Easter Sunday 1987. It was the day the AFL game came to Queensland. And, as fate would ironically record it, heading the show were two clubs that would later become one. The Brisbane Lions.

On Sunday 19 April 1987 the then Brisbane Bears played their fourth game overall and their first home game at Carrara in an expanding national competition still known at the time as the Victorian Football League.

Fitzroy, foundation members of the competition in 1897, were the first ‘visitors’ to Queensland for what was their 1714^th match.

It was Round 4 of an historic season in which the competition had gone from 12 teams to 14 with the addition of the Bears and the West Coast Eagles and a no-brainer choice to head this week’s instalment of the “Remember When …” series.

The Bears first home game was deliberately held back until Round 4 to give the club and associated partners extra time to have the new ground ready. And they needed every last minute.

As the team opened the season with wins over North Melbourne at the MCG and Geelong in Geelong before a Round 3 loss to StKilda at Moorabbin staff at Carrara were working around the clock on the stadium.

They were hit hard by industrial and engineering problems. With a delay in the arrival of supplies from Sydney three crews were working in shifts around the clock trying to get everything ready. Even players Peter Smith and Craig Evans did some casual work to help out.

Little things had become a big problem. Like goal posts. When they were unloaded off the truck at Carrara they were too short. So instead the goal posts were used as behind posts and the club borrowed four towering rugby posts from the Albert Shire Council to use as goal posts.

But with the bounce of the ball at 2.10pm on a picture-perfect Sunday afternoon history was made by two teams each of 20 players, both captained by ruckmen, and just two umpires. It was the Bears, coached by Peter Knights and captained by Mark Mickan, against the Lions, coached by David Parkin and captained by Matt Rendell on what Parkin described as the ‘best playing surface’ he’d seen.

Things didn’t quite go according to plan for the competition newcomers. By quarter-time they trailed 1-4 to 7-2 and despite outscoring the visitors in each of the last three quarters they went down 16-18 (114) to 20-9 (129).

Richard Osborne and Doug Barwick, each with seven goals, were the difference. They kicked Fitzroy’s entire goal tally in the first term and were their team’s only multiple goal-kickers. Scott McIvor, a 20-year-old Queenslander in his third season with the club, had 21 possessions to head the Fitzroy possession count with a 23-year-old Paul Roos in his 108^th game.

David O’Keeffe (4), Mark Williams (3), Geoff Raines (2), Mark Buckley (2) and Mick McCarthy (2) were the Bears’ multiple goal-kickers, while Phil Walsh (31) headed their possession list from Steve Reynoldson (26) and Raines (23).

The Brownlow Medal votes went to Barwick (3), Reynoldson (2) and Roos (1).

The crowd was first reported to be 18,009, was later amended to 22,512, and is officially recorded by the League as 17,795. Whatever, it was a good turnout.

And yet perhaps the crowd had unwittingly harmed the home side’s chances when they brought traffic on the Gold Coast highway on the morning of the match to a virtual stand-still. What for Knights was normally a 45-minute journey from Brisbane took more than two hours. And he left home at 10am. Several players, due at 12noon, didn’t arrive until 12.45pm and the scheduled pre-match meeting had to be postponed.

Knights had another problem - he couldn’t see the $250,000 electronic scoreboard. It was rendered virtually useless from the coach’s box by the beaming sun and the non-arrival from the United States of shades that were designed to cut out the reflection.

At no stage did the coach know precisely how long they’d been playing because he couldn’t read the time clock, which was located on the big screen, and he had to rely on the small scoreboard at the opposite end for the scores.

Still, for a club that was six months and 12 days old, it wasn’t a bad effort, especially when they beat Melbourne by five points the following week for their first home win.

It was a moment in Queensland football history and involved countless people who would go on to become household names across both clubs and the broader football community.

Teams (in notional positions only) for the Bears’ first AFL game in Queensland were:-

BRISBANE:
B: Peter Banfield, Mark Roberts, Frank Dunell
HB: Matthew Campbell, Steve Reynoldson, Chris Waterson
C: Phil Walsh, Geoff Raines, John Fidge
HF: Mark Buckley, Mick McCarthy, Brad Hardie
F: Neil Hein, David O’Keefe, Brenton Phillips
R: Mark Mickan, Mark Williams, Mike Richardson.
INT: Stephen Williams, Rick Norman

FITZROY:
B: Graeme Hinchen, Darren Kappler, Ross Thornton
HB: Tim Pekin, Paul Roos, Graham Osborne
C: Keith Thomas, Bill Lokan, Grant Lawrie
HF: Doug Barwick, Mark Scott, Leon Harris
F: Mick Conlan, Gary Keane, Richard Osborne,
R: Matt Rendell, Scott Clayton, Scott McIvor
INT:  Mark Trewella, Mathew Armstrong

Collectively, the teams included future AFL premiership coaches Paul Roos (Sydney) and Mark Williams (Port Adelaide) and a third coach-in-waiting Phil Walsh, inaugural Bears club champion who was killed by his son part-way through his first season as coach of the Adelaide Crows in 2015. In one of the saddest stories in football history, son Cy was later found not guilty of murder due to mental incompetence.

A host of Fitzroy players made a later home with Brisbane. Scott McIvor and Matt Rendell played with the club, Scott Clayton was a long-time recruiting boss and list manager whose son Josh played for the club, and McIvor and Mathew Armstrong served as assistant-coaches under Leigh Matthews.

Leon Harris is a long-time member of the recruiting team still vitally involved with the club, while Ross Thornton has served on the Board of Directors since 2014.

Keith Thomas, who debuted for Fitzroy in the first game at Carrara, later served as CEO at Port Adelaide, while long-time Fitzroy favorite Mick Conlan had a stint as AFL Queensland CEO.

The crossovers and connections could easily have been deeper. Leon Harris’ brother Bernie, another ex-Fitzroy player, was a fixture in the 1987 Brisbane side and missed only through injury. The pair were opposed later that year.

John Blakey, also later to serve as an assistant-coach under Matthews, was another Fitzroy regular who missed the Carrara opening through injury. Likewise Ken Hinkley, had made his AFL debut with Fitzroy a week earlier and is now senior coach at Port Adelaide.

Overall, Brisbane have an 11-21 record in 33 Round 4 matches in the AFL. They’ve gone 9-8 at ‘home’ Carrara or the Gabba - and are 2-13 interstate.

Other Round 4 highlights include:-

1991: Footy at the Gabba

Another huge moment in history when, for the first time, the Bears played at the Gabba.

In Round 4 1993 they hosted Geelong on a pear-shaped playing surface which had long been the home of cricket in Brisbane and the adopted home of greyhound racing, with the greyhound track running around the outside about 2m above the regular playing field.

Technically, it wasn’t the first AFL game at the venue. That was 10 years when Essendon beat Hawthorn 22-19 (151) to 20-13 (133) on 28 June 1981 in a Round 14 match designed by the league to ‘test the waters’ about a possible future club in Queensland.

Simon Madden (7) and Graeme Schultz (5) led the goal rampage for the Bombers, while Peter Murnane (5) and Ricky Davies (4) led the goal-kicking for the Hawks. And who was another Hawthorn standout? None other than Leigh Matthews, who had a team-high 24 possessions and kicked three goals at the venue where he would have such a profound impact two decades on.

The Brisbane v Geelong game was the first of four games played at the Gabba in ’91 on a trial basis as the Carrara-based Bears contemplated relocation to the State capital. And, the result aside, it was a raging success. The sell-out crowd of 20,351 saw patrons everywhere. Even on the dog track.

The Bears, having had a bye and two losses in the first three rounds under new coach Robert Walls, were beaten 12-16 (88) to 27-28 (190) by a hot Geelong side that went on to reach a preliminary final.

Best for the Bears were Michael McLean, who 34 possessions in his third game for the club, and Cameron O’Brien, who kicked five goals. It was the game which saw the AFL debut of Laurence Schache, father of ex-Brisbane now Bulldogs player Josh Schache. Matthew Ryan played his first Bears game after moving from Collingwood via Sydney.

Bill Brownless kicked 11 goals for the Cats – a Gabba record that still stands 31 years later. Yet oddly he had to be content with two Brownlow Medal votes. The three votes went to Geelong ruckman and captain Damian Bourke, who would later finish his career playing with the Bears in 1993-94-95. And Garry Hocking earned one vote for 26 possessions and a goal.

Mark Bairstow was overlooked by the umpires despite his 40 possessions and three goals. He kicked 3-5. His 40-possession haul stood as the Gabba record until 2014 and only has been bettered nine times by Brisbane’s Tom Rockliff (47-46-45), Bulldogs’ Jack Macrae (45), Brisbane’s Pearce Hanley (45) and Lachie Neale (43), Hawthorn’s Jordan Lewis (42), Gold Coast’s Brayden Fiorini (41) and Sydney’s Josh Kennedy (41).

1994: A Boom Brisbane Debut

One of the hottest news topics in the early years of the Bears at the Gabba was the recruitment of ex-Fitzroy star Alastair Lynch, a 120-game Lion who was lured north on one of the game’s first really long-term contracts.

Lynch, originally from Tasmania and later to play a key role in Brisbane’s 2001-02-03 premiership hat-trick, signed a 10-year deal which at the time was lucrative-plus but, by the time it was coming to an end, saw the champion forward paid significantly ‘unders’. So much so that in good faith the club actually upgraded it.

It hadn’t been a smooth beginning for Lynch at the Bears after he broke his collarbone in a pre-season match. But finally he debuted in the maroon and gold in Round 4 against St.Kilda at the Gabba. And he didn’t disappoint.

The powerhouse super-athlete had 18 possessions and kicked 8-3 in a 53-point win set up by a blistering 9-2 to 1-4 third quarter.  Still, he had to be content with one medal vote, while Troy Clarke’s 17 possessions earned him three votes, and Craig Starcevich’s 17 possessions and a goal was good enough for two votes. It was Nigel Lappin’s second game for the club, and Chris Scott’s fourth.

It was a welcome breakthrough game for the Bears – their first Round 4 win in their eighth season.

2012: The Biggest Round 4 Win

Brisbane’s biggest Round 4 win in history came in 2012 in the third Q-Clash against local rivals Gold Coast. In their fourth year under Michael Voss, the Lions beat the Suns 17-9 (111) to 6-10 (46). Tom Rockliff (37 possessions, two goals) Simon Black (30 possessions) and Pearce Hanley (25 possessions) took the votes while Aaron Cornelius kicked an equal career-best four goals.

Jonathan Brown kicked three goals including his 500^th to become just the fourth player to kick 500 goals in the combined Brisbane-Fitzroy history. Finishing with 594 goals, he sits behind only Alastair Lynch, who kicked 633 goals wearing the club’s three different strips, and Fitzroy star of the 1920’s and 1930s Jack Moriarty (626). Fitzroy great Bernie Quinlan, who kicked 576 for club after 241 goals for what was the Footscray, is the other member of the Lions 500 Club.

2020: An Unbroken Half Century

Season 2020 was the first in which Covid turned the AFL season upside down, and the Round 4 match against Adelaide at the Gabba was played on Sunday 28 June. It was the weekend of Round 15 the year before.

Lachie Neale (31 possessions), Jarrod Berry (23 possessions, 10 tackles) and Hugh McCluggage (24 possessions, one goal) led the way in a 10-23 (83) to 7-4 (46) win. But sliding under the radar a little was a significant milestone. Cam Rayner’s 50^th consecutive game from debut. He was just the third player in Brisbane history to achieve this feat behind Jack Redden (112 games) and Lewis Taylor (50).

Daniel Rich was on track for a half-century, reaching 49 in a row before he missed Round 4 2011.

Rayner would go on to reach 63 games without a miss – a total reduced because the 2020 season was only 17 games plus finals – before his off-season knee injury cost him the entire 2021 campaign.

Redden’s 112-game streak from debut is the sixth longest in AFL history behind Sydney’s Jared Crouch (194), North Melbourne’s Sam Gibson (130) Melbourne’s Dick Taylor in the 1920 (127), Fremantle’s David Mundy (124), the Western Bulldogs’ Stephen Wallis (113).

The Fitzroy player with the longest streak of games from debut was Team of the Century centreman and AFL Hall of Famer John Murphy. Father of ex-Carlton 300-gamer Marc, Murphy went 95 games in a row from Round 1 1967.

Among current Brisbane players, Jarryd Lyons has enjoyed a phenomenal run since joining the club from the Gold Coast. He has played 70 games without a miss.

ROUND 4 STATS LEADERS

Brownlow Medal Votes: Simon Black (9), Jonathan Brown (8), Michael Voss (7), Lachie Neale (5)

Most Possessions in a Game: Lachie Neale 40 (2019), Tom Rockliff 37 (2012), Phil Walsh 35 (1988), Simon Black 35 (2000), Michael McLean 34 (1991), Tom Rockliff 34 (2013), Tom Rockliff 33 (2017), Mark Withers 32 (1988), Craig McRae 32 (1999), Simon Black 32 (2008), Tom Cutler 32 (2015).

Most Goals in a Game: Alastair Lynch 8 (1994), Justin Leppitsch 6 (1996), Cameron O’Brien 5 (1991), Roger Merrett 5 (1994), Justin Leppitsch 5 (1997), Chris Johnson 5 (1998), Daniel Bradshaw 5 (2008).