Former Carlton rover Fred Stafford, whom history records as having kicked the most famous goal in Grand Final history, died this morning (Friday) in a Thornbury nursing home after a long illness. He was 82.

What a year 1947 was for the local hero Stafford – a first-year player from neighbouring Fenwick Street who had only been given the key to the door when he celebrated his 21st birthday that August.
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Carlton’s opening round match against Melbourne at Princes Park on April 19 of 1947 was the first of Stafford’s 102 matches in six seasons for Carlton, during which time he would wear the Navy Blue guernsey like a badge.

“I always followed Carlton, Mum and Dad followed Carlton and my brother George had a run with the Blues,” he said recently.

“I came to Carlton from Northcote where I played in ’45 and ’46. Some of the blokes (at Northcote) said ‘Oh, why don’t you have a go at the big time?’, so I went up there, played in a practice match and I was on my way. And I was lucky to break into the team for the first game.

“I played mainly as a half-forward flanker and I got a uniform, but that was all. They gave me No.10 and there was no reason given, they just handed it out.

“The coach, Perc Bentley, was top of the crop. You could always go and talk to him and he’d put you right. He’d mix with you, and if there was a turn up the club he’d always be there with you. He was a good bloke.

“And the players were all good friends. I used to knock around with Dougy Williams, and Ritchie Green was a good mate, but we were all good mates and a happy bunch we were. I had real good times for the six years that I was there.”

Stafford’s memory might had begun to fail him in recent months, but his powers of recall always took him back to those frenetic last moments of the ’47 Grand Final against Essendon, when his lethal snap secured the Blues’ their eighth premiership.

Just 44 seconds were left on the clock, with more than 85,000 onlookers chewing on their collective fingernails, when Stafford’s left-foot kick secured that precious Navy Blue pennant by the sweetest of margins – 13. 8 (86) to Essendon’s 11.19 (85).

As The Sporting Globe’s correspondent was drawn to say: “Carlton won the title not only because of the general smoothness of their play and almost perfect team balance, but because when defeat faced them in at least half a dozen matches they had the courage, stamina and level headedness to fight back and win”.

In a final interview at his old single-fronted cottage in Fenwick Street Carlton in September 2007, Stafford said that his overriding memory of the game was “first of all getting picked in the side . . . that was the main thing”.

“When you first run out and you’re a first-year player you don’t know what’s struck you. A hell of a roar goes around the ground and it hits you - and when it hits you, you know you’re in a big game, and I got into the game as it went along,” Stafford said.

“The game was pretty tight and it was only through Essendon’s bad kicking that we kept with them, but as they say, ‘Bad kicking is bad football’.

“I hadn’t done much all day. It was getting near the end and time was running out. The ball was coming back a bit from our goal towards theirs, but then it came back again and I got in the road. I remember that I ran in as the ball bounced and it bounced straight to me. And I just had to turn around, kick with my left foot and it went right up in the air and down again. Of course I kicked it that high to waste more time, time was up practically straight after that kick . . . and in the end we won by a point.

“That was a fantastic experience. Money wouldn’t buy it. That night I had a few beers and I was back at the club having a few more all day Sunday.”
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A much-treasured black and white photograph of Stafford’s showed him marching bare-chested from the MCG in the immediate aftermath of the ’47 triumph, following his captain and best player afield Ern Henfry from the hallowed Jolimont turf.

The Carlton Football Club’s 83rd annual report of 1947 trumpeted the view that Carlton, in its long history, “has never enjoyed so successful a year . . . ”.

“A record membership of 11,213, revenue the highest on record, a representative of the Club adjudged the best and fairest player in the Victorian Carnival side; the same player gaining the Club’s first Brownlow Medal; and last but by no means least, the winning of the premiership by a team which, on the season’s performances, proved conclusively that it thoroughly enjoyed the rich honour,” the report’s author contended.

Of the success of the ’47 team, Stafford unhesitatingly declared: “We all stuck together on the field and off the field. They were good times and you don’t get them up there now . . . they’re all under the thumb.

“When you sit down and think about it, sixty years is a long time ago and I only wish I was back there playing again. I’m getting on now, the old bones are getting a bit weak, but I’ve had a good innings. And Carlton was a great mob, from KG Luke right down to the bootstudder. They gave me this great experience and I had one hell of a good time there.”

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