Evidently, he is not alone. A function in the ballroom at the Grand Hyatt on May 3 to announce the team and unveil Cooper's painting became so oversubscribed that a second ballroom has now been hired and will show proceedings on a large screen. Discount tickets are still available. Prints of Cooper's painting will be available on the night and at other times through the club. Brisbane's Lions are organising the night, but the team has been picked strictly from Fitzroy's 100 stand-alone years.
Reminiscence is a powerful thing.
The club's Melbourne office said around half the tickets had been bought by former Fitzroy folk who had disavowed the club once it was subsumed into Brisbane and had not been seen or heard since. Cooper, for one, is glad to think that past and present are reaching to embrace. Cooper likes painting for its freedom. For the Richmond painting, he used Michael Gale as a body model for every player, lengthening him for ruckmen, shortening him for rovers. The possibilities are limited only by imagination.