AFL-Magic Moments: Carlton Football Club (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	94:49 (Case: 80)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Aust. Football Video Visual Entertainment Group	Starring	None Given
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

    Australian Football Video have been releasing some discs in a series they call Magic Moments, featuring memorable footage from the archives for a nominated AFL club. In this release we have just over 90 minutes of footage from the Carlton Football Club, one of the stalwarts of the VFL/AFL.

    The club was founded in 1864, and until 2005 its nominal home base was the football oval in Princes Park just north of Melbourne. Together with the other seven clubs which broke away from the VFA, Carlton participated in the inaugural season of the VFL in 1897. Success was slow to come, and the only reason the Blues did not win a wooden spoon in those early years was that St Kilda won even less games. But success was not far away, and in 1906-08 Carlton became the first club to win three consecutive premierships, a record that lasted for two decades.

    Over the next 40 years Carlton won 5 more flags, but from 1947 there was a long drought. In 1965 Ron Barassi was lured across from Melbourne as captain-coach, and this began Carlton's golden era. From 1968 to 1987 the Blues played in 10 of 20 possible Grand Finals, winning seven premierships under five coaches: Barassi, John Nicholls, Alex Jesaulenko, David Parkin and Robert Walls. All but Parkin played for the club. During this era the famous rivalry with Collingwood came to prominence, though for intensity there was a similar distaste among the Carlton folk with Richmond.

    After 1987 the pickings have been slimmer. A premiership in 1995 stands out amongst some poor seasons, and a fine team in the late 1990s failed to win any silverware. The record of the last few seasons has been dismal, with two wooden spoons (the first in the club's history) and a salary cap scandal engulfing the club being the lowlights.

    I include this history as there is precious little background in this programme. After a brief voice-over introduction from Stephen Phillips there is no narration and often little context given to the footage shown. All we have are various sections: Grand Finals, The Rivalry, Hard Men and The Heroes and so on.

    In these sections we get highlights of all 8 Grand Final victories during the television era. The club greats highlighted include John Nicholls, Craig Bradley, Stephen Kernahan, Alex Jesaulenko, Bruce Doull, Serge and Stephen Silvagni, Justin Madden, Anthony Koutoufides and Brendan Fevola, who at the time of writing is still with the club. Hard Men naturally includes lots of thuggery from the olden days, plus a spotlight on David Rhys-Jones (naturally). The footage used extends well back into the 1960s, but is all video, and thus we don't have anything prior to the television era.

    Carlton fans will enjoy the material included here, though it is a bit hard to take in one sitting. There were some highlights that were missing, like Madden's Jurassic Park goal in the 1993 semis, The Flying Doormat chucking a wobbly when his headband was removed, Rhys-Jones flogging Dermot Brereton in the 1987 Grand Final and Helen D'Amico's 'run' in 1982. There are also no excerpts from the stunning win in the 1999 Preliminary Final. There were some dubious inclusions, such as Mike Fitzpatrick being penalised for time-wasting against Essendon in 1981, and Mal Brown laying waste to several Carlton players in the end of season carnival in 1972, breaking Trevor Keogh's jaw in the process. There also should have been The Heroes sections on Ken Hunter and Peter Bosustow, though there are copious incidental highlights of these two.

    Despite these qualms and the lack of background information given to a lot of the highlights, this release is heartily recommended for fans of the Old Dark Navy Blues.

Video

    The entire package is presented in full-frame format with an aspect ratio of 1.29:1.

    Taking into account the source material the programme scrubs up pretty well. The 1960s footage is the worst, in grainy black and white. Later footage is in colour and looks much better, being sharp and detailed. I doubt if the footage could look any better. The colour material looks just like it did on television, with bright green grass and realistic flesh tones.

    There are some minor artefacts in the form of analogue video tracking errors. There is some Gibb Effect and some minor macro-blocking, mainly in the recent footage. Low level noise is present in some of the monochrome material.

    The disc is single-layered and there are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only audio track is Dolby Digital 2.0, mainly in mono though the linking music seems to be stereo at a low bitrate.

    The audio is quite satisfactory for the material on this disc. The commentary is clear, though some of the older recordings are at a lower volume level. Crowd sounds range from very prominent to indistinct.

    The only music heard is the Carlton theme song, based on the old-time popular song Lily of Laguna.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

    A somewhat daft animation on the main menu is accompanied by the club song and some intrusive sound effects.

    This is a Region 4 only release, and likely to remain so.

    A good compendium of highlights from nearly fifty years of matches involving the Carlton Football Club, though the lack of context to the material is a little disappointing.

    The video and audio quality are as good as could be expected.

    No extras of note.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall