Alan Rees, a Life Member of the Carlton Football Club, has passed away in a Brighton nursing home four weeks short of his 99th birthday.

A former member of The Carltonians coterie, Alan was awarded Life Membership of the club in 2006, the same year Brendan Fevola and Matthew Lappin were so honoured.

Born in nearby Brunswick on November 14, 1922, Alan was a five year-old when he was gifted his first Carlton Football Club Membership by his father. So began a 93-year association with his beloved Blues.

The owner of Richmond’s Sydenham Hotel, Alan regularly availed his licensed premises to Carlton officials and players through the 1970s and ’80s. As the long-serving former runner Bob Lowrie recalled: “We used to go down there after Sunday morning training . . . and Alan was the perfect host.”

It was at the Sydenham that Alan’s raucous voice quite literally caught the ear of the football club’s patrons – amongst them the three-time Premiership player Jim Buckley who gave him the nickname “Bullfrog”.

For a time Alan owned and operated the Ampol service station (later Dan’s Car Wash) on the corner of Rosanna Road and Burgundy Street in Heidelberg. Prior to his retirement, he managed The Grandview Hotel in Pearson Street, West Brunswick.

Alan was photographed with Lowrie and the late property steward Ken Kleiman for the front cover of the AFL Record on the occasion of Carlton’s 150th year celebrations in 2014.

In later years Alan was a regular at the club’s Bequest Society Luncheons.

Alan’s beloved wife of 65 years June predeceased him.

There were no children.