Born 1883, murdered 1996
Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 12:31 pmhttp://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/08/30/1156816968276.html
Roys' last rites
Greg Baum
August 31, 2006
NOT until Fitzroy was in its death throes was the club at last afforded some dying dignity. On September 1, 1996, the Lions played their last match, against Fremantle at Subiaco Oval, and were duly thrashed.
After it, West Australian opera singer Sara Macliver stood atop the scoreboard and, alone and unaccompanied, sang Auld Lang Syne.
Someone in the crowd held up a banner that read: "Born 1883, murdered 1996". Reportedly, this day's soulful last rites were funded not by the AFL, but the Dockers.
Fitzroy had passed away. It was always sophistry to call the subsuming of some of its remnants into Brisbane a merger, and although some keep a candle burning still for the Lions of old in Melbourne, it is really only a form of vigil.
But the public agony in which the club died, and the hostile reaction to a planned merger of Hawthorn and Melbourne, forced the AFL to abandon its push for rationalisation.
Graeme Samuel then was chairman of the commission. Several years later he admitted that the league had failed to understand the emotion that is the lifeblood of a football club, and that its policy would have "torn the heart out of Victorian football". But it was too late for the Roys.
Fitzroy's days were numbered from 1985 when the expansion-minded VFL first concluded that Melbourne could not support 10 clubs. When football was amateur, Fitzroy's losing seasons did not matter, for each new season was a clean slate. Once it became professional, the losing began to compound.
Dyson Hore-Lacy was the president who went down defiantly with the sinking ship. He said this week that in his time at the club, the AFL had always been unavailing and sometimes antagonistic, at one time threatening to sue the already parlous club to recover a debt.
"Graeme Samuel was the driving force behind the competition. He was the person who constantly advocated mergers and publicly questioned our viability," Hore-Lacy said. "This made sponsorship and finance even more difficult to obtain." Samuel would not comment this week, saying it would only stir up sleeping dogs.
By the early '90s, debt and high interest rates were crippling the club. The Lions became itinerants, operating from rent-free premises at AFL House, but seemingly playing at a different ground every other year, and under a different coach.
Periodically, Khemlani-like white knights happened along, but unavailingly. Improbably, the Lions ended up owing $1.25 million to Nauru.
Roos, Pert, Osborne, Lynch and Blakey all left, each departure reinforcing in the remainder a sense of hopelessness. Boyd, Johnson, Primus, Molloy and Pike stayed to the bitter end, but the team predictably lost all heart and hope.
Meantime, the AFL was redoubling its resolve to bring in Port Adelaide, and strengthen Sydney and Brisbane.
"Without AFL support, a Fitzroy merge was inevitable," said Hore-Lacy. Mergers had been on the agenda since 1989, when Fitzroy made terms with Footscray, only for the people to rise up. Now there was $6 million on the table for the first two clubs to take the plunge. Melbourne, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and Collingwood all looked at the idea. Collingwood's offer — the Lions' logo on the club's socks — was derisory.
By mid-1996, Fitzroy was in the hands of an administrator. "The AFL refused to support us financially, forcing us to act mid-season, which resulted in the public humiliation of the club and players for the rest of the year," said Hore-Lacy.
The Fitzroy board settled on North Melbourne, talented but also impoverished, as a merger partner. "Our arrangement reflected equality or near equality for both clubs, and we had a watertight agreement to secure ours and North Melbourne's positions," said Hore-Lacy.
But other forces now intervened. One was a clash of personalities at the two clubs, always probable in the aggravated circumstances. Another was the paranoia of the other clubs, who feared the creation of a rich and talented super-club; they voted it down 14-1.
Seizing the moment, the AFL delivered the Lions into the hands of its preferred option, Brisbane. It was July 7, 1996. That night, Brisbane president Noel Gordon was seen to gloat on The Footy Show, which for the Lions' faithful was salt to a freshly opened wound.
Hore-Lacy later wrote a book in which he described the deal done that day as "one of the most cynical and insensitive acts ever perpetrated in the history of sport". A founding member had been "obliterated by the stroke of a corporately driven pen".
The passage of time has not placated him. "In doing what the AFL did with the Fitzroy administrator Michael Brennan — who was mainly concerned with retrieving Nauru's money — the AFL ignored the wishes, aspirations and emotional involvement of the vast majority of Fitzroy supporters, in order — many believe — to assist Brisbane," he said. "In business, what happened could fairly be described as a hostile takeover."
A Fitzroy supporter I know whose connections with the club date back to the beginning said she found herself bursting into tears without notice, for instance when driving to work. It was as a death.
Brisbane got $2.6 million and eight choice players. The other $3.4 million erased Fitzroy's debt. Coach Mike Nunan quit, and the Lions played out the season under Alan McConnell, uncompetitively. Nearly 50,000 came to their last match in Melbourne, effectively to pay their last respects. The next week, in a form of exile in Perth, Fitzroy Football Club breathed its last.
Fitzroy lives on in various ethereal forms. Legally, it is as the former University Reds in the amateurs. Most obviously, it is as a kind of transplanted donor organ in the body of Brisbane. Fears of the emergence of a super-club were not realised at first as the Lions crashed to the last in 1997. When the giant at last awoke, only Chris Johnson of the Lions of old remained.
Most potently, Fitzroy endures in memories, and no less vividly for the passing of the years. The name Fitzroy conjures up images of particular players, particular deeds, particular moments that are unique to and distinctive of that club alone. It is for these that the supporters grieved.
"Fitzroy was a cause," wrote Martin Flanagan in The Age. "A lost cause for most of the last decade, perhaps, but for all that, something which gave meaning to a lot of people's lives."
Belatedly, the AFL came to understand this. "I think we applied a carefully analysed, rational view to something without fully understanding some of the emotional and traditional issues associated," said Samuel in 2003.
The Brisbane Lions at first kept their distance from Fitzroy, fearing to alienate the new market they were trying to capture, but in their premiership prosperity felt secure enough to begin to wear the Fitzroy jumper again sometimes. Some old Lions were won over, figuring that half a club was better than none, especially if it was successful. But for others, the pain has not gone away.
It is improbable that there will be another Fitzroy. Some clubs are still struggling, but the game is awash with money. "The biggest change in AFL policy now is that the league seems committed to the preservation of the 16-team competition," said Hore-Lacy.
"I suspect that this has more to do with the requirements of TV rather than a philanthropic softening."
Hore-Lacy has been to three AFL games since 1996, twice when Brisbane wore Fitzroy jumpers and the 2004 grand final. "The memories still hurt," he said, "and I think I can speak for all directors on this issue."
Roys' last rites
Greg Baum
August 31, 2006
NOT until Fitzroy was in its death throes was the club at last afforded some dying dignity. On September 1, 1996, the Lions played their last match, against Fremantle at Subiaco Oval, and were duly thrashed.
After it, West Australian opera singer Sara Macliver stood atop the scoreboard and, alone and unaccompanied, sang Auld Lang Syne.
Someone in the crowd held up a banner that read: "Born 1883, murdered 1996". Reportedly, this day's soulful last rites were funded not by the AFL, but the Dockers.
Fitzroy had passed away. It was always sophistry to call the subsuming of some of its remnants into Brisbane a merger, and although some keep a candle burning still for the Lions of old in Melbourne, it is really only a form of vigil.
But the public agony in which the club died, and the hostile reaction to a planned merger of Hawthorn and Melbourne, forced the AFL to abandon its push for rationalisation.
Graeme Samuel then was chairman of the commission. Several years later he admitted that the league had failed to understand the emotion that is the lifeblood of a football club, and that its policy would have "torn the heart out of Victorian football". But it was too late for the Roys.
Fitzroy's days were numbered from 1985 when the expansion-minded VFL first concluded that Melbourne could not support 10 clubs. When football was amateur, Fitzroy's losing seasons did not matter, for each new season was a clean slate. Once it became professional, the losing began to compound.
Dyson Hore-Lacy was the president who went down defiantly with the sinking ship. He said this week that in his time at the club, the AFL had always been unavailing and sometimes antagonistic, at one time threatening to sue the already parlous club to recover a debt.
"Graeme Samuel was the driving force behind the competition. He was the person who constantly advocated mergers and publicly questioned our viability," Hore-Lacy said. "This made sponsorship and finance even more difficult to obtain." Samuel would not comment this week, saying it would only stir up sleeping dogs.
By the early '90s, debt and high interest rates were crippling the club. The Lions became itinerants, operating from rent-free premises at AFL House, but seemingly playing at a different ground every other year, and under a different coach.
Periodically, Khemlani-like white knights happened along, but unavailingly. Improbably, the Lions ended up owing $1.25 million to Nauru.
Roos, Pert, Osborne, Lynch and Blakey all left, each departure reinforcing in the remainder a sense of hopelessness. Boyd, Johnson, Primus, Molloy and Pike stayed to the bitter end, but the team predictably lost all heart and hope.
Meantime, the AFL was redoubling its resolve to bring in Port Adelaide, and strengthen Sydney and Brisbane.
"Without AFL support, a Fitzroy merge was inevitable," said Hore-Lacy. Mergers had been on the agenda since 1989, when Fitzroy made terms with Footscray, only for the people to rise up. Now there was $6 million on the table for the first two clubs to take the plunge. Melbourne, Hawthorn, North Melbourne and Collingwood all looked at the idea. Collingwood's offer — the Lions' logo on the club's socks — was derisory.
By mid-1996, Fitzroy was in the hands of an administrator. "The AFL refused to support us financially, forcing us to act mid-season, which resulted in the public humiliation of the club and players for the rest of the year," said Hore-Lacy.
The Fitzroy board settled on North Melbourne, talented but also impoverished, as a merger partner. "Our arrangement reflected equality or near equality for both clubs, and we had a watertight agreement to secure ours and North Melbourne's positions," said Hore-Lacy.
But other forces now intervened. One was a clash of personalities at the two clubs, always probable in the aggravated circumstances. Another was the paranoia of the other clubs, who feared the creation of a rich and talented super-club; they voted it down 14-1.
Seizing the moment, the AFL delivered the Lions into the hands of its preferred option, Brisbane. It was July 7, 1996. That night, Brisbane president Noel Gordon was seen to gloat on The Footy Show, which for the Lions' faithful was salt to a freshly opened wound.
Hore-Lacy later wrote a book in which he described the deal done that day as "one of the most cynical and insensitive acts ever perpetrated in the history of sport". A founding member had been "obliterated by the stroke of a corporately driven pen".
The passage of time has not placated him. "In doing what the AFL did with the Fitzroy administrator Michael Brennan — who was mainly concerned with retrieving Nauru's money — the AFL ignored the wishes, aspirations and emotional involvement of the vast majority of Fitzroy supporters, in order — many believe — to assist Brisbane," he said. "In business, what happened could fairly be described as a hostile takeover."
A Fitzroy supporter I know whose connections with the club date back to the beginning said she found herself bursting into tears without notice, for instance when driving to work. It was as a death.
Brisbane got $2.6 million and eight choice players. The other $3.4 million erased Fitzroy's debt. Coach Mike Nunan quit, and the Lions played out the season under Alan McConnell, uncompetitively. Nearly 50,000 came to their last match in Melbourne, effectively to pay their last respects. The next week, in a form of exile in Perth, Fitzroy Football Club breathed its last.
Fitzroy lives on in various ethereal forms. Legally, it is as the former University Reds in the amateurs. Most obviously, it is as a kind of transplanted donor organ in the body of Brisbane. Fears of the emergence of a super-club were not realised at first as the Lions crashed to the last in 1997. When the giant at last awoke, only Chris Johnson of the Lions of old remained.
Most potently, Fitzroy endures in memories, and no less vividly for the passing of the years. The name Fitzroy conjures up images of particular players, particular deeds, particular moments that are unique to and distinctive of that club alone. It is for these that the supporters grieved.
"Fitzroy was a cause," wrote Martin Flanagan in The Age. "A lost cause for most of the last decade, perhaps, but for all that, something which gave meaning to a lot of people's lives."
Belatedly, the AFL came to understand this. "I think we applied a carefully analysed, rational view to something without fully understanding some of the emotional and traditional issues associated," said Samuel in 2003.
The Brisbane Lions at first kept their distance from Fitzroy, fearing to alienate the new market they were trying to capture, but in their premiership prosperity felt secure enough to begin to wear the Fitzroy jumper again sometimes. Some old Lions were won over, figuring that half a club was better than none, especially if it was successful. But for others, the pain has not gone away.
It is improbable that there will be another Fitzroy. Some clubs are still struggling, but the game is awash with money. "The biggest change in AFL policy now is that the league seems committed to the preservation of the 16-team competition," said Hore-Lacy.
"I suspect that this has more to do with the requirements of TV rather than a philanthropic softening."
Hore-Lacy has been to three AFL games since 1996, twice when Brisbane wore Fitzroy jumpers and the 2004 grand final. "The memories still hurt," he said, "and I think I can speak for all directors on this issue."
) go down the same track soon.
