New Carlton coach Brett Ratten wore a grin like a young child who had just opened a present on Christmas morning and found it was exactly what he wanted.

Blues youngster Bryce Gibbs had also been struggling to sleep in his excitement.

Rather than waiting up to catch a glimpse of a jolly fat man in a red suit, it was to see AFL superstar Chris Judd in a navy Blue jumper.

"Since Chris said he wanted to come to Carlton, the kid hasn't slept," Ratten said of Gibbs.

"He was the No.1 pick last year and he's that excited to be playing in the same team as Chris.

"So that's the effect it's going to have on our players."

In the high pressure industry that is the AFL, there is rarely much room for celebration outside of on-field victories, but Carlton were making no efforts to hide their delight after officially acquiring Judd.

They even made banners to celebrate the occasion.

Larger than life images of Judd wearing a Carlton jumper flanked the ex-West Coast skipper, Ratten and Carlton chief executive Greg Swann at a press conference to announce his arrival at Princes Park.

"The Eagle has landed," was how excited Blues communications manager Ian Coutts opened the press conference, the throwback to the moment when man first landed on the moon not entirely out of proportion to the Blues' level of excitement.

Swann labelled it "certainly in recent history one of the most important days that we've had here."

While Judd is yet to have a jumper number assigned to him, Swann noted it would have to happen soon so that the club could get replicas into their merchandise shops.

But, for the man at the centre of it all, while excited to have landed at the club of his choice, the overriding emotion was relief, after having been the subject of one of the most significant and scrutinised trade deals in AFL history.

"Now I can get on with things and you guys can write some other stories and move on," Judd told the host of reporters gathered at Princes Park.

While Judd's return to his native Melbourne has garnered enormous attention, he said he and model girlfriend Rebecca Twigley were not out to become celebrities in the city.

"I'm not big into pizzazz," he said.

"There was an article calling me and Beck the Posh and Becks of Melbourne and that's really not us.

"I want to play my footy, I want to train hard, contribute as much as I can to this footy club and other than that I don't want to be a rock star."

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