No.31 evoked with Danny’s passing

By Tony De Bolfo

Danny Halloran, who through his brief playing career at Princes Park took great pride in wearing the No.31 guernsey made famous by Ron Barassi, has died suddenly at the age of 57.

Danny joined Carlton from Kyneton where in 1938 his father, the former Melbourne and Footscray footballer Frank Halloran, was adjudged the Bendigo Football League’s best and fairest player. In those days he was a zoned player who made a go of it with the likes of Dunolly’s Wayne Deledio and Maryborough’s Russell Ohlsen.

It was 1975 and when Jim Buckley was recruited from Kyneton the following year, Danny acted as his chauffeur.

“Danny picked me up a few times and took me down to Melbourne. He was a real gentleman, well-respected - a good bloke from a lovely family,” Buckley said.

“He did his best for the football club too. He had legs on him like a grand piano. Massive they were. He was very solid.”

Danny was handed the No.31 guernsey for good reason according to his younger sister Louise. “He was a similar size and shape to ‘Barass’ and that was the thinking with the jumper,” Louise said.

“In those days they used to give us the Carlton jumpers to wash and you’d have to watch the No.31 when you hung it out on the line, otherwise it’d be pinched.”
Six days shy of his 21st birthday, Halloran completed the first of just 15 senior appearances for Carlton, in the 13th round of 1975. Named 20th man, his was a baptism of fire - Collingwood at Victoria Park - but he helped get the visitors home by 16 points.

Though his senior appearances were restricted to just four in that maiden season, Danny turned out for ten in 1976. He was adjudged Carlton’s best player afield against Footscray in the 11th round of 1976 on the day his travelling companion Jim Buckley completed his senior debut.

The four-time Carlton premiership player David McKay, remembered that Danny inherited the No.31 Carlton guernsey from Peter Hall (now the Nationals’ leader in the Victorian Legislative Council), who donned the jumper after Barassi’s retirement.

“Danny was a bull of a player,” McKay recalled. “He was a really strong, tough-at-the-ball type. He wasn’t the greatest mark or, obviously, the greatest kick, but he had good height and weight. His strength was his asset and he used it well.

“He’ll probably be remembered for the game where he missed a goal from about two metres out. He slammed the footy onto his boot, overcooked the kick and the ball hit the goalpost. As far as I know he’s the only Carlton player to have done that other than ‘Percy’ Jones who actually kicked the post.”

Members of Danny’s family fondly remember his days at Princes Park. Younger sister Louise recalled that she and her mother Carmel would make the trek from Kyneton to Carlton in the wee hours of Saturday morning to watch him play.

“We’d pack the thermos, queue up at the gate at the Royal Parade end and walk straight in . . . we’d sit on the wing on the city side, in front of the shed before it was all revamped,” Louise said.

“These were very exciting times. We’d watch the reserves and the seniors and be rapt if Dan played in the seniors. He had some great games and got votes in the Brownlow, so he did some good things even if they weren’t often enough.”

Ultimately, the opening round of 1977 - involving Geelong at Kardinia Park on a day in which Kennington’s John Tresize and Golden Square’s bespectacled Tony Southcombe first played - would regrettably prove to be Danny’s last. Circumstances of Danny’s departure are somewhat clouded, but Louise remembered that her brother suffered a broken ankle in an ice skating mishap from which he never fully recovered.

“It was an injury that never really healed and to the end he walked with a limp,” Louise said.

Danny kept an involvement with the game, chasing the leather in the Goulburn Valley League and assisting the former Fitzroy footballer Chris Smith with coaching duties at Mooroopna. He maintained a friendship with the former Carlton midfielder Ray Byrne and, according to his sister, got on well with Bruce Doull “and the more introspective characters”.

A physical education teacher by profession and a keen cycling enthusiast, Danny, whose father died of an aneurism at the age of 54, passed away last Friday - not far from the flat in Abbotsford Street North Melbourne where he first roomed in his Carlton days.

Danny’s cause of death remains unknown, but as Louise said: “Dan just went to sleep and never woke up”.

“It was all very peaceful. He was at his home, in an apartment in Plane Tree Way, just a drop kick from the North footy ground”.

Danny is survived by his former wife of 30 years Di, daughters Jess (a sports journalist for Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph), Lizzie and Fiona, and son Tom.

He is also survived by his mother Carmel, sisters Annemaree and Louise and brother Tom.

To the end, Danny kept a place in his heart for Carlton and of course, the No.31 now worn by Marcus Davies.

As his daughter Jess said: “He loved the fact that he wore the No. 31 . . . he was really proud of that”.

Danny’s funeral is expected to be held in Kyneton next week.

The Spirit of Carlton Past and Present Farewells Chris Pavlou

Chris Pavlou, who blissfully committed more than 50 years of his life to Carlton as a senior footballer, runner, recruiter, coach, past players President and board member, died yesterday after a brave battle with cancer.

He was 72.

Chris died peacefully in the company of his family at his home in Frankston, the place from which he was recruited to the club way back in 1958.

He is survived by his wife of 47 years Mary, son Anthony, daughters Trish and Louise, and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are to be detailed in Tuesday’s Herald Sun.

The Chris Pavlou story had its origins in Foster, not far from where the rolling hills meet the Gippsland coastline, where he was born on August 18, 1939. Chris’s father hailed from Cyprus and his mother from Ithaka, his parents having migrated to Australia in 1922 and ’34 respectively.

In 1947, after the Pavlous relocated to Frankston to run a fish and chip shop, Chris was enrolled in the local Frankston state school and together with his older brother Con and younger brother George leant assistance to their parents on the premises. Later, Chris followed Con to the Frankston Football Club, turning out with the Under 17s at the tender age of 15.

“As a 15 year-old I didn’t really know much about football to be honest with you, because being of ethnic background I was with my parents working in the shop,” Chris said in a final interview with this reporter recently. “Football wasn’t really a priority because I had to work a bit.”

It was around this time that Chris pledged his passionate support to Carlton, which would linger until his last breath.

Why Carlton?

“Well I had a fight with my brother when Carlton was playing Essendon for the ’47 premiership,” he said. “Of course, Carlton won, but my brother wouldn’t let me listen to the radio, he was pushing me aside.

“Now Frankston wore the same colours as Essendon and we loved Frankston, but he wouldn’t let me listen to the footy . . . and it was a close game with Stafford kicking the goal for Carlton to win by a point, so I had a go at him and said ‘I’m going to barrack for Carlton from now on’.”

“The next day Mum went and bought me a Carlton jumper so I put that on and supported them ever since . . . and they’ve been my life really. For 51 years Carlton has been my life.”

It was at Frankston that Chris’s footballing talents were first identified by the late Carlton premiership player and coach Jim Francis.

“Jim Francis happened to live at Long Island in a holiday home at Frankston,” Chris recalled, “and he came along to watch us at training.

“I don’t know what prompted him to do that . . . whether he was going for a walk along the beach . . . but he headed up to the Frankston footy ground, saw us playing and having a kick, and the next thing I knew he asked me if I’d like to have a run at Carlton.

“At that time Carlton were looking for small, quick players. There was Bruce Williams from Morwell, Marty Cross, Johnny Heathcote, Barry Smith and myself - and ‘Handsy’ (Ken Hands) had this idea of getting some pace into the team. There was quite a handful of young quick players who helped get the ball rolling with pace . . . ”

Chris couldn’t believe his luck. “I just got such a buzz to be invited to Carlton - to go to the Carlton Football Club to play - because I barracked for Carlton,” he said.

“I couldn’t believe I had the opportunity to have a run around. I remember walking into the clubrooms and seeing Ken Hands, John Nicholls and Bill Milroy and I’m saying to myself ‘What am I doing here?’.

Chris also remembered Carlton as an accommodating club regardless of creed or religion.

“We just accepted eachother as footballers and friends,” he said. “There was no animosity between us in being Italian or Greek and there were a lot of the Aussie boys there.

“Vasil Varlamos didn’t get there until 1960, but my cousin, John Defteros was there in the under 19s at Carlton. He was about the only Greek connection I had, but in saying that, there were a lot of Greek supporters. A whole group of them used to gather around the wing at Princes Park to cheer the Greeks along.”

Vasil, the 44-game Carlton half-back flanker and perhaps Chris’s dearest friend from his playing days, said “Chris was a first generation Australian of Greek origin just like me, so that was a connection and we became very close”.

“As a player he was fast and he started out as a rover, but he wasn’t strong enough around the packs so they put him on a wing. In ’61 he was probably one of the best wingmen in the League because he beat all the top wingers he played on, Brian Dixon included,” Vasil said.

“He used to line up on a wing on Johnny James’ side of the ground and he played with such enthusiasm. He’d tell you if you did something right and I always remember his encouragement.”

In many respects, Chris’s playing career ended before it began. Completing his senior debut in the second round match of 1958 (he earned Allen Aylett as his maiden opponent against North Melbourne at Princes Park) Chris’s 31-game tenure as a rover and wingman ended in the 14th round of 1961, when in a match against Footscray at the Western Oval, he cannoned into the fence, sustaining a serious knee injury which he further aggravated after hobbling to the forward pocket.

Chris was 22 at the time, but would never again don the No.35 dark Navy Blue guernsey . . . and it hit him hard.

“It upset me that much because I was on the verge of something. I wish I could have played a couple more years, just to see where it had have ended up,” he said.

“We made the Grand Final in 1962, then Barassi came, then the great years of 1968 and 1970 . . . I didn’t get the opportunity to do those things and I often ask myself ‘How would I have gone?.”

In the aftermath of this personal setback, Chris embarked on what would be a five-year coaching career with East Launceston through the early 1960s, during which time he completed a playing comeback - only to suffer another serious knock to the knee.

But Chris was Carlton to the core and such was the depth of his admiration for the place and the lifelong friendships forged with men like George Armstrong, Jack Wrout, Ken Hands, Jack Carney and Bert Deacon that Chris inevitably returned to the mainland to renew club ties.

Appointed Under 19s coach in 1973, Chris was afforded the rare opportunity to develop burgeoning Blues of the calibre of Peter Francis and the inaugural Norm Smith Medallist Wayne Harmes (whom Chris actually recruited) and “Harmesy” was one of a number of former players to visit Chris in recent weeks.

Twenty years later, Chris was rewarded with Life Membership of the Carlton Football Club - only to further his commitment to the cause by championing the past players for 12 years and contributing at board level for almost two years through those dim dark days of the early 21st century.

Which came as no real surprise to those like Vasil Varlamos, who said of his former teammate: “I have never known anybody to love a football club like Chris”.

Anthony Pavlou said today that “Dad’s wish was to spend one more Christmas with his family”.

“He fought the hard battle to make Christmas and he achieved that,” Anthony said.

“Of course he loved Carlton too, but the Pavlou family days at the football, cheering on the mighty Blues, will never be quite the same without him, for that was part of our ritual every week.

Time Called for Long-Serving Official

By Tony De Bolfo

Carlton’s long-serving senior timekeeper Ralph Madge, fondly remembered as the man with his finger on the button, has died after a short illness at the age of 88.

Awarded life membership of the club in 1984, Madge served as senior timekeeper for almost a quarter of a century . . . and his timing, not surprisingly, was impeccable.

A Fitzroy supporter in his early years, Ralph Theodore Madge’s connection with Carlton was first forged through the club’s reserve grade team manager Bert Thomas, a next door neighbor.

The story goes that Thomas invited Madge to Princes Park to officiate as property steward after the sudden death of Norm Cattanach in 1966. In that first year, Madge leant his support to reserves coach Jack Carney.

According to son Greg, “Dad gave it a bash for a year”, then assumed duties from George Smith as Senior Timekeeper in 1967. It was a position Madge held until 1990 when Max Harvey took over, and it took in seven Carlton Grand Final victories - 1968, ’70 (when the final siren sounds incessantly in a mad Madge moment), ’72, ’79, ’81-’82 and ’87.

“Dad kept a collection of time cards from each of those Grand Finals, which he had each of the officiating field umpires sign. He had them framed in the end because he always thought of them as important,” Greg said.

“I must admit that I rode on Dad’s coat tails in those early days at Carlton. I got to sit in the old wooden press box by the Gardiner Stand where the timekeeper was, and I got to see the new faces like Alex Jesaulenko and Brian Kekovich.”

Greg described his father as “a fairly forthright character who spoke his mind and told you what he thought of you . . . and he had an incredible wit”.

“For him, Carlton was all about devotion. In time he forgot his history of being a Fitzroy supporter as a kid,” Greg said.

“I must admit I felt a bit bad when he said ‘Son, I’m going to retire soon, you don’t want to be Carlton’s new timekeeper do you?’ . . . I said to him ‘I’d rather be runner to be perfectly honest’.”

Max Harvey, Madge’s eventual successor as timekeeper, remained at the helm as Carlton timekeeper until the AFL took control on the night of the famed Millennium match at the MCG.

“I found Ralph very kind and very helpful . . . he certainly was to me anyway,” Harvey said.

“He could be pedantic about things in terms of getting them right, particularly in respect of timekeeping, but it’s all changed.

“It’s all run by the AFL now, but back then the timekeepers were employed by the clubs, so you could pull a bit of wool over the other bloke’s eyes in a tight game. A bit of that went on, and that was the way it was - you were a club timekeeper so you were extremely loyal to the club.”

Ralph Madge died the day before Carlton’s resounding elimination Final victory over Essendon. He is survived by his wife Jean, sons Greg and Bruce, daughter Robyn and their spouses, and seven grandchildren.

RIP Denis Collins

By Tony De Bolfo

Denis Collins, the 30-game wingman with Carlton in two seasons through 1978 and ’79, has died suddenly of a heart attack in the Western Australian town of Hyden.

He was 58.   

The son of former Fitzroy and Essendon premiership player Jack Collins, and brother to Footscray’s one-game player Daryl, Denis was a born and bred Braybrook boy and a contemporary of Doug Hawkins.

Collins represented Footscray in 100 senior matches over six seasons before crossing town to Princes Park. He was 24 years and 333 days old when he first turned out for the Blues in the No.1 guernsey, against Melbourne in the third round of ’78 at Princes Park.

Carlton won.

Collins, who inherited the nickname “Scruffy” due to the full beard he sported when he played, is best remembered as a strong, aggressive footballer blessed with exceptional pace and evasive skills.

That his old team should meet St Kilda in the final round of the home and away season this Saturday night is somewhat ironic, for its was in the final round match of 1978 between the two teams that Collins found himself face-up on the Moorabbin following a confrontation with the Saints’ volatile footballer Robert “Mad Dog”Muir.

That clip found its way to the Seven Network’s well-worn “Sensational Seventies” package and still gets a run from time to time.

Following the tete a tete with Muir, Collins took to the field for what was only his second career final when Carlton met Geelong in an eliminator at the MCG, and he contributed significantly to the team’s 33-point triumph.

At the conclusion of his time at Carlton, in what was a premiership season under Alex Jesaulenko in 1979, Collins pursued  his career with Richmond. There he turned out for a further 17 matches, and was named as an emergency for the 1980 Grand Final.

In the early 1980s, after a brief run with WAFL club East Perth, Collins made his way to Hyden, about 330 kilometres east of Perth in the Western Australian wheatbelt. He chased the leather for the local football club and together with his future wife Sheenagh managed the local Wave Rock Hotel Motel near the famous geological formation.

It was at Hyden that Carlton Assistant Coach Mark Riley forged a friendship with the Collins’ who became godparents to his daughter.

“I’d never been outside the city and they sent me out there with teaching, and they really looked after me. He and I became great mates,” Riley said.

“He was a very giving person, very community-driven and incredibly generous . . . any profits that he and Sheenagh made were pumped back into the town, and If you can imagine where he lived – this tiny little town in the middle of an arid wheatbelt where it rains once every ten years and suffers drought the other nine.

“I remember seeing him at a recent Spirit of Carlton day. I left him at the bar with ‘Sellers’ (Mark Maclure), Jimmy Buckley and those sort of blokes, and it would have been the first time in 20 or 30 years that he’d had the chance to catch up with them because he’d put so much time and energy into his work.”

Maclure, Carlton’s 243-game triple premiership player who last saw Collins in Port Douglas, remembered his old teammate as tearaway footballer who’d fared well against the Blues in earlier contests.

“They got him from Footscray because he was speedy and quick, and he always gave us a lot of trouble when we played them,” Maclure said.

“I’m not quite sure why he missed out in ’79, but he fitted into the club quite well. He was a very affable sort of bloke and quite a nice guy.”

A family friend  Bernie Mouritz, said from Perth yesterday that the entire Hyden community was shocked and deeply saddened with the loss of one of its own.

“Denis was here only ten days ago having a kick of the footy with my young bloke,” Mouritz said. “I spoke to him again the other day, he’d been to the  doctor about his high blood pressure, but he’d had tests and was on medication and everybody thought ‘Okay, he’s got it under control’”. He was feeling good about life and was looking forward to the coming season .It was all coming together, then this. We are all Gutted

Mouritz said that Collins complained to his wife early yesterday that he was feeling unwell and promptly checked himself in to the local Silver Chain Medical Centre. The flying doctor was called, arrived and every care was available and taken. But Collins suffered a massive heart attack while being stabilized  and could not be revived.

“Denis was a good man ,  he was  community-spirited and didn’t ever ask you to do anything he wasn’t able  to do himself on or off the footy or cricket field. Anybody who has a hard word to say about him is probably jealous because he could actually do it,” Mouritz said.

“He leaves a massive void, a huge hole in the community. Ironically he’d just helped raise the funds, he built the infrastructure and had automated the lighting  system at The Hyden airstrip he had also  helped build. So that the flying doctor could arrive at any time at all.

Collins is survived by his loving wife Sheenagh and his many friends he had made over his time in Hyden . Funeral arrangements are yet to be determined.