NOTHING could stop Bob Chitty on a football ground – and it was the same off the field for the Carlton iron-man, as shown by his remarkable effort to play in the 1945 preliminary final.

Chitty was a foreman at the Maribyrnong munitions factory and, just days before the game, was showing his bosses how to work a cordite cutter when he all but chopped off the top of the middle finger of his left hand. He simply asked the munitions factory doctor to sew back the top of the finger, which was hanging by a thread.

Chitty wore a metal protector on the finger in the game, but Collingwood’s Alby Pannam accidentally stood on it and tore the plaster off. Blood gushed from the finger, but Chitty refused to go off the ground and was one of Carlton’s best in the win.

Along the way Chitty also suffered a broken bone in the foot when he was kicked in the middle of a pack. He simply asked trainers to plaster up the foot to relieve the pain.

Despite the injuries he fronted up again the next week for the infamous Bloodbath Grand Final, where he was one of 10 players reported and was suspended for eight weeks.