The following article - which was written by Rohan Connolly and published in The Age on Sunday 20 November 2011 - relates to the Club's grand opening of a permanent Fitzroy memorabilia display at Etihad Stadium.

Click here for more details surrounding the official unveiling event which will be held on Wednesday 23 November.  

Lions' pride is on display

Fitzroy, to many, is a club without a home but a memorabilia collection should give fans a focus.

FITZROY was forced through circumstance to become a nomad for the final decade-and-a-bit of its VFL/AFL existence. And when it comes to the tangible historical legacy left to represent the club, little has changed in the 15 years since the proud old Lions did finally cease to exist.

The trophies, medals, the assorted silverware, the uniforms, the photos and relics of a proud VFL establishment club have moved countless times. Quips long-time Fitzroy football manager and now historical head Arthur Wilson: ''It's the most travelled memorabilia in Australia.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''It went from the Junction Oval to Lakeside to a couple of storage facilities in Northcote then it was at the Fitzroy hotel in Northcote,'' Wilson explains. ''When the merger happened, it went into storage, then we took some out and put it in the Manningham Club [in Bulleen] and for the past couple of years, it's been in storage at Etihad Stadium.''

Fortunately, though, not for much longer. On Wednesday night, much of that treasure trove of historical gold will again be unveiled at Etihad Stadium in the large area between two major function rooms.

There's more than a little irony here, given Etihad Stadium boss Ian Collins was AFL director of football operations in 1996 when the league commission and several clubs conspired to push the Roys north to Brisbane rather than allow the merger with North Melbourne it had sought. But Collins is a lover of football history and when shown the collection of Fitzroy artefacts decided it was too good to be locked away.

More than 300 guests are locked in for the night, which will be attended by former Fitzroy greats Kevin Murray, Bernie Quinlan, Garry Wilson, John Murphy and Norm Brown. It's a good news story. And the least a club that produced more than 1100 players, eight VFL premierships and six Brownlow medallists deserves.

For Wilson, it will be a proud moment. He and another old Roy in George Coates having been entrusted with preserving the Fitzroy legacy in the context of its absorption into another brood of Lions thousands of kilometres north.

Nothing, it seems, has ever come easy for the Lions, even in their afterlife. The various moves of the memorabilia saw plenty lost along the way. And Wilson estimates as much as 30 per cent of it was stolen from the Fitzroy hotel after the merger was announced. ''People just took it off the walls,'' he says. ''We had the police chasing a bit of it at one stage and got quite a lot back. And a lot of it just turned up, you know, mysteriously arrived on the doorstep.''

Then there's the matter of those premierships. That beautiful-looking premiership cup that represents a flag triumph only eventuated in the late 1950s, Fitzroy's having all been won by 1944. The AFL has made available retrospective premiership cups. But they don't come cheap, much of Wilson's group's time consumed by fund-raising so the Lions could at least have some material evidence of their early success.

Fitzroy's past players stumped up the money to buy the 1944 replica. It's Wilson and his cohorts who have come to the party for the other seven. ''For the last 14 years, we've been having functions to raise money to buy all the cups, about $60,000. In 2001, we decided we'd have a membership. There's about 400 members. We have a monthly function during the season and the proceeds of that allow us to keep restoring, repairing and framing our memorabilia.''

The new display isn't only a shrine to Fitzroy, though. It also marks the transition to the Brisbane Lions with some items from the old Brisbane Bears outfit and Brisbane's triumph of three straight flags from 2001-03.

Wilson, like a lot of old Fitzroy people, finds it hard to put a finger on just how many have stayed involved through the Brisbane involvement. Melbourne membership of the Lions after the flags peaked at 7000. It's currently about 4000, about what you'd expect given their recent on-field struggles. The jettisoning of the old Fitzroy lion on the jumper for a 21st-century model upset plenty of old Royboys as well.

But Brisbane has, by and large, been genuine in its attempts to preserve what it can of the old Fitzroy, and this might prove the most important step in that path. Will it bring more old Roys back to the fold?

''It could,'' says Wilson. ''I think a lot of people with Fitzroy memorabilia will think this might be a good place to put it, because it will be on display, thousands of people will see it, and they'll know it's going to be safe.''

Sydney, the only other club in a position of having to keep the flame of two distinctly different football entities burning, has forged an excellent relationship with its old South Melbourne constituency, but it took a good couple of decades to do so.

Brisbane has a harder row to hoe; it didn't inherit an entire club, but a handful of Fitzroy's best players, most of whom were gone in the blink of an eye.

Preserving the old Lions won't get easier as time marches on. But if Fitzroy was a club that could never find a true home towards the end, hopefully now at least its memories can.