Back to Brisbane Part 1

Queensland's entry to the 'big league', when it came, was effectively through the back door, with the enormous strides made since the 1950s by the state's football administrators and players having little or no direct bearing on the matter.  By 1986, several of the VFL's constituent clubs were in parlous condition financially, and interstate expansion of the competition was viewed as the most practicable means of ensuring their survival.  Not only would such expansion elicit extra revenue in terms of increased marketing possibilities, enhanced sale of TV rights, and so on, it was also proposed that each new club would be required to remit a license fee of $4 million as a condition of entry.  This license money would, it was believed, be sufficient to ensure the short term survival of the struggling clubs, with their long term viability being aided by the hoped for economic spin-offs of participation in a competition perceived as having a 'national', rather than merely Victorian, profile.

The VFL's preferred options were for new teams to be based in the comparative football hotbeds of Adelaide and Perth, but when the SANFL - disgusted at being asked to pay an exorbitant license fee simply to participate in a competition it had helped bolster for years - refused to play ball, attention shifted north, to Queensland.  Initially, it looked as though Fitzroy might move north, but when a benefactor stepped in with sufficient funds to enable the club to consolidate, this idea was abandoned, and the focus shifted to bids from groups willing to develop a fledgling club from scratch.  At least three such groups came forward, but it soon developed into a two horse race, with the League Commission favouring a proposal from a consortium led by Australian Tennis Open promoter John Brown, but the individual clubs preferring a bid jointly sponsored by actor Paul Cronin and the QAFL.  Ironically (as would soon emerge), the clubs' stance was based on a perception that the Cronin-QAFL bid was more financially secure, and it was primarily on this basis that they were ultimately awarded the license.  Thereafter, matters proceeded swiftly, indeed with such indecent haste that it was clear to everyone that the potential on field viability of the fledgling Queensland club was not high on anyone's agenda.  Indeed, from the VFL's standpoint, it was probably not seen as desirable that either Brisbane, or the new Perth-based club, West Coast, prove too successful.  All that really mattered was their license money.

The Brisbane Bears Football Club, with the maroon of Queensland and the gold of the Queensland sunshine as their colours, was officially unveiled to the public on 7 October 1986, with Paul Cronin installed as inaugural chairman.  However, the man who really appeared to pull the strings was media magnate Christopher Skase, who was officially listed as Cronin's deputy.  Skase it was who had come forward promising to underwrite the $4 million license fee after it became known that the consortium was having trouble raising it.  Three years later it emerged that the bank from which Skase had borrowed this money was still awaiting its repayment.

Right from the outset, the Bears had problems establishing credibility.  Despite being known as 'Brisbane', Skase insisted that the club base itself at Carrara on the Gold Coast.  Moreover, despite carrying the Bears nickname, the club's official emblem featured a koala, which was not technically a bear at all.  Even more critically, the club encountered enormous difficulties in trying to assemble a viable team. The attitude of opposition clubs and the VFL was hardly sympathetic or supportive, and whereas West Coast had access to a substantial wellspring of local, WAFL-based talent, Brisbane was forced to pay through the nose to recruit players.  In total, the Bears incurred a total outlay of more than $1 million in procuring a team containing barely a handful of household names.  Among these was the first player to sign for the club, Mark Williams, who headed north after a protracted contract dispute with former side Collingwood, while perhaps the biggest name on the Bears' inaugural list was Brad Hardie from Footscray, winner of 2 Tassie Medals and the 1985 Brownlow.  Originally from South Fremantle, the red-haired, nuggety Hardie combined a straight ahead, no nonsense approach with considerable flair and versatility.  Sadly, although he would later become the first man to register 100 games with the club, Hardie's form at Brisbane would seldom reach the same heights as it had with either South Fremantle or Footscray.

Those prospects seemed immeasurably rosier after that opening game, watched by a meagre crowd of 14,096, because the Bears team, to a man, performed to the limits of their ability in leading at every change en route to a 19.23 (137) to 15.14 (104) victory.  Ruck rover Mark Williams was best afield, closely followed by ruckman and skipper Mark Mickan, 5 goal half forward Brenton Phillips, wingman Philip Walsh, and rover Bernie Harris.  (A detailed, goal by goal account of this game can be found in the GREAT GAMES section, or by clicking here.)

If anyone regarded this performance as a fluke they were rapidly disabused of the notion: in round two the following week Brisbane travelled to Kardinia Park to meet Geelong and scored another famous victory.  Jim Edmond booted 8 goals, matching the performance at the other end of the ground of Cats great Gary Ablett, while Mark Williams chipped in with 6 majors of his own in another best on ground performance.

Perhaps inevitably, however, the bubble soon burst.  A 50 point loss against St Kilda at Moorabbin in round three was followed by the disappointment of defeat against future merger partners Fitzroy in the club's home debut the following week.  Brisbane ultimately avoided the wooden spoon only after a 56 point defeat of Richmond at the MCG in the season's closing round.

Despite this influx of new blood the Bears did only marginally better in 1988 than in 1987, winning 7 games, as against 6, out of 22, but still finishing 2nd last. 

In 1989 Peter Knights was sacked as coach after the Bears lost at home to Geelong by 74 points, leaving them with just 3 wins from 15 games for the season.  Knights was replaced by former North Melbourne player Paul Feltham who had been working as the club's sports psychologist.  It would seem that psychology was what the players most needed as they promptly proceeded to win 5 of their last 7 games to clamber up the ladder to an all time high of 10th position.

A year later, after another wooden spoon, the club was once again in a critical state, and opted to move from being a privately owned concern to a more traditional, membership-based set-up.   In hindsight, this decision not only almost certainly saved the club, but laid the foundations of its future greatness, as indeed did the decision to re-locate to the Gabba in Brisbane.  In 1992, the Bears played 4 games at the Gabba on a trial basis, and attendances were encouraging (see footnote 11).  Also encouraging was the team's marginal improvement in form which precipitated a rise of one place on the premiership ladder.

In 1993, after close to $4 million worth of development work, the Gabba was ready to provide Brisbane with a home base commensurate with the club's status as a member of Australia's leading professional sports organisation.   Two years later the magnificent Northern Stand was unveiled, as was Australia's biggest electronic scoreboard; all that remained was for the Bears to put a team out on the field that matched the state of the art facilities.

Under Robert Walls' astute and meticulous coaching (see footnote 12) Brisbane's on field progress was steady and measured.  In 1993, the club rose to 13th (out of 15) on the ladder, while 9 wins the following year was a Bears club record that would ordinarily have secured better than 12th place.

"They're tired," he told his troops.  "If  we just keep persisting we can win it!"  (See footnote 13)

Over the course of the next half an hour Brisbane staged the greatest last quarter comeback ever seen in V/AFL football, adding 9.7 to 1.3 to win by 7 points.  Property steward Graeme Smart, later to become a Brisbane Bears life member (one of only two to be named by the club, the other being Roger Merrett), was one of many to be overcome by emotion:

"At three quarter time they had no chance.  You wouldn't back them even with someone else's money.  As things went on and on it was bloody unbelievable.  This is the best win we have ever had."  (See footnote 14)

According to Walls:

"We had the faith to dig deep and keep going.  With ten minutes to go I knew we would win.  We had the momentum."  (See footnote 15)

During the remaining seven games of the season, this momentum was maintained, with the Bears losing only once, to eventual premiers Carlton, en route to a first ever top eight finish, which as of the 1994 season had also meant finals participation.

Known during his playing days with Richmond as 'Swooper', Northey "with his judgement, his stern but fatherly approach to his players, his great football thinking, and his ability to put some steel into a team, had the Bears firing in 1996" (see footnote 16).  

These were qualities that had already served Northey well as coach of Sydney, Melbourne (whom he had steered to the 1988 grand final and two night flags) and Richmond.  At Brisbane he probably had more genuine football talent at his disposal than ever before, with experienced campaigners like Roger Merrett, Craig Lambert and Scott McIvor being supplemented by a rapidly improving band of youthful prodigies such as Justin Leppitsch, Matthew Clarke and eventual 1996 Brownlow Medallist Michael Voss.

In the meantime, however, there was still a good deal of football to be played under the Bears banner.  With Northey at the tiller, Brisbane finally overcame its perennial Achilles heel of vulnerability interstate, winning 6 and drawing 1 of its 11 matches 'on the road'.  This improvement, combined with the transformation of the Gabba into a virtual fortress (only 2 narrow defeats were sustained all year), was good enough to secure a club record 3rd place on the ladder and the aforementioned home final against the Bombers, which developed into a veritable classic with Brisbane ultimately edging home by a point.  (For a full review of the game, which is included in the Great Games section of the website, click here.)

The semi finals brought Carlton to the Gabba, and the Bears produced arguably the most spectacular performance in their short history, winning by the scarcely believable margin of 97 points, 26.14 (170) to 10.13 (73).  In the following week's preliminary final, however, premiers-in-waiting North Melbourne proved too formidable, but the Bears had every reason to be proud of their achievement, and to be optimistic over the future, albeit that that future would be a shared one.

Despite the recent improvement in Brisbane's on field fortunes, over the 10 year period of the Bears' involvement in the competition, the 2 merger partners were categorically the worst performed clubs in the competition, as the chart below demonstrates:  

In light of this, it could perhaps be argued that, leaving financial considerations aside, the arguments for a merger, from the point of view of creating a stronger, more vigorously contested competition, were pretty persuasive.  In reality, however, most observers felt that, given the undoubted strength of the current Brisbane list, which would be supplemented by the arrival of eight of the very best Fitzroy players, the newly formed Brisbane Lions would have a head start in developing arguably the first genuine dynasty of the AFL era.  

Football, like life, seldom conforms to such ostensibly persuasive reasoning, and things would get a good deal tougher for the Lions before they got better.

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Footnotes

10.  Strictly speaking, the Bears' first official outing had already taken place a couple of weeks earlier when they had succumbed meekly to the Sydney Swans in a National Panasonic Cup night series game at the SCG.  The Swans won by 76 points, 23.8 (146) to 9.16 (70), and the Brisbane performance only served to reinforce the scepticism of the scribes over the fledgling club's prospects.  Return to Main Text

11.  The average attendance at the Bears' four Gabba home games was 9,111, compared to 7,399 for the 7 matches played at Carrara.  The difference might not seem that much, but to place it in context you need to consider the fact that the league's three biggest draw cards, Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon, all played at Carrara.  Return to Main Text

12.  Walls, a three time premiership player with Carlton, coached Fitzroy from 1981 to 1985, steering the club to the finals in three out of his five seasons there before returning 'home' to Princes Park in 1986.  As coach of Carlton he led the team to the 1986 and 1987 grand finals, winning the latter.  Return to Main Text

13.  The Clubs: the Complete History of Every Club in the VFL/AFL, edited by John Ross and Garrie Hutchinson, page 35.  Return to Main Text

14.  The Footy Club: Inside the Brisbane Bears by Ross Fitzgerald, page 111.  Return to Main Text

15.  Ibid, page 111.  Return to Main Text

16.  Ross and Hutchinson, op cit, page 37.  Return to Main Text