Col "the Handyman" Hilton

It’s a warm summer’s night in Melbourne. A lonely old man sits on a hard wooden seat in the bowels of a dark and ageing football stand. Outside, a gentle breeze cools the surrounds as it passes through leafy Princess Park in the inner city suburb of Carlton. He closes his eyes and listens to the rustling oof leaves. He sits there alone, gently rocking back and forth on his chair. A small barely audible sound can be heard coming from his mouth. He sits there for hours slowly repeating the words…. “15 long years.…15 long years….15 long years.…15 long years...” That’s how long it had been since the old man was happy... that’s when the crowds used to pack out every inch of this now lonely grandstand. That’s the last time they chanted out the name of their hero – Col “The Handyman Hilton”.

The story of the boy that became the Handyman started many years back in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Hospital on February 9th, 1967. From the very start Col was bursting to get out and amongst it and surprised parents John and Jean (or J&J) by being 4 weeks premature. Born into a large family, Hilton quickly settled into life in beautiful Pascoe Vale. From an early age, Col showed a proficiency and love for Aussie Rules football and for all forms of woodmaking. J&J quickly discovered that Little Col could only sleep comfortably at night if he had a T.W.Sherrin or a hammer placed strategically under his arm. They were little Col’s “security blanket”.

As he worked his way through Pascoe Vale Primary and then Strathmore Secondary College, Hilton began to show a flair both on and off the footy field. Old school chum Andrew “Boots” Wellington remembers Col’s exploits only to well. “I think his brothers used to call him “Little Hilts” and believe me it was appropriate. Col was always a few inches shorter than the boys, but geez he used it to his advantage. Opposition players couldn’t get near him. Just when they thought they had him, Col would whip through their legs, or dive in under packs before they knew what was going on. He’d rack up 40-50 possessions a game as if it was nothing.”

Off the field, Hilton was a legend amongst both students and school maintenance staff for his natural HandyMan skills. Headmaster Mr. Bob Jones remembers only to well. “Young Col wasn’t the best academic student, but boy could that boy build. He single handedly crafted 100 brand new student desks out of a large Gum Tree that fell down in the schoolyard on one particularly windy day.” Head Maintenance Manager Jack “Ratchet” Simpson concurred. “We loved young Hilts. He’d often skip class to come down to the maintenance shed and help out. One time I saw him turn an old wooden cabinet into 3 chairs, 2 desks, a couple of chopping boards and about a hundred wooden rulers. All this in under an hour!! The boy could do it all.”

Despite his proficiency in woodworking, and after stints as a Paper Boy, Chemist delivery Boy, lawn mower (even though he didn't have a lawn mower), Macca’s server, footy was what Hilts wanted to make his career. From an early age, the Handyman displayed superstar qualities. In the Under 9’s he was unanimously voted “Best Clubman”, Under 11’s “Most Courageous”, Under 13’s “Most Enthusiastic”, Under 15’s “Most Encouraging” and finally in Under 17s “Most likely to turn up and play”. He was a club standout. It wasn’t long before AFL scouts got a sniff of his potential talent and were watching every game he played. Footy Mate Grant “the Pretty Boy” Bishop remembers those days. “For a while, to Col - footy was all about playing well and looking in the papers the next day to see if your name was there because you’d made the “bests” or were in the goalkickers. But once the scouts started coming, it was all about making the AFL….although he’d still grab a copy of the Herald-Sun every Monday morning to look for his name.”

Former coach Robbie Walls remembers the day he first came accross the Handyman. “It wasn’t hard to work out which one was Hilton. We rocked down to Pascoe Vale to see Young Hilts in a schoolboy clash. We’d just arrived and some poor kid slammed into one of the point posts and broke the thing into two pieces. Just as the Umpires were considering calling the game off, before we knew it, some young bloke had strolled over to the sidelines, grabbed his tools and before you knew it had constructed a new goalpost using nothing more than a nearby park bench. It was bloody genius. When the game re-started, he must have pulled in about 30 odd possessions in the final two quarters. Even better was that the whole time, he still had his bloody tool belt on!!”

It was his first year as Carlton Coach, and Robbie Walls liked what he saw. In no time, Hilton was in a Blues guernsey for the 1986 season. His impact at the club was immediate and in a season where he averaged 30 possessions a game, Hilts came a narrow 2nd in the Brownlow, a narrow 2nd in the Carlton Best and Fairest, and he helped guide the Blues to a narrow Grand Final Loss. The next year, it was largely off the back of Hilton’s play that the Blues won the Premiership title. By 1988, his third season at the club, he was shaping up as the most popular Carlton player ever. It wasn’t just the fans that loved him, but his fellow teammates and the back office boys down at Princess Park.

The halcyon days. Handyman celebrates another carlton victory with President John Elliot.

Boot Studder “Bluey” Johnson still has fine memories of a Young Hilton. “How could I ever forget Hilton. After winning a few Premierships in the 1980s most of those upstart players would barely say thanks when I gave em’ their boots after studding and polishing them. Not Hilton though. I’d polish the Handyman’s boots and the next thing you’d know, I’d go out to the carpark and see that Hilton would have completely overhauled my engine, built a roof for my trailer, given the car a polish and even fixed me stereo so it would play FM as well as AM !! Geez he was a good man that boy”

After nearly 20 years at the helm of Carlton, former President John Elliot remembers The Handyman’s exploits only to well. “It still gives me the shits when people only recognise the Handyman for just his on-field antics. You know what I say to that - Pigs bloody arse, he wasn’t just Handy-bloody-man Hilton, he was bloody-Handyman-bloody everything. I’ll never forget when we were trying to build the new stand at Princess Park. The club was spending way too much cash paying our shitty old veterans under the table so we ran out of money to complete the bloody thing when it was only 50% finished. Well damned if bloody Hilton didn’t walk out there one Friday morning with just a cheeky smile, and a hammer. Well, by game time on the Saturday arvo, the whole bloody thing was finished. It was of such high quality, we used to charge our dimwitted supporters a premium of $50 over the normal ticket price, just for the privilege of sitting in what soon became known as “The stand that the Handyman built”.

No matter what task coach Walls threw at the handyman, he always accepted it with a grin on his face. Said hawthorn toughman Robert DiPierdomenico, "he's the most tenacious opponent I've ever played against, and never stopped bloody yakking at you - not in a mean way though, he was always very polite".

Those were indeed good times for Hilton and the Carlton football club. However, the glory days quickly ended for the Handyman after one regretful, eventful and downright shockingly public display at the 1989 Melbourne Moomba Festival. With only a couple of weeks to go before the start of the 1989 season, newly appointed Blues Captain Hilton (Kernahan had stepped down in honour of Hilton’s exploits) decided to celebrate with a few mates and head down to the Yarra to take in the Birdman Rally and the Water Skiing. After about 20 celebratory VB’s what came next was both unexpected and ultimately led to the collapse of the Handyman’s career.

Schoolboy friend, Row “the Scro” Pinder remembers all to well… "Mate, I still remember it as if it was yesterday. After a few hours on the turps, Col had a truckload of piss in his belly and a cheeky smile on his face. When he spotted a mate of ours across the Yarra so he decided the right thing to do, was to go over and say G’day. Given it was a beautiful 30 degree Autumn day, he thought he’d save some time getting over there by resisting the obvious walk across the bridge, and instead stripped down to his birthday suit and set off for a swim across the river. You can imagine the commotion it caused, the guy was a bloody legend in town anyway, but when you combine that with a nationally televised Water Skiing event, the boy was always going to attract some pretty serious attention."

US wakeboard champion, Jeff Stringer, demanded an official enquiry into the condition of the ski course after nearly toppling of his board during his final run. "I could have sworn I saw some grinning idiot out there swimming". Despite strong denials, Moomba officials assured Stringer the matter would be looked into.

Indeed, when he eventually reached the other side and caught up with his mate, he quickly swore him to secrecy. However, a delusional Handyman quickly realised, that about a thousand sets of eyes on the crowded riverfront were already staring and reaching for their Cameras…..
The news made the front and back pages of the Herald-Sun and newspapers throughout the country.

The media was ruthless on the Handman, yet questions still abound about who the second "speedo" attired player was.

The fallout for Hilton was both instantaneous and swift. By 9.01 a.m. on the Monday morning the Carlton Football Club issued a press release announcing the sacking of the Handyman and the reappointment of Kernahan as Captain. Blues supporters were divided. The Yobbo’s and dickhead’s loved his larrikin antics, however the heavy influence of the largely disgusted caviar eating/champagne sipping Carlton North supporters sealed Hilton’s fate and ended his career in one swift move.

Hilton was a shattered man. In an effort to avoid the media attention, the Handyman locked himself away in the basement of his luxurious Pascoe Vale villa and spent hour after hour on his beanbag in front of the TV. There he sought solace in his only other passion – Music. Hour after hour he would watch and tape episodes of Rage, MTV and Countdown music shows. His reclusive lifestyle soon became a concern to family members who were the only people the Handyman would even grant the briefest of visits to.

In fact, these “visits” were usually just a ruse to deliver pizza’s and bring in a fresh washcloth for Col to bathe himself with. Sisters Evelyn and Diane remember all to well, “…The hygiene issues aside, we knew Col loved his music, but his obsession really became quite scary. His basement walls were filled with video after video after video. I reckon his collection of video clips would have outdone even the MTV archives. Not only did he meticulously write down the order of every single clip in a massive catalogue book, he also kept a record of the exact video time number on each tape so he could go straight to a particular song whenever he wanted. He refused to let anyone touch them, and started to call his collection “my precious”. It was downright weird”.

The Handyman’s freakish obsession uniquely revealed a previously hidden talent that resulted in a successful, yet widely secretive career in the music industry. Over time, the Handyman had in fact become amazingly proficient at imitating other musicians. After a year in his murky basement and tired of sleeping in his own waste, the Handyman finally ventured back into public life. Still scared of the public and a bit delusional from spending so much time in a dark room, the Handyman eased himself back into society by taking on the identity of an aboriginal actor/singer called - David Gulpilil, and covering himself from head to toe in mud.

With his act finely tuned, he bought a magnificent lime green Holden Panelvan (which he quickly named “The Green Machine”), put in a mattress, fitted an esky and loaded up his 250-piece Sydchrome tool set and headed away from the major cities into the Aussie Outback.It wasn’t long before the Handyman’s influence was felt all the way from Cooper Pedy to Broome and right up to Darwin. Shane “Tugger” Matthews from Wogga Wogga remembers the exploits of David Gulpilil as if it was yesterday. “Maaattee you’re shitting me? We had no idea old Gulpilil was the Handyman. He’s still a local legend around here. I reckon I saw him at least five or six times when he breezed through town. We loved him around here. There’s not to many chicks around these parts, so we had to love something. He did it all. From memory he used to do a very good Lisa Minnelli interpretation of "Caberet", but that wasn’t the extent of his repertoire......he did Michael Jackson…the glove…Midnight Oil...the jerky movements, Jimmy Barnes...blind drunk and screaming. Then of course there was the climax of his act - Bono...U2...He must have studied the guy for hours, days, shit maybe even years, we used to all swear it was Bono himself in front of us.”

Will the real Handyman Hilton please stand up?

Despite’s his incredible success on the alternate music charts, everytime the Handyman passed a footy field in any town, he couldn’t escape the disappointing memories following his Carlton ousting 5 years before. So he made the monumentus decision to leave his promising musical career behind him, pack his bags and head overseas. After throwing a dart at a world map and landing on Canada, that’s where he headed….Years later, it looked like Hilton had put footy behind for good. "To be honest, I thought I was done with footy forever. I knew I still had a lot to give to the game, but after being in Vancouver for a while, I met and married my beautiful wife Kym, and was happily settled living life as a Vancouver Handyman."

However that all soon changed on one fateful day as the Handyman was cruising down the Number 1 highway on the way from Langley to Vancouver. "There I was, just minding my own business putting along when all of the sudden I started to catch up to this shitbox of a car that was just pumping out a horrendous amount of blue smoke. When I pulled up behind it I saw it had a sign looking for people to play Aussie Rules. I pulled up next to the car and the driver just gave me this big cheeky smile and nodded as if to say G’day. I got him to pull over and proceeded to meet the great man Stu Grills. "

The rest as they say is history…