It was one of the great ironies of Fitzroy’s long and proud history. At the conclusion of their 1928th and last game in the AFL players, officials and supporters gathered one last time at a hotel in Perth. It was the Brisbane Hotel.

Sunday afternoon, 1 September 1996. Fitzroy had been beaten by Fremantle, but this wasn’t about wins and losses, or goals or behinds. This was about a sad, sad day in football history. The end of a great club as a separate entity in the AFL.

It was Round 22 in the AFL’s Centenary Year and this week’s “Fitzroy Flashback”. The final chapter for a club formed in 1883 and part of a breakaway group that had formed the VFL in 1896. With Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon, Geelong, Melbourne, South Melbourne and St.Kilda they had paved the way for the game that dominates the lives of so many now 122 years on.

Alan McConnell, caretaker coach as Fitzroy were paid the ultimate insult by being made to fly to Perth for their last game, recalled the ‘wake’. An afternoon he will never forget.

“The supporters were sensational,” McConnell said many years later. “There were a lot of very sad people but there was quite a good feeling about the place. It was quite uplifting and positive and I think they were generally happy and comfortable to enjoy the moment in each other’s company. There was a feeling that it was good to be in it together.”

The man who went down in history as Fitzroy’s last coach estimated at least 1000 people attended the post-game function at the hotel, owned by ex-Fitzroy ruckman Ian McCulloch, with many spilling out onto the streets. And they stayed for hours.

That such a function would be held at the Brisbane Hotel after Fitzroy had merged mid-season with the Brisbane Bears to give birth to the Brisbane Lions was the final chapter in a crazy period.

It was odd, too, that the AFL’s youngest club, the Fremantle Dockers, would farewell one of their older brothers at a ground which was the home of the Subiaco Lions, located on Haydn Bunton Drive.

The Round 22 visit to Perth ended 100 years in the VFL/AFL for Fitzroy, who originally but unofficially were known as the Maroons because they wore an all maroon jumper, played briefly as the Gorillas from 1939, and officially adopted the Lion as their mascot in 1957.

Overall the club had played 1928 games for 869 wins, 1034 losses and 25 draws. They’d won eight VFL/AFL premierships in 1898, 1899, 1904, 1905, 1913, 1916, 1922 and 1944, and were runners-up in 1900, 1903, 1906, 1917 and 1923.

They won eight Brownlow Medals via Hayden Bunton (1931-32-35), Wilfred ‘Chicken’ Smallhorn (1933), Dinny Ryan (1936), Allan Ruthven (1950), Kevin Murray (1969) and Bernie Quinlan (1981).

Murray, a nine-time Fitzroy best & fairest winner now honoured via the Brisbane Lions’ Merrett/Murray Medal, played most games for the club at 333, ahead of Paul Roos (269) and Garry Wilson (268). Jack Moriarty led the all-time goal-kicking with 626 from Quinlan (576) and Wilson (451).

Bill Stephen, Fitzroy coach for 11 years over three stints from 1955-57, 1965-70 and 1979-80, had most seasons at the helm, while Murray, captain for eight years from 1963-64 and 1967-72, was the longest-serving skipper.

A total of 1156 players wore Fitzroy colours in official AFL competition, among them 110 who played 100 games and 11 who played 200 games.

It was a proud, proud history over a long, long time, with countless highlights and personalities who hold a prominent place in Australia’s No.1 sport. But effectively time caught up with them. They lost a financial battle which had threatened the club’s existence for some time, and after the appointment of a receiver in what was the final nail in the coffin, rather than fade into oblivion they chose a merger.

As much as no hard-core Fitzroy fans wanted it to end, it was almost merciful when it did.

“It had been a very, very hard year,” said McConnell, who had been thrust into the senior coaching role mid-season when Mick Nunan resigned after the announcement of the merger.

“The uncertainty of the overall situation created anxiety – and plenty of it. There was the immediacy of the situation and whether or not we’d play the next day, and there was the long-term future of the players, and their on-going financial commitments.

“It created a lot of circumstances in which it made it very difficult to make people accountable, both to themselves and to their teammates. I was charged with trying to achieve that and it was damn hard. When players were not performing they had a whole set of excuses to fall back on which I just couldn’t argue with.

McConnell, a nine-year fixture at Fitzroy, first as an Under-19s B&F winner and Reserves player and later as a coach of the Under-19s, Reserves and Seniors, said the most striking thing to emerge from 1996 was the realisation of just how much football meant to the grassroots supporters.

“It was a grieving process and so many went through it. When you are going about your daily business you tend to forget that sort of thing. For the people who have the responsibility for the merger, and for football in general, the most important thing is that the emotions and feelings of these people are understood and that they are looked after.

“It’s important that people who have given their life to the club like Kevin Murray and Bill Stephen will have somewhere they can acknowledge as home, and that their efforts and achievements are not thrown out the window.”

The final year of Fitzroy had been a recurring nightmare for so many. After confirmation of the merger ahead of Round 14 it was like counting down the days. The last game in Melbourne in Round 21 had been as tough as any, yet still nothing quite like the trip across the Nullabor for Round 22.

After Shane Clayton, Peter Doyle, Jeff Hogg and Danny Morton replaced Jason Baldwin, Brad Cassidy, Matthew Manfield and Anthony Mellington in the side each player received an Ansett boarding pass which carried the words ‘Fitzroy Forever’ as they prepared to board the plane.

Prior to the game the 1944 premiership flag, faded and tattered, was unfurled by Kevin Murray, Bernie Quinlan, Haydn Bunton Jnr and Ron Alexander, and the players wore a Lion temporarily tattooed of their arm where their Fremantle opponents wore black arm bands.

In their very last quarter of football Fitzroy out-scored Fremantle five goals to four, with Simon Atkins kicking the last goal – a running effort 20 minutes into the term at 4.37pm Melbourne time. But they were never going to win.

Still, the players left the ground via a guard of honour as the club song played for the last time.

For the record, Fitzroy lost 10-11 (71) to 24-13 (157).

Fittingly, the eight players who would later head to Brisbane via the merger – captain Brad Boyd, Chris Johnson, Jarrod Molloy, Shane Clayton, Nick Carter, Simon Hawking, John Barker and Scott Bamford – were members of the final team.

The final Fitzroy team was:

B: Brett Chandler, Jarrod Molloy, Stephen Paxman
HB: Martin Pike, Rohan Warfe, Shane Clayton
C: John Barker, Simon Atkins, Nick Carter
HF: Brad Boyd (capt), John McCarthy, Chris Johnson
F: Marty Warry, Simon Hawking, John Rombotis.
R: Matthew Primus, Matthew Dent, Scott Bamford.
INT: Peter Doyle, Danny Morton, Jeff Hogg.
EMERG: Jason Baldwin, Robert McMahon, Frank Bizzotto, Mark Dwyer.

John Barker (23), Matthew Dent (22), Jarrod Molloy (22), Brad Boyd (20) and Brett Chandler (20) topped the possession count, while Marty Warry, the ‘baby’ of the side in his eighth game, kicked four goals and John McCarthy two.

McConnell said there were “no words” to describe the feeling among the playing group as they trudged off the ground. They spent minutes that seemed like hours together and nobody said a word.

It was impossible for them to know what to say, just as it is impossible now 26 years on to describe the moment, but for the rusted on Fitzroy fans at least the club and its heroes lives on via the Brisbane Lions.