Just who is Carlton’s greatest player? It’s a question that has forever and a day provoked heated discussion amongst any Blue believers blessed with an opinion.
And in this the 150th anniversary of its hallowed existence, the Carlton Football Club has seen fit to settle the debate by naming Numero Uno and the cream de la crème of its senior playing ranks – the top 12 Carlton players of all time – in order of merit.
Late last year, the Club commissioned a selection panel to complete this lofty task. The five-man panel comprised;
Ian Collins (161-game Carlton Premiership player, Hall of Famer and former CEO and President);
Adrian Gleeson (176-game Carlton Premiership player and current Director);
Ken Hands (211-game dual Carlton Premiership player, Best & Fairest, Team of the Century member, Hall of Famer and former Captain and Coach);
David McKay (263-game, four-time Carlton Premiership player, former Director and current Spirit of Carlton representative); and
Tony De Bolfo (Carlton Football Club journalist/historian)
The selection panel took into consideration those players who represented Carlton in the pre-VFL days of the Caledonian Challenge Cup (the earliest known senior football championship in the world) from 1864 to 1876 and the Victorian Football Association from 1877-1896, as well as those 1252 senior players known to have played for Carlton in the past 118 seasons of Victorian Football League/Australian Football League competition – from Carlton Captain Jimmy Aitken, who led them onto the Brunswick Street Oval for the opening round match of the 1897 season against Fitzroy, through to Sam Docherty, the most recent senior debutant, who completed the deed on the MCG against Collingwood in Round 7, 2014.
Panellist met on three occasions in the Boardroom at Visy Park to finalise their selections. Their top 12 Best Blues (effectively the top one per cent of the club’s 1252 league reps) will this week be revealed, in reverse order, at carltonfc.com.au, with the top 5 to be named Friday.
Bradley? Doull? Nicholls? Silvagni? . . . so who’s your No.1 and who follows in the pecking order? See how you fare when the Blues’ best dozen are revealed through a landmark week in this our 150th year.
