- Moderator
- #151
The AFL market the Brisbane Lions as a "merger" of the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy. It's an AFL article.
why aren't Fitzroy's premierships considered part of Brisbane Lions history?
- Thread starter Reality Check!
- Start date
- Tagged users None
The AFL market the Brisbane Lions as a "merger" of the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy. It's an AFL article.
- Sep 22, 2011
- 42,338
- 92,806
- AFL Club
- Essendon
I’m pretty comfortable with it. The Bears and the Lions are the same club. Yeah they changed jumpers and got a few Fitzroy players, but whenever the “merger” became official, they were still one club from one day to the next. Same ground, same home base, same everything. Everybody who played and worked at Brisbane Bears got up the next day and went to work at the same club in Brisbane.
Fitzroy is a seperate club.
Fitzroy is a seperate club.
- Jan 3, 2017
- 5,144
- 7,103
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Celtics, Packers
Me and FFC share a birthday
- Moderator
- #154
Wear a Fitzroy jumper on Tuesday when you celebrate.Me and FFC share a birthday
Seems like it would be a better idea for you to jump on our bandwagon since we are only one suburb away and are playing against the club who killed Fitzroy...Wear a Fitzroy jumper on Tuesday when you celebrate.
- Moderator
- #156
When Collingwood start sporting Fitzroy's maroon/red, blue and gold colours and wears Fitzroy's lion logo on the front of their jumper, then I'll support them.
In any case, Brisbane didn't 'kill' Fitzroy. The AFL and the vast majority of their voting clubs opposed our preferred merger.
- Nov 27, 2012
- 2,335
- 2,828
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
I still call Brisbane the Bears out of respect to old Fitzroy supporters i know who want nothing to do with them.
I’ve always seen the lions as a continuation of the bears.
The only real changes were a handful of Fitzroy players joining the existing bears list, nickname change, jumper change and theme song change.
The 96 bears side and lions 97 team was a continuation, Fitzroy died in 1996 as an AFL entity.
South Melbourne to Sydney is a continuation as it was a full relocation of a club to another location with the same playing list and no other club involved.
The only real changes were a handful of Fitzroy players joining the existing bears list, nickname change, jumper change and theme song change.
The 96 bears side and lions 97 team was a continuation, Fitzroy died in 1996 as an AFL entity.
South Melbourne to Sydney is a continuation as it was a full relocation of a club to another location with the same playing list and no other club involved.
- Moderator
- #159
What about the thousands of old Fitzroy supporters that do support them? Sam Lord, the Victorian manager of the Brisbane Lions suggested on August 15th this year that the Lions currently have 8,000-9,000 Victorian members.
Roughly what do you estimate the breakdown percentages of who went where post-1996 in terms of supporting Brisbane Lions, supporting North Melbourne, supporting someone else and not supporting any club in the AFL any more?
- Moderator
- #161
Roughly 40 percent of Fitzroy supporters have been lost to AFL football.
About 5 percent of Fitzroy supporters now follow another AFL side, including a few hundred that went across to North Melbourne. 800-odd Fitzroy members / supporters took out a membership of North Melbourne in the years following 1996.
About 40 percent of Fitzroy people supported the Brisbane Lions, but of those may not be necessarily paid up members. In 1997, Brisbane's Victorian membership was 3,200, up from 70 in 1996.
Pie eyed
Premium Platinum
- Jun 26, 2007
- 43,053
- 24,222
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
- Other Teams
- Magpies
I have no issue with the Lions (Fitzroy) and Bears (Brisbane) being considered one continuous entity, even though there is 10 year overlap where both clubs existed side by side.
- Apr 27, 2014
- 1,750
- 2,938
- AFL Club
- Carlton
- Other Teams
- Arsenal
Please learn the definition of the word. You LITERALLY mean the opposite of literally because it is not the same in the literal sense.
Relocations and mergers are not literally the same. Two clubs becoming one is obviously and clearly different from one club moving location. By your logic a merged club could have a premiership and a wooden spoon from the same season. That is clearly nonsense.
There is a historical ancestry when one entity moves. There is not the same historical ancestry when different entities combine.
I've posted this on the 2023 Grand Final Thread but will post it here as well:
I know this is the third match up in an AFL GF between Collingwood & Brisbane Lions after 02/03 but I'd like to see the early VFL GF's between Collingwood & Fitzroy get a mention. Especially 1922. 101 years since that game. I dislike how Fitzroy's history often gets forgotten/left out. It's amazing that the old suburban rivalry is kinda being continued in the AFL between these two teams.
VFL
1903 Collingwood 4.7 (31) Fitzroy 3.11 (29)
1905 Fitzroy 4.6 (30) Collingwood 2.5 (17)
1917 Collingwood 9.20 (74) Fitzroy 5.9 (39)
1922 Fitzroy 11.13 (79) Collingwood 9.14 (68)
AFL
2002 Brisbane Lions 10.15 (75) Collingwood 9.12 (66)
2003 Brisbane Lions 20.12 (134) Collingwood 12.12 (84)
If combine the Brisbane Lions records with Fitzroy this will be the 7th GF Match up between these teams. Fitz/BL leading 4 wins to 2. This now matches the record of 7 times Collingwood has played Melbourne in a GF and goes ahead of the 6 times Collingwood has played Carlton & Geelong in GF's. Arguably, the Brisbane Lions are now Collingwood's 2nd or 3rd biggest rival after Carlton.
In regards to the records I feel Fitzroy's premierships are as relevant as South Melbourne's to Sydney regardless if one is a relocated club and the other a merged entity. I agree with this statement by Reality Check: What the **** was the point of the merger if you can't take both club's records and history with you?
Plus, the Brisbane Lions themselves have all the Fitzroy Premiership Cups (I know not originals as cups didn't exist/were not awarded pre-1954) and the pennant flags hanging in their training base.
I know this is the third match up in an AFL GF between Collingwood & Brisbane Lions after 02/03 but I'd like to see the early VFL GF's between Collingwood & Fitzroy get a mention. Especially 1922. 101 years since that game. I dislike how Fitzroy's history often gets forgotten/left out. It's amazing that the old suburban rivalry is kinda being continued in the AFL between these two teams.
VFL
1903 Collingwood 4.7 (31) Fitzroy 3.11 (29)
1905 Fitzroy 4.6 (30) Collingwood 2.5 (17)
1917 Collingwood 9.20 (74) Fitzroy 5.9 (39)
1922 Fitzroy 11.13 (79) Collingwood 9.14 (68)
AFL
2002 Brisbane Lions 10.15 (75) Collingwood 9.12 (66)
2003 Brisbane Lions 20.12 (134) Collingwood 12.12 (84)
If combine the Brisbane Lions records with Fitzroy this will be the 7th GF Match up between these teams. Fitz/BL leading 4 wins to 2. This now matches the record of 7 times Collingwood has played Melbourne in a GF and goes ahead of the 6 times Collingwood has played Carlton & Geelong in GF's. Arguably, the Brisbane Lions are now Collingwood's 2nd or 3rd biggest rival after Carlton.
In regards to the records I feel Fitzroy's premierships are as relevant as South Melbourne's to Sydney regardless if one is a relocated club and the other a merged entity. I agree with this statement by Reality Check: What the **** was the point of the merger if you can't take both club's records and history with you?
Plus, the Brisbane Lions themselves have all the Fitzroy Premiership Cups (I know not originals as cups didn't exist/were not awarded pre-1954) and the pennant flags hanging in their training base.
Last edited:
The latter part is shameful on the other clubs, although I'd argue a case could be made that North's insistence on some quite unreasonable concessions on the list size and salary cap were at least partially to blame for that.
- Nov 27, 2012
- 2,335
- 2,828
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
Understandably a real fear that what Brisbane did in the early 2000s would have happened in the late 90s if the North/Fitzroy merger went through.
MSB ROYS
Brownlow Medallist
So witty. Your friends must think you're such a legend.
MSB ROYS
Brownlow Medallist
Just out of interest, in a podcast a few months ago (Roar Deal interview with Sam Lord) that there were just under 10,000 Victorian members (maybe 8,000?). Lions membership is over 50,000. This was the first breakdown that we had heard for a few years. Obviously no breakdown of different membership types (full, 3-game, interstate, etc) as per the AFL's penchant for inflated numbers.
South Melbourne re-located to Sydney and wrongly kept their colours and some sort of identity when they moved to the harbour City. All history of South Melbourne should've ended in 1982. They should've gone there with new colours and a new nickname, they all got carried away with the glitz and glamour of the Edelston years. Sydney City wearing the colours of NSW would've been my take on it, but i don't fly by helicopter to games. Fitzroy was simply taken over and all history ended after 1996. Fitzroy had been footballing nomads for years and had been lost since before the days they left Brunswick Street Oval. (It was a major mistake) Training facilities were inadequate, no real gym or lockers for players, office staff worked out of a pub, home games were played at Princes Park, Junction Oval and finally the Western Oval. They had been doomed for years. They were once one of the most powerful football clubs in the League pre- WW2, They did have a great guernsey though, i always liked that one with the white monogram
Why should they have done that? Putting aside the fact you’d be upsetting a lot of long term fans and possibly turning them on to another sport, financially it doesn’t have any benefit. The red and white uniforms didn’t hinder their gaining support and it additionally gives them a second base in Melbourne with crowd support and money from Victorian members.
- Moderator
- #171
No. Disagree completely. You leave South Melbourne supporters with nothing. Sydney have a two town supporter base and that's a good thing for the club.
Fitzroy's AFL history ended in 1996. Fitzroy Football Club is 140 years old tomorrow. (26th September 1883 - 26th September 2023). The club played in a Grand Final on Tuesday. Fitzroy's history didn't end in 1895 when they left the VFA and joined the VFL. Why would it therefore end in 1996?
Forced upon Fitzroy. They didn't want to leave Brunswick Street Oval. I can go through the details if you like.
The admin worked on the third storey of the Fitzroy Club Hotel pictured below, just up the road from the Brunswick St Oval. They weren't sitting in the bistro working away surrounded by pub customers, if that's what you think was occurring.
Yes. The Junction Oval was a real home ground for Fitzroy. They were forced to move from there as well.
Last edited:
It's just an opinion. I think a completely new start would've been far more beneficial to the Swans and would far outweigh any support down here in Melbourne, where was all that support in the late 70s and early 80s when all of this was being mooted? IMO the AFL went to Sydney and went with the glitz of Edelsten in order to gain new fans instead of establishing a truly new NSW team. They still didn't get it right with GWS either.
Was the Fitzroy heartland of support up in the North-East like Collingwood or did it move down towards St Kilda? I find it strange that so many Fitzroy fans seem fond of the Junction Oval when it's on the opposite side of the city from their original home, although I guess both suburbs share that Bohemian feel.
- Moderator
- #174
Fitzroy stalwart Arthur Wilson used to say that was impossible to choose as Fitzroy's true home between the Brunswick Street Oval and the Junction Oval, where the club had its last genuine era of team success. The Junction Oval was also where the club maintained a strong community identity, and attracted decent crowds which was easily accessible via public transport.
At the Junction Oval there was a real sense of Fitzroy community, even though it was in St Kilda. It was our ground, one we shared with no-one else. It was a superb ground to play on, especially after the mud-heap of Brunswick Oval. I never actually saw a VFL match at the Brunswick Oval, but there are plenty of stories of how much of a mud-heap it was. Standing in front of the Kevin Murray Stand at the Junction Oval surrounded by thousands of Fitzroy people at a game was a fantastic experience. One that was certainly not replicated at Victoria Park and Princes Park. Fitzroy players such as Paul Roos concur.
Our last season there was in 1984.
By 1984 the VFL was instigating ground rationalisation where clubs had to either share a ground or be solely entrenched at their ground if the facilities were good enough. League policy was that clubs either had to share grounds so that costs and money would be shared more evenly. Richmond went from Punt Road to the MCG, North went from Arden Street to the MCG. Hawthorn and St Kilda went to Waverley. Essendon also had to leave Windy Hill. Fitzroy were forced to leave the Junction Oval because it was considered by the VFL that the facilities were not good enough - for example not enough seating for patrons.
Fitzroy argued unsuccessfully that their facilties were good enough. Paul Roos in retrospect considers that Fitzroy being forced to leave the Junction Oval hurt Fitzroy's identity, as well hurt the club financially and was the beginning of the end. Fitzroy decided to go to Victoria Park for the next two seasons because the ground was in Fitzroy's geographical area, as was Princes Park from '87-'93, where we were screwed financially by Carlton and the AFL. Neither move was financially beneficial, but as Fitzroy had been refused a move to Waverley and the MCG had enough clubs, it was all that was on offer. In the end we were forced to go the Western Oval because the deal there was financially better. In 1994 (the first year we were at the Western Oval) Fitzroy actually made a small profit.
Last edited:
I pretty much know the Fitzroy history extensively, the family lived in Best Street for years. Fitzroy became a basket case in the early 1960s. They just had no money, no home base and the "never say die spirit" that came with the nickname change in 1957 was long gone. Fitzroy were lambs to the slaughter since 1966. The Swans was a mess in the 80s, The Keep South at South group had no real legs up against the VFL who were insistent on going to Sydney and were eventually blinded by the mid-80s glitz and glamour of something that was never going to last. Sure, they have won a couple of flags over 40 years, but if any team should have 100,000 members every year, it should be the Swans. They're not even close, they were 10th this year on the membership table with 65,000. After 40 years since the relocation, I wonder if that is where the AFL thought they would be.
Similar threads
