Today guernsey numbers are an accepted part of football. An identifying tag for your favourite player, and something that fans young and old might choose to put on their own guernsey or other club paraphernalia.

But it wasn’t always the case.  There was a lot of early resistance and it wasn’t until Round 4 1903, when Fitzroy played in the first VFL match for premiership points in Sydney, when players wore numbers for the first time.

It was a promotional match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, with Fitzroy taking on defending premiers Collingwood. To help novice spectators the League allocated numbers to each player and distributed double-sided cards with player lists and rules to a reported 18,000 spectators.

The Fitzroy team was: 1. Lou Barker, 3. Tammy Beauchamp, 4. Teddy Best, 5 Frank Brophy, 6 Gerald Brosnan, 7 Fred Fontaine, 8 Ern Jenkins, 9 Chris Kiernan, 10 Herbert Milne, 11 Les Millis, 12 Geoff Moriarty, 13 Bill McSpeerin, 14 Wally Naismith, 15 Jim Sharp, 16 Percy Trotter, 18 Alf Wilkinson.

Bert Sharpe and Alby McDonald did not wear numbers. Or if so they were not recorded.

The numbers were considered a hit in the non-traditional market of the NSW capital and it was certainly a moment in football history which had begun with the original VFA in 1877 and the breakaway VFL (including Fitzroy) in 1897.

In Melbourne the concept of guernsey numbers was originally reserved for touring teams from elsewhere in the colony. Like in 1887 when a Tasmanian selection and the Adelaide Football Club arrived in Melbourne for a series of matches.

Two sporting goods companies decided that placing numbers on the players’ breast would help spectators identify the unknown footballers — and that the penny they paid for a card listing the names and numbers would help their bank balance.

A report in the Melbourne Punch magazine suggested that the experiment, used in the match between Adelaide and Carlton at the MCG, was a failure: “The breast proved a bad place to have a number placed on a player; you could never decipher it plainly,’’ it said.

Unperturbed, the entrepreneurs repeated the trial a few days later when Tasmania played Adelaide — this time with larger numbers on the players’ backs — and the concept was well received.

In 1904 VFA club Port Melbourne permanently introduced guernsey numbers, while Melbourne, part of the new VFL, looked to do likewise in 1905 only to meet resistance from the players.

During the 1911 finals numbers were formally legislated on a recommendation from the umpires and permits committee. When Carlton played Essendon in the second-semi-final the following Saturday players wore numbers that were displayed on the two MCG scoreboards, although Essendon’s red numbers were barely visible.

When Essendon played Collingwood in the grand final seven days later some Collingwood players wore numbers and some didn’t. Things become more confusing when at halftime several Pies switched to long-sleeved guernseys after halftime due to rainy conditions.

But before the 1912 season the League mandated that all players had to wear numbers. They had to be at least 12 inches in height and of a specific color. And with that came the birth of the ‘Football Record’.

It was up to the clubs how they allocated the numbers. Fitzroy, like most, went alphabetically, and wore them for the first time in Melbourne in Round 1 1912. It was Fitzroy against South Melbourne at Lake Oval on Saturday 27 April. Not the result the team then known as the ‘Maroons’ wanted – a 13-point loss as the legendary Jimmy Freake made his debut – but a watershed moment nevertheless.

The team in guernsey number order was: 1 Fred Bamford, 2 Teddy Buist, 3 Bruce Campbell, 5 Jack Cooper, 6 Clarrie Dall, 8 Jimmy Freake, 13 Cliff Hutton, 14 Wally Johnson, 15 George Lambert, 16 Frank Lamont, 17 Bert Lenne, 19 Harold McLennan, 20 Charlie Norris, 21 Percy Parratt, 22 Bob Rahilly, 23 George Shaw, 24 Bill Walker, 25 Tom Willoughby.

Some Fitzroy players later changed numbers while others stuck. Jack Cooper, Jimmy Freake, Wally Johnson, Bert Lenne, Harold McLennan, Charlie Norris, Percy Parratt, George Shaw and Bill Walker each wore their original number in the 1913 premiership win.

It wasn’t an exact science. Freake and the controversial Jim Martin are both listed as having worn #8 in the 1913 flag.

Martin is a story in himself. He played six games with Carlton in 1902, and 95 games with Essendon from 1907-13, missing the 1911 premiership after a 12-match suspension mid-season for striking Fitzroy’s George Holden in an incident which also saw him charged by police with assault. The first player to appear before the courts over an on-field incident.

After playing in Essendon’s 1912 flag and six of the club’s first nine games in 1913 he joined Holden at Fitzroy, debuting in Round 12 and 11 weeks later becoming the first player to win consecutive premierships with different clubs.

But regardless of the murky complications, a tradition that is an integral part of football today had begun in Round 4 1903.

A full list of numbers worn most often for Brisbane, Fitzroy and across AFL history is:-