missed.
Dennis himself has committed to Carlton as a Member for 67 consecutive years, Glenda for 59. Together they’ve savoured the successes of eight Grand Final victories since Ron Barassi first took hold of the coach’s baton – and how well they remember the pilgrimages to Princes Park, from Pigdon Street, past curator Tommy Warne’s old digs near Bowen Crescent, and through the turnstiles to the sound of the clickety-clack.
“The stands have gone now and the ground has changed so much, but I think I probably preferred it when we used to stand because it felt more like a family,” said Glenda.
“Carlton had about a 70 per cent winning record at Princes Park. They hardly ever lost,” said Dennis. “They had good recruiting, with access to the Bendigo zone, and they managed to get a lot of good interstate players. Then they started winning flags.”
When the losses did come, as they always do, the couple held firm to the unwritten Carlton code. “You never left a game early, even if you were ten goals behind,” Glenda said. “You stayed the course.”
It’s a creed that serves a marriage as well as a football club.
To the question ‘Who is their all-time greatest Carlton player and their favourite?’ (and there is a difference) Glenda volunteered the name of Craig Bradley on both counts. Dennis, meanwhile, identified John Nicholls and Bruce Doull respectively.
“Bruce Doull was prepared to sacrifice his game to stop his opponent,” Dennis said. “He’d spoil all the time, and he never went to ground. He was so good on his feet and was such a humble player who didn’t want any attention.”
“John Nicholls just dominated the scene. He was a huge figure and an incredible presence.”
Age has made match days somewhat harder for the Gardes these days. Dennis underwent back surgery last year, and the steep walkways at the MCG are no longer easy to climb - but the two of them still find a way to a seat, just as they once found that precious patch of concrete on which to stand in the outer up Royal Parade way.
Last week, on a pre-booked tour of IKON Park, Dennis and Glenda returned to that very special place in the pocket, where the latter once approached the former and said hello for no particular reason.
There, side by side, they posed for a photograph . . . 50 years on and still standing.
