Fitzroy Football Club home venue Brunswick Street Oval
The Fitzroy Football Club is an Australian rules football club currently competing in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). Formed in 1883 to represent the inner-Melbourne municipality of Fitzroy, the club was a member of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), before becoming a foundation member of the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL/AFL) in 1897.
Fitzroy won a total of eight VFL premierships, of which seven (1898, 1899, 1904, 1905, 1913, 1916 and 1922) were won whilst they were nicknamed the Maroons and one (1944) as the Gorillas. The decision of the club to change its nickname to the Lions in 1957 coincided with what history now records as the beginning of decades of poor on-field performance and financial losses that eventually resulted in the club being placed into administration, ultimately leaving the AFL at the end of the 1996 season. That year the club's AFL playing operations were merged with those of the Brisbane Bears. Fitzroy eventually came out of administration in 1998, and proceeded to commence playing in the VAFA in 2009.
Fitzroy largely resumed its original VFL/AFL identity through its continued use of their 1975–1996 VFL/AFL jumper, their club song and their 1884–1966 home ground at the Brunswick Street Oval. For a brief time, it experimented in partnerships with other semi-professional and amateur clubs before incorporating the Fitzroy Reds (formerly University Reds) to play in the Victorian Amateur Football Association. They began in the D1 section of the VAFA in 2009 and now, after having been promoted three times (2009, 2012, 2018), play in the Premier 'B Division'.VFA
They quickly became one of the most successful clubs, drawing large crowds to their home at the Brunswick Street Oval in Edinburgh Gardens, and consistently in the top four and winning the VFA premiership in 1895.Fitzroy's season-by-season records throughout its thirteen seasons at VFA level are given below. (Under VFA rules at the time, only goals were counted to the total team score).Post-AFL
On-fieldThe original Fitzroy Football Club came out of administration after its AFL operations were absorbed by Brisbane, in late 1998. The shareholders voted to continue the club, and Fitzroy then developed a partnership with the Coburg Lions in the VFL. Coburg were known as the Coburg-Fitzroy Lions for just over a season (from August 1999 until the end of 2000). However, when Coburg entered into an affiliation with the AFL's Richmond Football Club, the Fitzroy connection was abandoned.
Fitzroy began a sponsorship arrangement with the Fitzroy Reds (formerly University Reds) in the Victorian Amateur Football Association and the Fitzroy Junior Football Club in the Yarra Junior Football League. Both wear the old Fitzroy jumper, play the old theme song, and play from Brunswick Street Oval in the heart of Fitzroy. In December 2008, at the instigation of the then Fitzroy (University) Reds president Craig Little, the University Reds Football Club (known as the 'Fitzroy' Reds from 1997) transferred all its assets to the Fitzroy Football Club (formed 1883). The university (Fitzroy) Reds terminated its membership of the VAFA and was wound up as an incorporated company and football club. By special dispensation from the VAFA, the Fitzroy Football Club then replaced the Fitzroy [University] Reds in D1 of the VAFA from the 2009 season, fielding a senior and reserves side, as well as two Under-19 sides and a Club 18 side. All the teams were made up mainly of Fitzroy Reds personnel. Dyson Hore-Lacy, chairman of Fitzroy in the AFL in 1996, automatically became chairman of the Club in the VAFA.
Fitzroy lost in the VAFA D1 Grand Final to Rupertswood in 2009, but as a Grand Finalist was promoted to C-Grade for the 2010 season. At the beginning of the 2011 season, Fitzroy appointed Tim Bell as their new senior coach following the resignation of Simon Taylor. Tim Bell resigned for personal reasons at the end of 2011 and assistant coach Michael Pickering, a former AFL player with the Richmond and Melbourne Football Clubs was appointed as coach for the 2012 season. Having reached the Premier C Grand Final at the end of 2012 season, Fitzroy was promoted to Premier B for season 2013 which coincided with the club's 130th birthday.
In 2015 the club initiated in a partnership with the Australian Catholic University to start fielding a women's team in the VWFL under the name of Fitzroy-ACU. They played their debut season in the same year.
The interest grew after the first year of women's Fitzroy footy, growing numbers within the women's league. This enabled the club to enter another women's team into the VWFL, in the North West division.
Both teams were hoping to make finals in 2016.
In 2018, Fitzroy won both the VAFA Premier C and the VAFA Premier C reserves competitions.
Relationship with Brisbane LionsFitzroy Football Club improved its relationship with the Brisbane Lions in the ten years from 1999 to 2009. In that time Brisbane acknowledged the two parent clubs with the letters BBFFC printed below the back of the neck of the club's guernseys from 2002. Fitzroy Reds played the curtain-raiser at the MCG when the Brisbane Lions met the Collingwood Magpies in the AFL Heritage Round of 2003. Brisbane also now wears a version of Fitzroy's AFL guernsey with red instead of maroon in most matches played in Victoria, consistent with Fitzroy's most recent colours.
Relationships between Fitzroy and Brisbane were strained in late 2009, when Brisbane announced that it was adopting a new logo for season 2010 and beyond, which Fitzroy Football Club believed contravened Section 7.2 c) of the merger agreement. The new logo, a lion's head facing forward, replaced the former Fitzroy logo of a passant lion with a football. On 22 December 2009, Fitzroy lodged a Statement of Claim with the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking an order that the Brisbane Lions be restrained from using as its logo, the new logo or any other logo other than 'the Fitzroy lion logo'. On 15 July 2010, the two clubs reached a settlement, agreeing that the Fitzroy logo symbolically represents the historic merger between the Bears and Fitzroy and the first 13 years of the Brisbane Lions competing in the AFL, and that Brisbane would use both the old and new logos alongside each other in an official capacity (e.g. on letterheads, marketing, etc.), with the old logo to be phased out altogether after 2024 (or 2017 in the case of the Brisbane Lions website). Brisbane returned to using the old logo on its playing guernseys from 2015, but the new logo will remain for corporate purposes.Sine 2015 a one club approach has been taken from both the Brisbane Lions and Fitzroy. The Lions sponsor a male and female Fitzroy player each year, conduct coaching workshops for Fitzroy, and frequently invite the Fitzroy juniors to form a guard of honour for Victorian games, with many Fitzroy people having served on the Brisbane Lions board.Best and fairest award winners
See Fitzroy FC honour roll for list of winners 1884–1996.Home venues
VFA
1884–1896 Brunswick Street Oval1897–1966 Brunswick Street Oval
1967–1969, 1987–1993 Princes Park
1970–1984 Junction Oval
1985–1986 Victoria Park
1994–1996 Whitten OvalVAFA
2009–present Brunswick Street Oval
Home field Stadium location Venue of residence Home pitch Residential ground