News New Book - Merger: The Fitzroy Lions and the tragedy of 1996

[Roylion]

MERGER tells the story of the Fitzroy Football Club's 1996 season in the Australian Football League, a season made infamous by the club's merger with the Brisbane Bears. It was nothing short of the worst year ever experienced by a VFL/AFL club. This book recounts that devastating year, providing a deep understanding of the experience of the players, supporters, club officials and volunteers. Each of these perspectives are vital in understanding Fitzroy's story; it is insufficient merely to understand how and why Fitzroy's merger occurred - one must understand why it mattered

Writing about Fitzroy's demise as an AFL club also allows space for musings on the nature and character of the modern AFL. The Fitzroy/Brisbane merger asked profound questions about the AFL's relationship with the people who love and support Australian rules football - questions that were never satisfactorily answered. Who are the actual custodians of the game? What obligations do the League's governing body owe to the supporters, who make the game what it is? What place do history and tradition have in the modern AFL? At what point do commercial decisions and imperatives detract from the essence of the sport and harm supporters' engagement with the League? In short, how does the AFL Commission fulfil its role as being the 'keeper of the code', not just the entity responsible for ensuring the competition remains financially viable? These questions seemed to fall by the wayside very quickly after the merger, but they remain unanswered and are just as pertinent now as they were in 1996.

Available: 1st June 2021
Number Of Pages: 400

 

[nobbyiscool]

400 pages? Jesus.

The questions asked in the second paragraph are still pertinent today, so it'll be interesting to see how much of the book the post 1996 reflections use up.

 

[Roylion]

This has now been published.

An extract from the book can be found at:

https://www.footyalmanac.com.au/book-extract-merger-the-fitzroy-lions-and-the-tragedy-of-1996/

 

[The_Wookie]

my copy arrived today.

Ive read Fitzroy! and The Death of Fitzroy FC, and while the former was a good read, i thought the latter was mediocre. Be interesting to see where this fits in.

 

[Roylion]

I've now finished this book. Was a good read. Heavily based on 'Fitzroy' by Dyson Hore-Lacy, Adam Muyt's 'Maroon and Blue', Gary Linnell's 'AFL Limited' and Ross Oakley's work, the book was still well researched, with the media perspective covered well and a good summary of Fitzroy supporter reaction to the situation as well as the media coverage drawn from the various Melbourne media outlets in 1996.

I also liked the coverage of Fitzroy's post AFL existance...which was a major flaw in Russell Holmesby's work 'The Death of Fitzroy FC."

 

[Broken]

Crazy to think the 25th anniversary of the merger date passed a couple of days ago.

 

[roygirl77]

Crazy to think the 25th anniversary of the merger date passed a couple of days ago.

And I'm still not over it!

 

[mountain roy]

Me neither

 

[FitzroyPete]

Me neither

I have a copy of Will Westerman's book and from what little of it I've read so far, I thoroughly recommend it to buyers.
The thing that frightens me is how quickly the past 25 years have flown since we were unceremoniously dumped from the AFL.
Fitzroy's last 25 years in the VFL-AFL (1972-96) moved at a far more leisurely pace (and weren't there some great moments for our club in that quarter of a century!).
I nominally list Brisbane as my AFL team but, to be honest, I really don't care who wins, preferring instead to watch my beloved East Perth in the WAFL.

 

[Grassroots Guru]

I’ve picked up a copy of this, looking to getting into it.

 

[royboys4eva]

Half way through it. Decent read - some good detail. I have to say I much prefer reading about the actual players and Nunan and the fans than I do about the actual details of the merger. So I have enjoyed that part.

Nunan seemed a very hard task master but he might have been decent coach given time. He was all about running through the middle and linking through hand ball. Look at the Western Bulldogs right now - exactly how they play.

 

[Tim Buckanowski]

Hi All,

Sorry for the intrusion. I am currently working on a piece about the death of (at least the VFL/AFL version) Fitzroy, trying to look at it through the lens of the current re-emergence of discussion around the potential re-location of a Victorian AFL team. I am reading this book at the moment, and have read Russell Holmesby's book, but was wondering if anyone could point me the way of Dyson Hore-Lacy's 'Fitzroy'? I have searched high and low for his book, but can't seem to locate it anywhere.

Cheers.

 

[The_Wookie]

Hi All,

Sorry for the intrusion. I am currently working on a piece about the death of (at least the VFL/AFL version) Fitzroy, trying to look at it through the lens of the current re-emergence of discussion around the potential re-location of a Victorian AFL team. I am reading this book at the moment, and have read Russell Holmesby's book, but was wondering if anyone could point me the way of Dyson Hore-Lacy's 'Fitzroy'? I have searched high and low for his book, but can't seem to locate it anywhere.

Cheers.

blaqbooks used to be a great site for stuff like this, but they are mostly just facebook things now, and a shadow of their past.
Abebooks is usually good for things like this too but they havent got it in stock.
no copies on ebay at the moment.

Might need to check out the library.

 

[Carn the Roys!]

Hi All,

Sorry for the intrusion. I am currently working on a piece about the death of (at least the VFL/AFL version) Fitzroy, trying to look at it through the lens of the current re-emergence of discussion around the potential re-location of a Victorian AFL team. I am reading this book at the moment, and have read Russell Holmesby's book, but was wondering if anyone could point me the way of Dyson Hore-Lacy's 'Fitzroy'? I have searched high and low for his book, but can't seem to locate it anywhere.

Cheers.

A bit left field, but contacting Dyson directly might be worthwhile. I doubt he's got any copies lying around and he's probably done enough interviews to last a lifetime. But as a high profile member of the legal profession he's not too hard to track down contact details for, and you never know if you don't ask.

 

[nobbyiscool]

Might need to check out the library.

This.

I ended up borrowing it from Brunswick library.

Over rated book, but obviously the best way to get DHL's account.

 

[jarrod_island_doggies]

On the topic of this, there's another extract up on the Footy Almanac for today's anniversary. It's fairly short, but I think powerful in the brief window it captures leading up to the bounce.

https://www.footyalmanac.com.au/almanac-history-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-roys-sunset-in-the-west/

 

[Mighty Eagles]

Over rated book, but obviously the best way to get DHL's account.

DHL's book is overrated?

That's contrary to the many other views I've heard about it.

 

[The_Wookie]

DHL's book is overrated?

That's contrary to the many other views I've heard about it.

I personally felt its better than Holmesbys, and on par with Westermans.

 

[Roylion]

I personally felt its better than Holmesbys, and on par with Westermans.

I actually prefer Dyson's account (and what in his book is not everything that went on behind the scenes either.). Westerman's is a very good account also - and obviously includes more perspectives.

Greg Miller's recent account of what happened in 1996 on the podcast "Sacked" is a load of garbage. Blames everyone but North Melbourne, when it was actually North Melbourne that stuffed it up.