Victorian Football Association
DOB: 07 January 1866
DOD: 14 February 1913
Games: 116 - 121
Goals: 11
Career: 1886 - 1894.
Walter "Dolly" Leslie Batters.
Pennings' Vol. 5 has his name as Thomas Walter "Dolly" Batters.
Also, Vol. 5 says he played under the alias "Ramsay."
Sometimes players used an alias to disguise their name from their employer.
1886 Recruited from the Southern Cross Football Club.
May 08 1886 match report said, "In Batters they have a junior who plays with the judgment of a veteran."
Batters is listed as amongst Carlton's best players in the decade leading up to the formation of the VFL.
1885 May 17
Starred in the Southern Cross v Hawksburn match at Fawkner Park.
(The Telelgraph, St Kilda, Prahran and South Yarra Guardian, May 23 p7)
1886 July 03
Batters, contributed greatly to the massacre over St.Kilda at St. Kilda.
Carlton won 9.19 to 2.8.
(The Carlton Story, H.Buggy and H.Bell p59)
Singled out for special mention for the 1886 season.
(Centenary Souvenir of Carlton Football Club p18)
1887 "The Australasian" named him as being one of the stars of Carlton as a utility.
1887 CFC Annual Report, Batters scored 3 goals for the season.
1888 June 23
Played in the Carlton vs England match at the M.C.G.
1888 According to Pennings' Vol. 5 Batters played 1 game for St.Kilda
One of Carlton's best in 1890.
(The Carlton Story, H.Buggy and H.Bell p67)
1890 CFC Annual Report, Batters scored 4 goals for the season.
1891 "Dolly" Batters, helped lift the Dark Blues to second position in 1891.
1891 July 11
Batters declined to play against South Melbourne at Melbourne, because water almost covered the ground.
Peter Williams and George C. White also refused to play.
Wallowing through pools of black slush, Carlton won 2.5 to 0.4.
(The Carlton Story, H. Buggy and H. Bell p69)
1891 CFC Annual Report, Batters scored 2 goals for the season.
Among Carlton's best players for 1892.
(The Carlton Story, H.Buggy and H.Bell p71)
1892 CFC Annual Report, Batters scored 2 goals for the season.
Appears in the 1887 and 1891 Carlton Football Club team photos.
1913 February 13
Walter Batters a fruiterer, died in hospital of complications resulting from an accident opposite the Glaclarium (now Melbourne Concert Hall/Southbank complex) near Princes Bridge.
Batters of 52 Grey St. South Yarra had been a chronic invalid for 19 years, had been travelling with his son Leslie Walter Batters (fruiterer) and Arthur Dawson (fruiterer) in a horse and cart, when the horse bolted and crashed into an ice wagon.
The cart in which he was travelling in over turned, all were thrown out. He was taken to the Homoeopathic Hospital suffering from shock, he was aged 46.
The Coroner Dr. Cole said a plank had fallen from a building frightening the horse. The accident occurred in Aikman Street (also was known as Yarrabank Rd now part of Southbank) South Melbourne.
Death was from heart disease, accelerated by shock.
Image; CFC in Adelaide 1887
"Current South Yarra real estate agent Philippe Batters contributed the story of his great-grandfather, Walter Dolly Batters, a St Kilda and Carlton player of the 1880s.
Walter Batters later ran a Prahran fruit shop, but died in 1913, aged 47, on the way home from the wholesale market, when he was thrown from a horse on Princes Bridge."
(The Age - Carolyn Webb September 26 2013) https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/tracing-forgotten-stars-of-yesteryear-20130925-2uelf.html
Links
Articles: 1888: Carlton v England | Carlton in NSW, 1890Blueseum: Pre VFL Players | Batter's Blueseum Image Gallery