Carlton champion Anthony Koutoufides remembers the magic of Princes Park

PRINCES Park was more than a home ground for Carlton. It was a fortress. And it still gives Anthony Koutoufides a special buzz. SUBURBAN GROUNDS INTERACTIVE

IF ANTHONY Koutoufides had his way, the Blues would still be playing at Princes Park.

The Carlton legend played his first game at the Royal Pde stadium in 1992. Of his 278 matches, 84 were played on his home turf, for 56 wins.

“It’s my favourite ground, I reckon every Carlton player would tell you it was their favourite ground,” Koutoufides tells the Herald Sun.

“To this day I wish the guys were still playing there. Luckily I got to play the majority of my career there.”

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Thirty thousand fans packed into Princes Park was like 90,000 at the MCG, Koutoufides said. It had an intimate feeling. It was loud.

The whole crowd shouting out, ‘Kouta, Kouta, Kouta’, that was a big one.

“It felt like it was just all Carlton people there,” he says. “It was our home, it was our fortress, it belonged to us.”

On a Saturday afternoon in late April in 1996, Koutoufides and his Blues were playing West Coast.

Kouta took 18 marks — he had 35 disposals — as the Blues triumphed by one point in front of almost 20,000 people.

“The whole crowd shouting out, ‘Kouta, Kouta, Kouta’, that was a big one,” the Greek team of the century centreman said.

“I had a whole lot of people following me around after the game, it was just an incredible moment.”

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He remembers the Robert Heatley Stand, which is no longer, where he’d sit and watch the reserves before nipping down to chat with the cheer squad ahead of the senior game.

“I remember seeing guys like Vince Colosimo hanging down there and we’d go and talk to all the guys there before a game,” he said.

“It’s those moments you treasure. There were a lot of friendships and relationships, like a family.”

Koutoufides and his best mate Ang Christou shared some wonderful moments at the ground, but it’s the small things he recalls most fondly.

“I remember Ang and I stretching upstairs in the gym area and looking out the window, just watching the swarms of people walking towards the gates as they entered the arena,” he said.

“I guess we fed off their energy, too, a bit, just to pump us up a bit more.”

He enjoyed heading to the social club to share that winning feeling with fans, but it was a loss that Koutoufides counts among his most meaningful memories.

It was the ground’s last AFL game, in 2005, and Koutoufides was captain as the Blues took on Melbourne.

“I had the honour, and it was an honour, to lead the players out for the last time on the oval,” he said.

“It wasn’t a great day for us, we lost. It was that era for our club where we weren’t very successful, but I had the privilege to pick up the ball at the end of the game and as the siren went for the last time, waved goodbye to everyone.

“There were a lot of tears. I handed the ball over to John Nichols, that will go down as one of my great memories of my career.”

Originally published as Carlton champion Anthony Koutoufides remembers the magic of Princes Park