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BRISBANE - Part One: 1866 to 1985
Affiliated: VFL 1987-89; AFL 1990-present
Club Address: P.O. Box 1535, Coorparoo DC, Queensland 4151
Home Ground: The Gabba, Brisbane
Formed:1986 (Merged with Fitzroy in 1996)
Colours: Maroon, gold, blue and white
Emblem: Lions
V/AFL Premierships: SENIORS - 2001-2-3 (3 total) RESERVES - VFL 1991 (1 total); AFL Queensland 2001 (1 total) OTHER PREMIERSHIPS - Nil
Brownlow Medallists: Michael Voss 1996; Jason Akermanis 2001; Simon Black 2002 (3 total)
Norm Smith Medallists: Shaun Hart 2001; Simon Black 2003 (2 total)
Tassie Medallists: Nil
All Australians: Matthew Campbell 1987; Mark Mickan 1988 (2 total)
AFL All Australians: Craig Lambert 1996; Michael Voss 1996, 1999, 2001, 2002 & 2003; Jason Akermanis 1999, 2001, 2002 & 2004; Justin Leppitsch 1999, 2002 & 2003; Simon Black 2001, 2002 & 2004; Leigh Matthews (coach) 2001, 2002 & 2003; Chris Johnson 2002 & 2003; Nigel Lappin 2001, 2002, 2003 & 2004; Luke Power 2004; Jonathan Brown 2007 (27 total)
AFL Top Goalkickers: Jonathan Brown (77) 2007 (1 total)
QAFL Top Goalkickers: D.Bradshaw (75) 2002 (1 total)
Highest Score: 33.21 (219) vs. Sydney on 16 May 1993
Most Games: 318 by Marcus Ashcroft 1989-2003 (correct to the start of the 2007 season)
Record Home Attendances: 1. Finals - 37,433 for 2002 preliminary final: Brisbane 21.12 (138); Port Adelaide 12.10 (82); 2. Minor Round - 37,224 in round 15 2005: Brisbane 19.19 (133); Collingwood 7.13 (55)
Record Finals Attendance: 91,817 for 2002 grand final at the MCG: Brisbane 10.15 (75); Collingwood 9.12 (66)
Overall Success Rate 1987-2008: 46.0%
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The putative merger between the Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy Football Clubs in 1996 was widely felt at the time to be likely to mark the inception of a new football dynasty. The reasoning was simple: the Bears had been the 3rd best side in the AFL in 1996 and, with the addition of eight or so of Fitzroy's most accomplished players, the merged ensemble could not help but be even more potent. Such ostensibly irrefutable reasoning seldom appears to hold true, either in life in general, or in football, but after overcoming a start that was anything but imperial it has rapidly begun to seem that the Brisbane Lions, emphatic premiers in the 2001, 2002 and 2003 seasons, may indeed go on to establish the footballing equivalent of the Ancient Greek or Roman Empires. The overall history of Australian football in Queensland followed a similar, if somewhat longer, path toward maturity. The game is reputed to have been played in Queensland as early as 1866, and the first Queensland Football Association was formed in 1880. When an Australasian Football Council meeting was held in Melbourne in 1883, Queensland was one of the colonies which sent representation, and it seems probable that, organisationally at any rate, the Australian code was in a stronger position than rugby at this time. |
Action from the 1907 QFL grand final, in which Locomotives (hooped jumpers) defeated Wynnum by 40 points. (Click to enlarge.) |
Queensland's first forays into the intercolonial arena came in 1884 in Brisbane, when two matches were played against New South Wales, with the honours being shared. Over the years, Queensland would meet New South Wales on more occasions than any other colony or state, with the balance of power gradually shifting north with the passage of time. As the nineteenth century wore on, however, fewer and fewer Queenslanders became actively involved in the indigenous code, and indeed it would not be until the second half of the succeeding century that the asphyxiating stranglehold of rugby would begin to loosen.
Queensland's 1924 Carnival team, which suffered the ignominy of having 160 goals kicked against it in just 5 matches.
Football during this time did not die out completely, but it remained very much a minority pursuit, with many Queenslanders virtually as oblivious of its existence as were the inhabitants of Siberia or the Amazon Basin. Queensland competed in the first Australian - or 'Australasian' (see footnote 1) as it was termed then - Interstate Championship series in Melbourne, and intermittently thereafter, but its record on the whole was ignominious. In 1908 it lost all of its matches, as it did on each of its next three carnival appearances in 1914, 1924 and 1930. At last, at Sydney in 1933, it broke through for its first ever championship win, defeating carnival newcomers Canberra by 7 goals, a result that was repeated, by 20 points on this occasion, at the Queenslanders' next carnival appearance in 1947 at Hobart.
In 1950, an Australian interstate championship series was held in Brisbane for the first time. The series involved all states and territories other than the Northern Territory, together with an Australian Amateurs combined side, and a representative team from the VFA. Unfortunately, this unique and invaluable opportunity to promote and showcase the game was undermined by atrocious weather, with thirteen inches of rain being recorded over the eleven day period during which the championships took place. Not surprisingly, this had an inimical effect both on attendances (see footnote 2), and on the standard of the football, with spectacular high marking and long kicking - the two features of the code most widely considered to be its 'selling points' - at a premium.
Competing in section two of the carnival, Queensland repeated its 1933 and 1947 achievements in beating Canberra, but lost to both Australian Amateurs and New South Wales.
Following the Brisbane Carnival it became the norm for sections one and two of the Australian championships to be conducted separately, with the only exception to this being the 1958 centenary carnival in Melbourne. Queensland continued to compete in section two, with their performances gradually improving in a direct reflection of the steadily improving standard of football in the state (see footnote 3).
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Footy at Wynnum in 1928. (Click to enlarge.) |
A major reason for this improvement was an intensification in missionary endeavour on the part of southern states 'football evangelists', many of whom, characterising the burgeoning post-war mobility of the Australian population, were lured north by the obvious climatic attractions of the appropriately named 'sunshine state' (the unpleasant experiences of the 1950 Brisbane carnival notwithstanding). Notable among these itinerants was Joe Grant, who in 1958 was appointed by the QANFL as its first full time secretary, and under whose aegis the code in Brisbane rapidly acquired new levels of both viability and professionalism. (The Joe Grant Medal, which honours him, is awarded to the best player afield in each season's state league grand final.) These developments were exemplified by the fact that, between 1958 and 1963, the number of Australian football clubs in Brisbane increased by more than 40%, while gate takings from top level matches doubled (see footnote 4). Of perhaps even greater significance was the fact that more and more secondary schools were adopting the game, meaning that there was now a much more direct and reliable conduit from primary school football, which in the Brisbane area at least had long been fairly robust, right through to the various levels of the senior game. |
There were other forms of evangelistic activity, too. In 1952, as part of an experimental so called 'propaganda round', a VFL match for premiership points between Essendon and Geelong was played under lights at the Brisbane Exhibition Ground on Monday 16 June. Originally scheduled for the preceding Saturday afternoon, incessant rain forced a postponement which, in the event, proved to be a blessing in disguise. Motivated perhaps more by the comparative novelty of a football match being played under floodlights, and the sense of occasion this might be expected to generate, than by any genuine interest in Australian football per se, close to 30,000 spectators turned up, with quite a number of these gaining entry illegally after several gates and fences were broken down in the crush. The attendance remained a record for an Australian Rules football game in Queensland for many years.
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Whatever reasons the majority of the patrons had for attending the game, what they got was a marvellous advertisement for football, characterised by fast, open play, prodigious kicking, and tremendous high marking. Essendon's John Coleman, then at the peak of his prowess as a player, put in a textbook performance at full forward to net 13 of his side's 23 goals in a 69 point win. Throughout the 1960s the number of people from the southern states with footballing backgrounds who headed north to Queensland continued to increase, as did the number of locals getting involved in the game. As the 1970s approached the standard of Queensland football had improved to the extent that the idea of competition against teams from the southern states could realistically be entertained. In 1969 in Brisbane, the Queensland state team got within 10 points of a powerful St Kilda combination, while in a match against Essendon in 1970, also in Brisbane, Queensland performed creditably in losing by just 31 points, 9.27 (81) to 15.22 (112). |
Bill Ryan |
In 1973, a South Australian 'twenty-one and under' side visited Chelmer Reserve in Brisbane and, in front of 8,500 sun-soaked spectators - the biggest crowd at a football match of any code taking place in the city that day - held off a determined challenge from the Queensland state team to win a high standard encounter by 28 points. Former Geelong player Bill Ryan, who had joined Coorparoo that season, was captain-coach of the Queensland side, and was also at the helm a year later when the Queenslanders broke through for their first ever section two carnival success. The carnival was played in Sydney, with Queensland overcoming the host state by 22 points in a semi final, and reigning champions the ACT by 16 points in the final. "It was a great win," remarked Ryan, "and probably the best thing ever to happen to Queensland football." However, reacting to suggestions that Queensland was now ready to challenge Tasmania for a place in section one of the championships, he urged caution, maintaining that "the boys played as well as they could in Sydney and couldn't have done much better. I think they are aiming a bit high challenging southern states and they would be thrashed well and truly. On the other hand, Queensland football can only improve with strong competition." (See footnote 5) Ryan went on to suggest that the key to further growth in Queensland football, at least in the short term, was "to make sure that each club has a top player from the south" which "would mean that each club would benefit from his experience and the state side would have a good nucleus to build a side around." (See footnote 6)
Action from a match between Queensland and the Northern Territory in 1974. The Northern Territory team, which contained several South Australian and Western Australian stars who had spent the summer months playing in Darwin, won the game by 32 points.
Ryan's pessimism regarding Queensland's prospects against southern state opposition was soon shown to be groundless. In 1975, a 'return' match against the South Australian 'twenty-one and under' side was held at Football Park in Adelaide, with Queensland once again extending their supposedly more illustrious opponents to the full, before running out of steam late on and going under by just 4 goals, 18.17 (125) to 22.17 (149). Even more noteworthy, however, was Queensland's victory over Tasmania in Brisbane later in the season, the state's first against a traditional section one opponent. Indeed, only woeful inaccuracy on the part of the Queenslanders prevented a massacre, with the final scores being 16.29 (125) to 16.7 (103). Queensland repeated this success in 1978, winning 16.9 (105) to 12.11 (83), while in both 1977 and 1978 they scored impressive victories over the VFA. All of these matches were played in Brisbane.
Encouraged by these performances, Queensland's football administrators took the next logical step: in 1979, matches were arranged against South Australia in Brisbane, and the VFA in Melbourne. Unfortunately, however, this proved to be too big a jump too soon, as both games were lost heavily, by 133 and 156 points respectively. Further losses to South Australia in Adelaide in 1980 (198 points), and the VFL in Brisbane in 1980 (80 points) and 1981 (131 points), only served to emphasise this point.
| Queensland's first foray into the state of origin arena
came at the 1979 Perth championships when, competing in section two, a 31 point
win was achieved over the ACT, followed by a 32 point loss against Tasmania.
Actually, the term 'state of origin' is slightly misleading, as the Queensland
selectors were allowed not only to pick players who had commenced their football
careers in Queensland, but any players based there who were not required by
their original home states. As it transpired, however, the evolving strength of
Queensland football was clearly demonstrated by the fact that the overwhelming
majority of the state's 1979 Carnival squad were genuinely home grown.
The 1981 season saw a second VFL premiership match taking place in Brisbane when Essendon overcame Hawthorn by 18 points in a high scoring encounter of considerable quality. The following year, VFL grand finalists Carlton and Richmond played an exhibition game in Brisbane during the Commonwealth Games. As the 1980s progressed, Bill Ryan's prophecy that, given regular, high standard competition the quality of Queensland football would inevitably improve was starkly demonstrated. Between 1982 and 1984 the Queensland state team won 9 out of 12 section two championship (or, as it was now known, Escort Shield) matches, winning the title itself 3 times in a row between 1983 and 1985. The QAFL, which had been revitalised by the admission in 1983 of a highly ambitious Gold Coast-based club in Southport, was going from strength to strength; the "prop and kick" style of which Bill Ryan had been so critical upon his arrival in Brisbane in 1973 (see footnote 7) was a dim and distant memory, and more Queenslanders than ever before were venturing south to try their luck in the 'big time' (see footnote 8). |
One of Queensland's greatest ever footballers, Jason Dunstall (left), pictured leaving the MCG with team mate Tony Lockett after playing for the Victorian state of origin (sic.) side against South Australia. (Click on the image to view an enlarged version.) |
It was during the 1980s that speculation began to mount over the prospects of a cash-strapped VFL club, such as Fitzroy or Footscray, following South Melbourne's lead and re-locating north, only to Brisbane on this occasion rather than Sydney. In 1982, "Bulldog fans were rocked to hear the VFL had offered to do a feasibility study of moving the club to Brisbane or the Gold Coast at no charge" (see footnote 9). Footscray responded vigorously and defiantly to this threat, as would Fitzroy later in the decade when the focus shifted to that club. In Fitzroy's case, however, the sentence of exile was only to be suspended.
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Footnotes
1. The term 'Australasian' was used because, in the 1908 Championship series, New Zealand competed for the first and, so far, only time, winning 2 matches. One of these victories came against Queensland. Return to Main Text
2. The aggregate attendance over the seven days of competition was 52,524, broken down as follows: DAY ONE - VFA vs. Tasmania (3,350 with receipts of £164); DAY TWO - Queensland vs. Canberra; Australian Amateurs vs. NSW; SA vs. WA (3,857 : £366); DAY THREE - SA vs. Tasmania; VFL vs. WA; Australian Amateurs vs. Queensland (15,755 : £1,837); DAY FOUR - New South Wales vs. Canberra; VFA vs. SA; VFL vs. Tasmania (4,948 : £525); DAY FIVE - Australian Amateurs vs. Canberra; New South Wales vs. Queensland; VFL vs. VFA (10,625 : £994); DAY SIX - WA vs. Tasmania (614 : £57); DAY SEVEN - VFL vs. SA; WA vs. VFA (13,375 : £1,193). Source: '1953 Australian Football Championship Official Souvenir Programme', page 11. Return to Main Text
3. In 1954, Queensland reached the section two final after scoring a first ever Carnival victory over New South Wales; however, Australian Amateurs proved much too strong in the championship decider, winning with effortless ease by 79 points. At the 1958 Centenary Carnival, Queensland again overcame New South Wales, but lost to both Australian Amateurs and ACT, while in 1960 they lost all three games played against New South Wales, the ACT, and the VFA. In 1965 they reached the final after a hard fought win over the ACT, and on this occasion they pushed the Australian Amateurs to the limit before succumbing by just 16 points. In 1968 and 1971, Queensland had to be satisfied with 3rd place in fields of four but, significantly, the 1971 Carnival did at least yield the state's first ever victory over Australian Amateurs. Return to Main Text
4. The source for these statistics is an article by Frank O'Callaghan on the history of Australian football in Queensland, in High Mark, edited by Jack Pollard, page 147. Return to Main Text
5. Quoted in 'Football Life', August 1974, page 38. Return to Main Text
6. Ibid, page 39. Return to Main Text
7. Ibid, page 38. Return to Main Text
8. Examples include Gary Shaw (Western Districts to Claremont in 1981, and thereafter to Collingwood and Brisbane), Scott McDonald (Western Districts to Woodville in 1983), Jason Dunstall (Coorparoo to Hawthorn in 1985), Scott McIvor (Wilston Grange to Fitzroy in 1985), Trevor Spencer (Jindalee to Essendon in 1985), Michael Gibson (Coorparoo to Fitzroy in 1985, and thence to the Bears in 1987), Glen Goss (Mayne to West Adelaide in 1986), and Gavin Crosisca (Western Districts to Collingwood in 1987). Return to Main Text
9. This Football Century by Russell Holmesby and Jim Main, page 206. Return to Main Text