Pre VFL Players

Introduction

The names below are players who have been named in Carlton teams, Carlton team squads, or Second Twenty/Reserves, in practice, pre-season, exhibition and club matches, or reported to have been recruited by Carlton, up until the end of season 1896.

As the newspaper reports of the day mostly only mentioned the player's surname, and there are many same named players playing around the same era, some player's game entries may be incorrect.
Without the first name being available has required some calculated guess work.

Due to work commitments, (most people worked on Saturday), and the transport difficulties of the time, sometimes players named in the teams were unable to play and the emergencies, or, in the early years, even substitutes from the crowd had to be used.

Many first names and other details are not known.
If you can help with the missing names, dates of birth and or death, other information or images, if you have a relation, or you know of someone who played for the Blues and their name is not here, please contact Blueseum. www.blueseum.org/tiki-contact.php
Many missing Carlton players' details have now been sourced from "Origins of Australian Football" Volumes 1 - 5.

Below are the names of 1,047* players who are known to be listed for the Blues from 1864 to the end of 1896. (Some Senior and many Second Twenty or Reserve teams are missing so this number in incomplete.)
The club was lax at sending the Second Twenty match lists to the newspapers. Most other teams' squads regularly appear, not so the Blues.
Plus, some Second Twenty players' names have yet to be added.

At the top left hand corner of the bio pages Senior Games and Goals are mostly shown, but some entries include games against Junior teams as well. Junior teams had nothing to do about the age of its players. They were teams that were not Senior clubs such as Carlton, Melbourne, South Melbourne etc. For example, Essendon was a junior team for the first five years of its existence before gaining Senior status in 1878. Their inaugral match was against the Carlton Second Twenty (or Reserves) in 1873. When the Senior clubs played a junior club they played against odds. The junior club was allowed to have three or four extra players on the field.

Some players on their bio page have been named in the Reserves and/or Second Twenty teams, there is no difference, it is the same competition.
In addition, listed separately at the bottom of this page are the 28 players who are known to have made the transition from the VFA to the VFL in 1897

In his final Volume (5) of "Origins of Australian Football" Mark Pennings has named 601 of these 1,047* players to have played Senior football, or named in Senior squads, for the Blues up to the end of season 1896.
The 28 players who transitioned from the VFA to the VFL are included in the 601.
In the following 123 seasons of VFL/AFL 1897 - 2019 another 1, 211 players have played Senior football. So in the 154 years of the Carlton Football Club at least 1,783 men have played senior football for the Blues.

.*This tally has not been finalised.
Image Symbol: (I or i) following a player's name indicates that there is an image of that player on his bio page. (to be completed)

-----“Jack Conway, the man who made Carlton what it is, though they never properly acknowledged it.”
"Old 'Un" - The Footballer, 1876 p16

"With joy, dear friends, we greet with cheers,
Those football heroes of bygone years;
Their day is past, but their hearts are true
To their dear old colors, the White and the Blue."
Excerpt from the "Old Heroes Of Yore" written by George H. Ievers, Carlton Gazette, June 1891

"Carlton, with its old-time memories and latter day deeds, occupies an enviable position in the world of football."
"Observer" - The Argus, June 21 1909

"Melbourne clubs have histories, but no members are prouder of their club's past than the Carltonians."
"Rambler" - The Referee, Sydney, March 03 1915

"CARLTON has many fine traditions one dating back to the days of George Robertson, George Coulthard, Paddy Gunn, and then on through Jack Baker, Sam Bloomfield, 'Gib' Currie, Tom Blake, Jim Flynn, and his great team, is characteristic - it is the spirit of never being beaten. No matter what the odds, Carlton may always be relied on to give it's best on the biggest occasions.
Old Boy" - The Argus, August 31 1924
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Players at both VFA and VFL level

Links

Pre VFL | Champion of the Colony | Pre VFL Captains | Pre VFL Vice Captains | Pre VFL Seasons | Pre VFL Venues | Formation of the Club | Pre VFL Administrators | Presidents | Vice Presidents | Pre VFL Rules of Football | VFL/AFL | Blueseum Index : Carlton Team Of The Nineteenth Century

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JACOMB, John Newton - This player has been removed from the list of Carlton players after evidence has emerged that the claim made in the 1933 Carlton Centenery Souvenir is not accurate. If you have any evidence that supports Jacomb being a Carlton player please contact the Blueseum.