The Lions have added a 28^th different playing venue and a 26^th travel destination to a 38-year ‘journey’ that has seen the club fly more than 1.61million kilometres to play in every state and territory in Australia – plus New Zealand.

The club’s 28^th different playing venue was  Norwood Oval in Adelaide, where they beat North Melbourne by 70 points on Friday night to kick start their 2024 season.

It was only the third AFL game played at what is commonly known as ‘The Parade’, home of SANFL powerhouse Norwood coached by ex-Brisbane assistant coach Jade Rawlings.

It followed two sell-out games in Gather Round #1 last year, when Fremantle beat Gold Coast by 10 points in front of a crowd of 9329, and 9057 people saw GWS beat Hawthorn by two points, and the Lions visited venue #27 when they played North at Mt.Barker in the Adelaide Hills.

Since the inception of the Brisbane Bears in 1987 the visit to Norwood was the 397^th time overall the club has boarded a plane to play. And that’s not counting pre-season travel, which has included visits to South Africa in 1998 and China in 2010, and countless visits to smaller, out-of-the-way venues across suburban and regional Australia.

It’s a loose calculation, excludes 371 ‘home’ games at the Gabba and 81 games home and away at Carrara, and includes 10 venues in Victoria, three each in Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia, two in Tasmania, and one in the ACT and NT. Plus Wellington in New Zealand in 2014.

So along the way each of 346 Brisbane players have had a notional ‘passport’ – a ticket to AFL football outside the home confines of Carrara from 1987-1992 and the Gabba since 1993.

While Simon Black holds the club games record at 322 he’s played only 148 ‘travel games’ for which he had to board a plane. Marcus Ashcroft, second on the games list at 317, heads the travel games list at 155.

Then follows Michael Voss (139), Shaun Hart (132), Darryl White (131), Daniel Rich (124), Jonathan Brown (117), Jason Akermanis (116), Justin Leppitsch (110), Dayne Zorko (105), Daniel Bradshaw (115) and Chris Scott (100).

Friday night’s game at Norwood, the original home club of ex-Brisbane players Martin Pike, Joel Patfull, Adam Heuskes, James Aish, Matthew AhMat, Mark Buckley and Neil Hein, a member of the club’s first side in 1987, also saw Zorko add another line to his glittering career CV.

He now has the most ‘stamps’ on his Brisbane travel passport, having added a 19^th to push him one ahead of the recently-retired Rich.

Ryan Lester is next on the list at 17, ahead of Harris Andrews, Darcy Gardiner, Eric Hipwood, Oscar McInerney, Zac Bailey, Charlie Cameron, Hugh McCluggage, and Lachie Neale, who have played for Brisbane at 16 different venues along.

Cam Rayner, Linc McCarthy, Brandon Starcevich, Callum AhChee, Jarryd Lyons and Joe Daniher are on the next line at 15 with Richard Champion, Darryl White, Shaun Hart, Dan McStay, Matthew Kennedy and Mitch Robinson.

Neale’s first game at Norwood Oval on Friday night took his career venues total to 20 – only two behind the League’s all-time record set on Sunday when Gold Coast’s David Swallow played at his 22^nd venue.

Swallow went one ahead of ex-GWS, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast defender Jack Hombsch, who spread his 116 AFL games over 21 venues. Neale is outright third at 20, with Zorko now on the fourth line with Robert Harvey (St.Kilda), Paul Salmon (Essendon/Hawthorn), Jarrod Harbrow (W-Bulldogs/Gold Coast) and teammate Jarryd Lyons (Adelaide/Gold Coast/Brisbane).

In a statistic that underlines the travel load of players based interstate, Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury, who played his 388^th game against Hawthorn at Adelaide Oval on Sunday, has played at only 11 different venues.

Pendlebury has played at only two venues in Victoria – MCG (243 games) and Marvel Stadium (52) – and nine interstate – Adelaide Oval (10) and Football Park (8) in SA, Subiaco (12) and Perth Stadium (8) in WA, Gabba (20) and Carrara (8) in Queensland, and SCG (9), Stadium Australia (10) and Sydney Showgrounds (8) in NSW.

Brisbane have not played at only six grounds that have hosted AFL premiership matches since 1987 – China’s Jiangwan Stadium, North Hobart Oval, Bruce Stadium in Canberra, Blacktown Stadium, the original training headquarters of the GWS Giants, Alice Springs’ Traeger Park and Riverway Stadium in Townsville, which hosted Gold Coast and St.Kilda in 2019.

Riverway Stadium was Queensland’s fifth official AFL venue all-time behind Carrara, the Gabba, Cazaly’s Stadium in Cairns and the Brisbane Exhibition Grounds, which hosted Essendon and Geelong in 1952 when the League scheduled an extra round of matches labelled ‘National Day Round’ on the Queen’s Birthday weekend when all clubs played in regional Victoria or interstate. Essendon great John Coleman kicked 13 goals in a 69-point Bombers win.

In what will be a walk down memory lane for long-time club supporters and a history lesson for more recent additions to the ‘family’, the Brisbane playing venue list began with their first game at the MCG in Round 1 1987.

It was followed by Geelong’s Kardinia Park, the old St.Kilda home at Moorabbin, Carrara, Collingwood’s Victoria Park, West Coast’s WACA, Western Bulldogs’ Whitten Oval, Carlton’s Princes Park and Essendon’s Windy Hill.

After visiting eight different interstate venues in their first season the club added Sydney’s SCG in 1988, the AFL’s then ‘second home’ at Waverley Park in Melbourne in 1989, and Subiaco Oval in Perth in 1990.

After the Gabba hosted four Bears games in 1991 ahead of a full-time relocation to Brisbane in 1993, Adelaide’s Football Park become travel destination #12 in 1991. It was the last addition to the list during the Bears era.

It was 2000 before Docklands Stadium, now known as Marvel Stadium, joined the travel log, and since then the list has grown via the Olympic Stadium in Sydney in 2003, York Park in Launceston in 2008, Darwin’s Marrara Stadium in 2013, Adelaide Oval and Wellington in 2014, GWS’ Sydney Showgrounds in 2015, the new Perth Stadium in 2018, Eureka Stadium (now Mars Stadium) in Ballarat in 2019, Cazaly’s Stadium in 2020, Hobart’s Bellerive Oval in 2021, Canberra’s Manuka Oval in 2022, Mt.Barker in 2023 and Norwood in 2024.

The Brisbane win/loss record and the club’s games record-holder at each ground is:-

Interestingly, in 100 years and 1928 games in the VFL/AFL Fitzroy played at only 27 different venues. Of them, 14 were common to Brisbane – MCG, Victoria Park, Waverley, Whitten Oval, Waverley, Windy Hill, Kardinia Park, Moorabbin, SCG, WACA, Football Park, Carrara, Subiaco and the Gabba.