It’s 1 April. April Fool’s Day. A day of practical jokes world-wide. But Fitzroy folk will struggle to find too much to laugh about.
It will be their second April Fool’s day without the legendary Bill Stephen, who would have celebrated his 94th birthday today had he not passed away on 23 August 2020 aged 92.
A member of the Brisbane Lions Hall of Fame, Stephen was as much a part of the Fitzroy fabric as anyone. A player, captain, coach and staunch supporter of the Brisbane-Fitzroy merger that sees the history of his beloved club live on.
A pugnacious 178cm, he was recruited from Thornbury and debuted at 19 in 1947. One of the League’s premier small defenders of his time and a regular Victorian representative, he played 162 games with Fitzroy over 11 years, including two finals in 1952.
He was club champion in 1950 and ’54 and had 11 years as Fitzroy coach in three separate stints on top of a two-year term as senior coach at Essendon.
Initially he replaced the retiring Allan Ruthven as Fitzroy captain-coach in 1955 but was moved on at the end of 1957. He returned to the top job in 1965 to replace Kevin Murray before being sacked again in 1970 as he recovered from pneumonia in hospital. And, after spending 1976-77 with the Bombers, he again answered a Fitzroy SOS in 1979.
He was in charge in Round 17 of that year, when they beat Melbourne 36-22 (238) to Melbourne 6-12 (48) at Waverley to post the highest score and biggest win in club history.
In total he coached 258 games. In what is a pointer to the regard in which he was held across the industry, particularly as a teacher of young players and a builder of team unity, it is the most by any coach without a grand final appearance.
It is precisely the same number of games coached by Sydney’s John Longmire and three fewer than Geelong’s Chris Scott.
And it could have been more after Stephen won a 1979 finals spot with a team captained by Ron Alexander which included Team of the Century choices Bernie Quinlan, Garry Wilson, Warwick Irwin, Harvey Merrigan and Mick Conlan, plus 200-gamer David McMahon and future coach Robert Walls.
But, in typical fashion, he declared his intention to stand down at the end of 1980 part-way through his final year, believing it was best for the club to make a fresh start under a new coach.
It was all part of his overwhelming commitment to the club and the quest for success. It was club first … everything else second.
As much as outwardly he was a quietly-spoken and gentle man, he also had a tough streak when he thought it warranted. Like in the Anzac Day game of 1980. After Fitzroy were obliterated by Richmond by 118 points at the MCG he took the extraordinary step of fining the team $2000. Or $100 a man.
It was a first. Several players sought advice from the players’ association and others asked that the fine be revoked. And in the wash-up it was part of the reason he eventually stepped down. He decided he and the players weren’t completely on the same page.
Replacing Stephen in 1981 was Walls, a fellow Lions Hall of Famer who describes his then mentor as ‘one of football’s gentlemen’ and ‘a man who understood the important role the game plays in bringing people together long after their playing days had ended’.
Said Walls, who would later play such a key role with the Bears: "He was Fitzroy through and through," Walls said. "He thought beyond the field and the importance of football as a social fabric for people. He treated people with respect. He was a really good ambassador for the game. As a coach he was very encouraging. He was good with the kids. He never howled them down, he encouraged them to back themselves and use their skills. He was a gentleman of the game."
So highly regarded among Fitzroy people, Stephen was an important link between the Brisbane and Fitzroy camps prior to and after the merger when he, George Coates and Arthur Wilson were like the three Amigos. Sadly, all three are no longer with us.
Like Coates and Wilson, Stephen left a huge legacy that goes beyond football and lives on today via the Brisbane Lions Club Song, sung to the original tune of the Fitzroy club song, otherwise known as ‘La Marseillaise’ or the French National Anthem.
It was all due to Stephen, who came up with the idea on an end-of-season trip to Perth in 1952.
As he recounted more than once, he had travelled to Perth with the Victorian side twice previously and was taken by the North Melbourne song, which was adopted by the State side.
“We really didn’t have a song that united us at Fitzroy, and I had just been to the pictures to see ‘Casablanca’ and was impressed by the scene in the restaurant. The Germans were belting out their Nazi song, and some bloke started singing this French song. Gradually all the French joined in and overwhelmed the Germans with their voice. I was very impressed with the song ‘La Marseillaise’,” he said.
The want and need for a club song came in part from Stephen’s favorite time of the week during his football career – Sunday mornings at Brunswick Street Oval after a game.
“No-one did Sunday training in those days - you just went down and had a hot bath and a rub. And then they’d have a barrel of beer and everybody would be there … 200 people, players and supporters, everyone would put in two shillings or something like that.
“They’d have singers and performers there. Fitzroy had a great entertainer by the name of Norm Byron. Norm …was a great guy, lived very close, I think in Freeman Street. He was always there on a Sunday morning, and he would sing lots of songs.
“He had a booming voice like Al Jolson, and he would make up rhymes using people’s names. He’d go through the room and name everyone in a song. He was a marvellous entertainer. Everyone would be thrilled … like you’d come down from the country and then find yourself in one of Norm’s songs.
“One popular song was called ‘Riley Harbour’. He used to sing this song and we used to sing along with him a bit … it’s a beaut tune. But as a group we didn’t have a song that was sung regularly by either the team or the Fitzroy people. We never had any songs after a win.”
So, interspersed with a game of cards, a few beers and plenty of chat during two nights and three days on a train crossing the Nullabor to Perth, the original Fitzroy club was born.
Stephen detailed how his partners in song-writing included teammates Donny Furness, Neville Broderick, Kevin Wright, Ken Ross, Col Davey and Jack McGregor.
“We all took it in turns to do a line. So that meant it was a song made up by the Fitzroy players themselves, it wasn’t just me doing it, it was a collection of players doing the song. Well, when we got it all down, and we all knew the tune, we sang it, and we sang it, and we sang it, and we sang it. We must have sung it 4,000 times. By the time we got home we knew it very well.”
Stephen, too, holds a proud place in the history of the AFL’s April Fool’s Day Club.
It is a club of surprisingly small numbers - only about 35 of almost 13,000 players all-time since 1897. But his 162 games is second only to GWS turned Geelong Coleman Medallist Jeremy Cameron, now at 188. Just behind Stephen are 161-game Collingwood premiership player Tony Francis, 159-game StKilda rover Roy Bence and recently-retired Port Adelaide/North Melbourne player Jasper Pittard.
Fitzroy boasted the biggest slice of April Fool’s Day members - five plus Stephen.
George ‘Yorkie’ Shaw was born 1 April 1886 in Sydney. One of the game’s smallest players at 164cm and 65kg, he grew up in Melbourne and was a product of Fitzroy juniors. He played 117 games for the club from 1911-1920, kicking two goals in the 1913 grand final win over StKilda and also sharaing in the 1916 flag. He umpired two VFL matches in 1923. He was the first player to wear jumper #23 for Fitzroy in 1912 and also played in #17 and #19.
Alan McLaughlin was born 1 April 1920. Recruited from Fitzroy Districts, he was a 173cm wingman who played 76 games from 1946-50.
Fitzroy’s other three April Fool’s Day babies played a total of nine games. Harry Smith (born 1 April 1893) played six games from 1915-16 before three games with Geelong in 1922. Jack Harrow (born 1 April 1921) played two games in the 1944 premiership year. And Alan Nilen (born 1 April 1913) played one game in 1937.
The Brisbane Bears/Lions have fielded only one player born on April Fool’s Day.
Dion Scott, still living in Brisbane and a regular at the Gabba, played 73 games with the club from 1993-99. Originally from Ulverstone in north-west Tasmania and a Devonport product, he joined Sydney as the #8 pick in the 1988 National Draft but played only six games in an injury-plagued stint with the Swans. He played in the last Bears game in the 1996 preliminary final and the first Lions game in Round 1 1997.y
Oddly, too, while 1 April is now a regular part of the AFL calendar Fitzroy played on April Fool’s Day just four times in 100 years – in 1972-78-89-95. All were losses and Stephen was not directly involved in any of them, but each had an historical significance.
Lead photo courtesy of The Age
