St Kilda champion Carl Ditterich and Bulldogs great Doug Hawkins at the 2004 Hall of Fame gala. Picture: Cameron Tandy Source: Herald Sun
CARL Ditterich pauses, delving into his memory to recall the last time he caught up with his old St Kilda teammates.
There was a table of them at the club's function after the 2010 drawn Grand Final, but he reckons it was probably 12 months earlier when the 1966 team gathered at the Launceston Country Club for a premiership reunion with ailing skipper Darrel Baldock.
"I remember there being a Focker Friendship put on to fly myself and a few of the other blokes," Ditterich, now 67, recalled. "We all got down to Tassie and got around 'Doc' (Baldock) and had a great evening. It was just sensational."
On that August evening in 2009, only three members of the club's most famous team were missing: the recently deceased Travis Payze, as well as Ian Stewart and Daryl Griffiths, who were overseas.
Since then, the Saints have mourned the passing of Baldock, defender Roger Head and coach Allan Jeans.
It is one of the reasons "Big Carl" is so looking forward to tonight's function, at which about 650 guests will celebrate St Kilda's 140th anniversary.
12/04/1976. Carl Ditterich in action for the Saints. Carlton v St. Kilda. football. Picture: Photo File Source: Herald Sun
Members of the 1966 premiership team such as Allan Morrow, Kevin "Cowboy" Neale, Bob Murray, Verdun Howell, Ian Synman and Brian Mynott will mingle with Stewart Loewe, Lance Oswald, Brian Gleeson, Danny Frawley and games record holder Robert Harvey, who will become the 42nd player inducted into the Saints Hall of Fame.
Ditterich, who was in the Etihad Stadium stands for last night's match against Collingwood, had a career that in many ways encapsulates the club's history: spectacular, enigmatic, capable of brilliance, controversial and punctuated by Grand Final disappointment.
It is 50 years since he burst on to the scene as a 17-year-old from East Brighton, making a breathtaking debut against Melbourne in the opening round of 1963. Amazingly, Ditterich had been to only one VFL game in his life - to watch his beloved Geelong play St Kilda at the same ground the previous year.
"The thing I remember most about my first game was just running through the race and on to the field with the rest of the players," Ditterich said.
"It was at the old St Kilda (Junction) Oval, a magnificent ground and the place was packed. And just the roar of the crowd.
"I started off in the ruck. It's all about confidence. If you can get a couple of early tap-outs and a kick here and there, your confidence grows."
Ditterich was best afield and the legend was born.
"I was absolutely buggered after the game. The nervous tension drained all of the energy out of me and I was that tired that, about an hour after the game, I had to go and have a lie down on the carpet in (club secretary) Ian Drake's office."
Over the next 14 seasons Ditterich played 285 games, won two best-and-fairests, captained St Kilda and captain-coached Melbourne. He played in two losing Grand Finals and famously missed the 1966 decider due to a six-match suspension for striking Fitzroy's Daryl Peoples in the penultimate round of the season.
"I thought it was quite a legitimate bump myself, straight down the line, but these days they'd probably lock you up," Ditterich recalled.
"He was going for the ball and I just ran right through him. Next thing I know, they're descending from everywhere. The bloke who was umpiring on the wing on the other side of the ground even ran over and reported me."
It was one of 19 reports laid against Ditterich during a career in which he missed 30 games through suspension.
Ditterich said his memories of the 1966 Grand Final were hazy. He watched the match sitting up in the stand with injured wingman Ross Oakley and rover Ian Rowland.
12/04/1976. Carl Ditterich in action for the Saints. Carlton v St. Kilda. football. Picture: Photo File Source: Herald Sun
"I reckon we were up in the second tier, probably the Southern Stand I'd say. And when the siren went, I remember Ross and I were jumping up and down hugging each other - as you would after your first flag in 60 odd years - and we grabbed 'Doggy' Rowlands, who was unfortunate enough to have been left out of the previous week's side, and headed down to the rooms.
"When we got down there 'Huggo' (president Graham Huggins) divorced himself from the celebrations and came over and grabbed us blokes. It was a lot more spontaneous than it is today."
Tonight, with old friends, Ditterich will have five decades of memories to catch up on.
CARL Ditterich would get another crack at a premiership when he played in the 1971 Grand Final, when the Saints were overrun by Hawthorn.
"It was a tough, hard game," Ditterich said. "I think I might have run through a few players early and lost a bit of focus."
Within 12 months his time at the club was up, crossing to Melbourne under the 10-year rule after a minor dispute that pains him to this day.
"I would have eaten a car tyre for St Kilda," he said. "You got wrapped in the euphoria of playing league football with a team full of your mates. All I wanted at the end of 1972 was about $80 a game, and at that stage they were paying $60, $70 and $80 a game to guys who were no certainty to even play each week.
"It sounds greedy, but I'd put in 10 good years for the club and all I was after was an extra few dollars.
"But my motivation for playing was still the club and the supporters. And to win. I mean everyone loves winning and nobody loved it more than me."
Over the next eight years Ditterich waxed between Melbourne and St Kilda before leaving league football in 1981 and heading to the Mallee, where he still lives today.
"Managed to get to the grand final with Woorinen a couple of times and got done, then Tooleybuc and got done again, then Robinvale and the same thing happened again," he said. "Never quite got there in a grand final, except with the East Brighton under-17s. Premiership-wise, that's the only one of my life."
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