George Harris and the grandstand named after him
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FORMER Carlton president George Harris, the
architect of arguably the greatest era in the club’s history,
has died at the age of 84.
Harris, who had experienced on-going health
problems for many years, passed away peacefully on Monday at the Memorial
Home in Heidelberg,
surrounded by his family.
“With the passing of George Harris, a
leviathan of the Carlton Football Club has sadly been lost,” Carlton Football
Club president, Richard Pratt, said.
“In the pantheon of Carlton’s
long and successful history, few men – whether director, player, member or
supporter – can truly say that they gave more to Carlton than him.
“Everyone at Carlton extends their deepest sympathies to
the Harris family, on the passing of a man whose contributions to this club may
never be surpassed.”
Harris, whose wife Jean died in 1999, is
survived by his four children – Ken, Andrew, Christine and Robert – eight
grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are yet to be
finalised, but the service is to be held at the Carlton ground, within the confines of the
Carlton Social Club which bears his name.
Born in St Kilda in 1922, Harris was a
survivor of the war-time horrors of Changi prison, and on his return to civilian life
pursued a career in dentistry. His adopted vocation saw him serve as a dentist
in the now-defunct HM Prison Pentridge.
But Harris will always be remembered as the
man who formed Carlton’s
famed Progress Party, and swept into power as president with the firm
mandate of reviving the fortunes of a club which had plummeted to its then
worst-ever standing of 10th in its centenary season of 1964.
Harris rounded up 12 prospective board
members to run with him at the 1964 elections. Four of them were
members of the existing board, vice-presidents Perc Bentley and Jack Wrout, and
committeemen Graeme Emanuel and Bruce Comben.
To that quartet Harris rounded up eight
“outsiders”, forming the Progress Party. The Progress Party’s 10-point platform
demanded a dedication to eliminate factions at Carlton for all time and,
above all, to win football matches.
Under Harris’ watch Carlton
shook the VFL to its foundations when it secured the services as playing coach
of Melbourne’s
greatest son, Ron Barassi, in the days when switching clubs was seen as heresy.
The move ultimately paved the way for
Carlton’s three-point victory over Essendon to secure the 1968 premiership –
its first in 21 years – and the unforgettable 1970 Grand Final triumph, when
Carlton beat Collingwood by 10 points after trailing by a mammoth 44 points at
half time.
In 1974, Harris vacated the Carlton presidency to
pursue business interests. But it would be only a brief hiatus, and he returned
to Princes Park as president in 1978.
“The club was on a real slide, and I
started to be put under pressure by a lot of people,” Harris once said. “My ego
told me that I could go back and kick things into shape once more.
“My
first time as president cost me thousands and thousands, and I didn’t even put
in a bill for my telephone. My home phone accounts were like the national debt.
I made an assessment, and decided that I would not put myself in the position
of having to run flat out in my consultancy work in various fields, just to
make up for what I would have to do at the club. So I said that if it was going
to take ‘x’ hours, I must be paid for those hours. Before I stood for election,
this was spelt out in a letter to every member.”
In 1979, with Alex Jesaulenko at the helm
as captain-coach, Carlton
secured its 11th premiership, again over Collingwood. In the wake of Wayne
Harmes’ knocking of the ball back into play to set up the match-winning goal, Harris
famously declared: “What’s better than beating Collingwood by 10 goals? Beating
them by five points!”
Though Harris’ reign at Carlton ended amidst a bitter power struggle
at the famed “House of Stoush”, Festival Hall, on the night of Tuesday,
February 19, 1980, he remained staunchly Blue. Even when a stroke rendered him
mute in 1991, Harris’s love for Carlton
never waned.
One of his final public appearances came at
Carlton’s
Premiership Players Ball in 2004, at which he was welcomed to centre stage with
a standing ovation.
As late as February of this year, Harris
had a letter written and addressed to the club, which read:
To my beloved Blues
Please get your act together, we’re all
hurting out here. We need strong leadership
backed up by the type of loyalty that made Carlton famous.
I wish I could help. I can’t, but my
heart’s still strong and it will always remain true Blue.
Yours sincerely and forever,
G.
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