Complete list of Fitzroy coaches

[Last of the Roys]

I thought people might be interested in this article that was posted on the Lions website. It contains a complete list of coaches in the Club's combined history (Fitzroy, Bears and Lions), so obviously it includes a complete list of all of the coaches of Fitzroy while we were in the VFL / AFL.

http://www.lions.com.au/Club/history/brisbane-lions-history/coaches

One thing I did look up myself was the stats for Robert Walls as coach of Fitzroy alone (in the table they are combined with the Bears). At Fitzroy Walls coached 115 matches with a winning rate of 52.2% (at the Bears he coached 109 games with a winning rate of 27.5%).

Sorry the table doesn't copy and paste properly - it is easier to read in the article itself. The numbers are games coached, the period coached, and the winning%.
COACH
G
YEAR/S
WIN %
Geoff Moriarty
36
1911-12 (Fitzroy)
55.6%
Percy Parratt
91
1913-15, 1920-21 (Fitzroy)
68.1%
George Holden
54
1916-19 (Fitzroy)
44.4%
Ted Melling
9
1919* (Fitzroy)
44.4%
Vic Belcher
93
1922-24, 1926-27 (Fitzroy)
52.7%
Chris Lethbridge
17
1925 (Fitzroy)
70.6%
Gordon Rattray
72
1928, 1937-39 (Fitzroy)
34.7%
Jimmy Freake
8
1929 (Fitzroy)
12.5%
Doug Ringrose
10
1929* (Fitzroy)
20.0%
Colin Niven
36
1930-31 (Fitzroy)
69.4%
Frank Maher
36
1932-33 (Fitzroy)
38.9%
Jack Cashman
2
1934 (Fitzroy)
50.0%
Len Wigraft
16
1934* (Fitzroy)
37.5%
Percy Rowe
18
1935 (Fitzroy)
44.4%
Haydn Bunton
18
1936 (Fitzroy)
11.1%
Dan Minogue
51
1940-42 (Fitzroy)
49.0%
Fred Hughson
96
1943-47 (Fitzroy)
62.5%
Norm Hillard
1
1945* (Fitzroy)
-
Charles Cameron
19
1948 (Fitzroy)
47.4%
Norm Smith
55
1949-51 (Fitzroy)
54.5%
Allan Ruthven
57
1952-54 (Fitzroy)
49.1%
Bill Stephen
214
1955-57, 1965-70, 1979-80 (Fitzroy)
31.7%
Frank Curcio
1
1956* (Fitzroy)
-
Len Smith
92
1958-62 (Fitzroy)
54.3%
Arthur Edwards
1
1961* (Fitzroy)
100%
Kevin Murray
34
1963-64 (Fitzroy)
-
Wally Clark
1
1963* (Fitzroy)
100%
Tommy Williams
1
1964* (Fitzroy)
-
Ray Slocum
1
1968* (Fitzroy)
-
Graham Donaldson
85
1971-74 (Fitzroy)
40.0%
Graham Campbell
25
1974*, 1978 (Fitzroy)
32.0%
Kevin Rose
66
1975-77 (Fitzroy)
33.3%
Robert Walls
224
1981-85 (Fitzroy), 1991-95 (Bears)
40.2%
David Parkin
69
1986-88 (Fitzroy)
43.5%
Peter Knights
59
1987-89 (Bears)
27.1%
Paul Feltham
7
1989* (Bears)
71.4%
Rod Austin
44
1989-90 (Fitzroy)
43.18%
Norm Dare
22
1990 (Bears)
18.2%
Robert Shaw
86
1991-94 (Fitzroy)
32.6%
Bernie Quinlan
19
1995 (Fitzroy)
10.3%
Alan McConnell
11
1995-96* (Fitzroy)
-
Michael Nunan
14
1996 (Fitzroy)
7.1%
John Northey
59
1996 (Bears), 1997-98 (Lions)
49.1%
Roger Merrett
11
1998* (Lions)
27.3%
Leigh Matthews
237
1999-2008 (Lions)
59.9%
John Blakey
1
2005* (Lions)
-
Michael Voss
109
2009-13 (Lions)
39.4%
Mark Harvey
3
2013* (Lions)
66.7%
Justin Leppitsch
0
2014- (Lions)
-
*Caretaker Coach
Premiership CoachCurrent Coach

 

[killer]

What went wrong in the sixties??
Were they all bad coaches?

 

[Last of the Roys]

What went wrong in the sixties??
Were they all bad coaches?

I don't know the full answer to that - I would be interested too in why Fitzroy was so bad in the '60's.

I doubt it was the coaches though. I do remember reading recently that Fitzroy lost most of its experienced players who retired at the same time in the early 60's. Kevin Murrary obviously had to be captain coach for a couple of years as well after Len Smith finished.

It was the Club's worst period on-field and probably hastened our demise due to the impact it must have had on the supporter base in the long run.

After missing a grand final in 1960 by just 5 points with a prelimin loss to Collingwood the Club went into a nose dive. From 1962 to 1968, in 7 seasons Fitzroy only won a combined total of 19 games.

1962 = won 5, lost 13
1963 = won 1, lost 17
1964 = won 0, lost 18
1965 = won 4, lost 14
1966 = won 1, lost 17
1967 = won 4, lost 14
1968 = won 4, lost 14

Between 1961 to 1978 inclusive (18 seasons in a row), Fitzroy failed to make the finals. That must have been a big reason (along with the increasing professionalism of the game) for the big spending on players from other clubs that followed (like Bernie Quinlan) to try and make the Club successful again. Along with some great recruiting, it almost worked with Fitzroy making the finals in '79, '81, '83, '84 and '86 (our last finals appearance). But obviously we couldn't quite win another premiership.

 

[Last of the Roys]

By the way, I use the followin website to look up Fitzroy's season by season stats:

http://stats.rleague.com/afl/teams/fitzroy/allgames.html#1962