North Melbourne set to name its 10 greatest players at 150-year anniversary dinner

Next weekend North Melbourne will name the 10 greatest players in the club’s 150-year history. Wayne Carey is a lock, but who else should make the list?

Barry Cable, Wayne Carey and Malcolm Blight are all champions of the game.

As North Melbourne prepares to name its 10 greatest players, a funny moment emerged this week.

It surrounded the recruitment of a masterly tap ruckman from Wangaratta Rovers named Mick Nolan, who recruiting guru Ron Joseph had watched as he turned in a best-on-ground display in the 1972 Ovens and Murray league grand final.

Joseph moved quickly and the amply built Nolan (later dubbed “The Galloping Gasometer”) was plodding around the training track in the pre-season of 1973 when newly appointed coach Ron Barassi spotted him.

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE RON JOSEPH’S TOP 10 KANGAROOS

Barassi stormed into Joseph’s office, demanding to know who had invited the “fat bloke” to train, before going on to to scream “that’s exactly why this club will never be any good”.

Two years later Nolan was instrumental in helping North to its first VFL premiership, his rover Barry Cable afterwards declaring “The Gasometer” to be the finest tap ruckman he ever roved to, and that included Graham “Polly” Farmer.

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The Kangaroos’ 10 greatest players will be unveiled at their 150th anniversary dinner on August 3.

Barry Cable, Wayne Carey and Malcolm Blight are all champions of the game.

RON JOSEPH’S 10 GREATEST NORTH MELBOURNE PLAYERS

1: Wayne Carey: If you loved watching the great E.J. Whitten dominate his era of the 1950s-60s, so did Carey in the 1990s. Maybe the best player ever.

2: Barry Cable: When he first came to North his handballs were hitting his teammates on the back of their heads. Four years later he led us to six straight GFs.

3: Malcolm Blight: You would go to the game wondering what piece of magic Blighty would produce on that day. The adjective “mercurial”was coined for Malcolm.

4: Les Foote: I never saw him play but I respect the voices of so many great North people who did, and clearly be belongs very high up.

5: Allen Aylett: Would turn up to training at 6pm on Tuesdays, run a few laps and shower. Same Thursday. I saw he and Bob Skilton kick five on each other one day.

6: Keith Greig: Won back-to-back Brownlows in 1973-74 and was never out of the state side from 1971 until he did his knee in 1977.

7 : John Dugdale: The ultimate Shinboner who could play any position on the ground with equal dexterity. Was a tower of strength in some dark days.

8: Sam Kekovich: There hasn’t been a better teenage player at Arden St. Extremely fast, explosive and skilled before he suffered a series of knee injuries.

9: David Dench: To my mind there hasn’t been a better full-back than David Dench, or a better defensive sight than watching him charge out of defence.

10: Wayne Schimmelbusch: Part of Dench, Briedis, Greig and Schimmelbusch quartet that lived within five miles of North and ended up playing 1043 games in total.