Ryan Houlihan was presented with Life Membership of the Carlton Football Club at the 143rd Annual General Meeting held at the Carlton Social Club on Tuesday night. The presentation to Houlihan was made in front of over 250 Carlton Football Club Members who attended the meeting to hear from the President Richard Pratt and CEO Greg Swann.

Houlihan was awarded Life Membership in recognition of his eight years of senior service to the Carlton Football Club.

Recruited to Carlton with selection 73 in the 1999 National Draft, Houlihan was recruited from Corowa/Rutherglen via the Murray Under 18s. He made his AFL debut in round 11, 2000 in Carlton’s 30-point victory over the Kangaroos at Princes Park. He has now played 157 games for Carlton – the most games for Carlton of the current players.

Houlihan was thrilled to receive such an honour and spoke about his life-long dream to play AFL and to have played for eight years at Carlton is a real privilege. He paid tribute to his family, in particular his mum and dad and his Auntie as well as his team-mates and others at the club.

“I want to thank the coaches that I have played under at Carlton, and there has been a few. Brett Ratten my current coach who I also played with, David Parkin, Wayne Brittain and Denis Pagan. I have learnt a lot of all of them and they have all helped me with my football.

“I would also like to thank everyone at the Carlton Football Club for your continued support and in particular the members for supporting the club. We can all look forward to better things in the future,” he said.

Following the presentation Carlton coach Brett Ratten was asked to come forward to provide a snapshot of how the team was going and what we can look forward to. He confirmed the pre-Christmas training had been very good with sessions on the track as well as important planning sessions with all players.

As for 2008 Ratten said it would be a real foundation year for Carlton and when he asked the question will me make the eight, before he could say anymore the cries of “of course we will” sung out around the room. However it was a more reserved Ratten who answered his own question by referring to the rapid improvement of the top four sides this season and that while we know it is possible to rise up the ladder rapidly it doesn’t mean it will happen we all need to be patient.

“Our first priority is to get out of the bottom four. Be patient, how far we go and how quickly we will find out early on. We know that Judd will be great but we must remember we have a lot of young players and we need to continue to develop these players as quickly as possible. With confidence who knows just how far we might go.

“I want to take the opportunity to thank you, the members for having your say on where we are heading. Importantly we are heading in the right direction.”

Perhaps it was Richard Pratt’s closing comments before singing the club song that summed up the optimism of the members at the AGM.

“It (2008) is the Chinese Year of the Rat.
I was called Ratty Pratty at school.
And Ratts is our coach.”