Where Are They Now?: Noel Carter | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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Where Are They Now?: Noel Carter

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Mar 24, 2004
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Where Are They Now?: Noel Carter
Print Email | Category: Past & Present Player's | Friday, 24 May 2013 10:53 | Written by Ron Head | Hits: 472 |

http://ozfooty.net/joomla16/newsarticles/pastnpresent/52-where-are-they-now-noel-carter

The transfer of Richmond rover Noel Carter in 1978 to South Fremantle was surely one of the best signings of a Victorian player by a Western Australian club in the last fifty years.

Yet if it weren’t for an uncompromising approach to clearances by Richmond at the time, Carter may have been lost to the Bulldogs after just the one season.

“My footy was going OK with Richmond, but I had suffered a bit with sickness which saw me in the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital for a month in the 1976 season,” he explained. “In 1977 I asked for more money, a request that was refused, and, after interest was shown from several other Victorian clubs, I was told the club had a blanket ban on clearances to anywhere in the VFL. Richmond had cleared several players at that time who had starred with their new clubs, and the heirachy was smarting over it. They were also clearing the way for Dale Weightman.”

“Mal Brown, who I’d played with at the Tigers, was in his first year as coach of South Fremantle, and he asked if I’d be interested in joining him in the West. Things were at a deadlock where I was, so I thought “What the hell, a year there might be alright.”

After a good first year with South, Carter received offers from VFL clubs once again, but Richmond hadn’t altered their stance on clearances, so he was happy to stay put at the Bulldogs.

Born in 1955, Noel Carter was always destined for star billing as a footballer. As a fourteen year old, he captained the Tasmanian schoolboys at the carnival in Perth, after which he was signed by Richmond, and repeated again in Brisbane the following year, also gaining all Australian selection at both carnivals.

Graduating to the seniors, he represented Ulverstone in Tasmania’s North West Football Union, winning the fairest and best award for the club as a seventeen year old in 1972. Carter recalls his first kick in combined league representative football. “It was a pass dispatched from the foot of the great Darrell Baldock, in the twilight of his career, and it was gleefully accepted,” he recalled.

Richmond were recruiting the talent they considered was a requirement for a tilt at a flag, and they swooped on the young Tasmanian they had signed three years earlier. After warming the bench several times as a reserve, he was selected for the Tigers wearing the number 27 guernsey in the 1973 VFL preliminary final against Collingwood, where he impressed enough to hold his place a week later and become part of a Richmond premiership.


Noel Carter captained South Fremantle in 1979-80-81, as well as Western Australia twice in 1981, and was awarded life membership at the Bulldogs in 1985.

Carter went on to play fifty three games and kick fifty five goals for Richmond over the next four years, before making the move West to play with South Fremantle.

It must have been a hard decision for the boy from Ulverstone to make at the time, but, looking back, he said: “I was lucky throughout my football career. Everything just happened for me, opportunities opened up, and, at the time, I just went for them.”

South Fremantle fans had seen a few boom recruits from Victoria wear the red and white over the years with mixed results, and it took Carter a while to win them over. But he became a great favourite with the supporters, and he is still a favourite son at the port.

He gave the South Fremantle club outstanding service over eight years, was a premiership captain and fairest and best as well as leading goalkicker in 1980, in a star studded side that included Michael, Rioli, McKay, Vigona, and Campbell. He won another fairest and best in 1984.

He was a courageous player with a fierce approach to the ball, and as such was always the recipient of plenty of treatment from the opposition, which was never more evident than the 1980 grand final, but he was extremely resilient, always able to bounce back.

Noel Carter captained South Fremantle in 1979-80-81, as well as Western Australia twice in 1981, and was awarded life membership at the Bulldogs in 1985. A truly inspirational leader, he revelled in the tough atmosphere of finals.

Carter was also a goalkicking rover, as he exhibited with great flair in the final game of the 1981 home and away season. South Fremantle went on a pointscoring spree against West Perth, kicking over forty goals, including a bag of eleven by Carter.

Noel Carter also has the honour of holding a place in South Fremantle folklore.

It was a typically tough and hardfought derby at East Fremantle in 1983, when the traditional rivalry was at it’s highest ebb. The scores were tied, the siren had gone, and per favour of a free against East Fremantle’s Michael Brennan, Carter had the ball for a shot at goal.

Versions of the story have varied over the years as to the correct distance, some South supporters swearing on the bible it was at least ninety metres, but more reliable reports put the distance at “over sixty .”

A mighty torpedo sailed from Noel Carter’s boot with all his tired body could muster to put behind it, and the ball scraped in for a behind, giving South the game by a point. “ It was into a cuppla goal breeze,” added the modest Carter, who also joked that he was sure the ball went over the fence on the full to Moss St.

There have been many reports of radio listeners turning off after the commentators declared a draw, saying it was an impossible kick, only to read Monday’s paper and find out the real result.

Noel Carter retired from league football after the 1985 season, having played over two hundred senior matches, as well as representing and captaining two States. He played in premierships in both Victoria and Western Australia and has been inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall Of Fame.

His association with Malcolm Brown wasn’t quite finished, though. In 1987 he answered an SOS from Mal to coach the Perth reserves, and in the process donned the red and black several times when they were short of players. Lining up later with Amateur club, CBC, he kicked seven majors in his first outing.

Brown was a part of Carter’s career, as player, coach, and friend, and Noel was kind enough to add to our collection of Brownyisms.

“Brownie had a love-hate relationship with the press,” Noel related.

“One game, I forget which one, someone from the paper rang him and asked how his players’ fitness was faring. Brownie said “Oh this bloke’s got this wrong with him and that bloke’s got that, and Carter’s got gout.”

“Of course, we all ran out on Saturday fully fit, and Mal’s comment was:

“Bugger em, if they want to make a phone call instead of getting off their bum and having a look at training, serves ‘em right.”

We asked Noel who was the best he played against. “ Leigh Matthews,”was the quick response. But the best he’d played with was a different kettle of fish. “I could write a book,”he laughed. Stephen Michael, Maurice Rioli, Ian Stewart, and Royce Hart got the nod, and the Noel Carter sense of humour was to the fore as he added: “Between Stephen, Ian, and myself we won three Brownlows and two Sandovers.”

Noel Carter has had a heavy involvement with the racing industry for many years, being employed in the field of race horse insurance, and has been a WA Turf Club committee member for eight years, but finds time to have a round of golf, wrestle with his grandson(although his worn out joints complain about it) and get to a game of footy now and then.

South Fremantle is a club that is proud of it’s stars of the past, and Noel Carter can take his place among them.
 
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