The Brisbane Lions will wear black armbands against Fremantle in Perth on Sunday as a mark of respect for former club director and life-time Lions man Mac Tolliday, who passed away on Monday night aged 93. Fortuitously, it will be on what would have been his 94th birthday.  

A foundation member of the Brisbane Bears on the Gold Coast, he was elected by the members to the Lions Board in February 1997 and was re-elected in February 2000. He retired from the role he said he cherished above all things – “except family” - after the first premiership in 2001 but continued to support the club as a member of the ‘Lions Loyalists’.

Originally from Victoria, he was a life-long Fitzroy supporter who, in his time as an executive manager at the Commonwealth Bank on Melbourne, headed the award-winning launch in 1974 of ‘Bankcard’, Australia’s first mass market credit card.

A marketing strategist, he later spent more than 20 years in the hospitality industry, including time as the Managing Director of the Motel Federation of Australia and Chairman of the Best Western Hotel Group. After moving to Queensland in 1979 he owned and operated the ‘Happy Holiday Inn’ at Broadbeach, a regular haunt for Bears players and officials in the day.

The happiest man in Australia at the time of the Brisbane/Fitzroy merger in 1996, he relocated to Brisbane in 1998 and until struck by ill-health lived in a high-rise apartment at Kangaroo Point, with views of the City looking north and his beloved Gabba looking south.

A life member of the Commonwealth Bank Football Club in the old Victorian Amateur Football Association, he served on the VAFA Executive  and the NSWAFL tribunal.

Known simply to all as ‘Mac’, as if he didn’t need a surname, he is survived by his beloved Viv, wife of 46 years, and his extended family. The Club sends its best wishes to all at this difficult time.

A memorial service will he held at 2pm on Monday, 7 August, at St.Luke’s Green Aged Care Home, Woolloongabba.