With over 600 guests in the room, the mix of past captains with the current team took in all the decades from the 1940s to now.
The likes of Noel McMahen, Hassa Mann and Garry Lyon donned their own blazers, while Robert Flower and Ron Barassi presented one to all team members.
Silent to the side of the stage stood the blazer that inspired this new incarnation - that which had been worn by Harold Ball, embroidered with his premiership years of 1939 and 1940.
One day, our current team will have their premierships embroidered onto pockets, to sit proudly alongside the Club emblem. Ball played just 33 games and kicked 33 goals.
A young ruckman from the Victorian country town of Merbein, he wore No. 11, making his mark in the 1940 finals before heading off to war.
Losing his life when captured in the conflict, Ball’s name still resonates today through the Best First Year Player award, named in his honour.
On the night of the Commencement Dinner, it also sounded down the years through the footage of John Beckwith, Ron Barassi and - in particular - Hassa Mann, who echoed the thoughts of many when he said, ‘The Commencement Dinner was the ideal forum for the re-introduction of the Club blazer’.
Mann, like Ball, hailed from Merbein, and with his memories resounding from the screen, his love of the Club’s past, and his sense of anticipation for its future, both hold strong.
Standing proudly on stage in their blazers, it was a formidable assembly, with the last word once again going to Mann.
‘I trust that the history and symbolism of the blazer will be embraced by all players and that they, like me, will wear it with great pride and honour.’
It is a wish shared by all, no matter what their time or place in the Melbourne Football Club.
