A Fitzroy reflection
I’ve decided to chronicle some of my Fitzroy memories for the sake of personal history.
I grew up in Traralgon. My father barracked for Carlton because that’s the team his brother Archie supported. Dad was 10 when Carlton won the 1945 premiership.
My grandfather supposedly played for North Melbourne in its VFA days, but nobody in our family ever supported the Shinboners.
My Auntie Sheila barracked for Fitzroy. She died young, but her husband Stan took his daughter, my cousin Bev, to see Fitzroy play at the Brunswick Street Oval.
I came to follow Fitzroy by accident. In the 1970s each VFL team had a country zone. Footscray had Traralgon as part of its zone and I mixed the club up with Fitzroy, which became my second team after Carlton.
My father liked VFL Park as a venue, partly because it was an easy drive from Traralgon up the highway. In those days, each team used to play 3-4 games per year at the ground.
The first VFL game I saw was Fitzroy v St Kilda at VFL Park in 1975. The Saints won by about 12 points, but I was hooked on the Roys.
My father actually switched his own support from Carlton to the Swans. His sister Margaret was a mad South Melbourne supporter, and I think that memory stuck with him greatly after she died. Together we watched South Melbourne’s last VFL finals appearance in 1975 at Waverley (elimination final defeat to Richmond).
Today he follows Sydney, which I consider Margaret’s legacy. Who knows? My own daughter Margaret may also follow the Bloods one day!
In the early 80s my best friend at the time, Peter Crowley, barracked for Fitzroy, and I gradually switched my allegiance from Carlton to the Lions. I used to wear Fitzroy socks and a Fitzroy scarf to school in 1983-84 in breach of uniform policy.
Fitzroy was a strong team in those years. Why we didn’t win a premiership in that period escapes me. There were so many close runs. A flag may or may not have prevented the ultimate decline, but would have been highly enjoyable!
I’ll write more about individual games and seasons. Here though is a link to the best theme song in the league.
Fitzroy is a part of my life I can never forget, and one that I will always remember with joy and sadness.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
August 22nd, 2005 at 10:09 am
I started following St Kilda in the 1960’s having switched allegiance from (of all clubs) Collingwood. The main reason I originally supported the Pies was because of a big bloke named Ray Gabelich who was the captain. Ray was my hero until he refused to sign my autograph book after a game between Collingwood and St Kilda at the old Junction Oval. He said his hands were “too dirty” and he kept walking. I was shattered. I had noticed his hands were a bit muddy but so what; having Ray Gabelich’s mud on my autograph book would not have been a problem, in fact it would have gone down real well with everyone at school on the following Monday morning!
What’s this got to do with Fitzroy? Well after that fateful day I started following St Kilda in earnest. I became a junior member and I’d get to every game, if not with my parents then by some other means. I even made it out to Brunswick Street to see St Kilda take on Fitzroy. Watching footy at the Brunswick Street ground was like stepping back in time. Nothing much about the facilities had changed from the early part of the century. Whenever a goal was kicked at the Brunswick Street end the ball would usually end up on the tramtracks outside. They’d have to wait until someone kicked it back over the fence. The shape of the “oval” was odd too. It was more like like a “D” with a straight section along the southern wing.
In the second or third last round of 1966 I was out at Brunswick Street again to watch St Kilda cement its place near the top of the ladder with a win over lowly Fitzroy. The result was never in doubt but the main interest of the afternoon centred around an ongoing battle between big Carl Ditterich of St Kilda and a smaller Fitzroy player of no particular note. Rumour had spread among the crowd that Collingwood (who were equal flag favourites with St Kilda) had offerred $500 to a Fitzroy player to provoke big Carl into an indiscretion so that he would be rubbed out for the finals. Ditterich was an awesome force and Collingwood only had big Ray Gabelich to counter him, who by now was just too slow.
So for the whole day this little Fitzroy rover followed Ditterich around giving him “cheek” at every opportunity. It wasn’t possible to physically intimidate big Carl but he could be got at verbally, and he was. Come the last quarter and Carl had decided enough was enough. Right in front of where I was standing, and right in front of the unpire, he rushed forward and swung a punch that nearly knocked the little Fitzroy bloke out of the park. Carl copped six weeks and missed the grand final. I guess the little Lion got his $500 from Collingwood and a huge black eye.
Anyway the sheme didn’t work out for Collingwood becuase, as we all know, St Kilda beat them in the 66 grand final by a solitary point, albeit without big Carl. There was a moment of “sweet revenge” late in the final quarter of that game for me too. With St Kilda leading by one point big Ray Gabelich took a mark in the goal square at the Punt Road end. As he lined up to take the simple shot I put my usual “mozz” on, which involved holding my breath whenever an opposition player was taking a set shot at goal and repeating in my head, “miss it, miss it, miss it”. This time though I changed it. I was sitting in the front row of the top deck of the Northern Stand behind the goal line at about a 45 degree angle to big Ray. So instead of saying “miss it, miss it” I said to myself, as I held my breath, and as Gabba moved in to kick what would have been the winning goal, “kick it to me, kick it to me”. And he did! From ten yards out directly in front big Ray’s kick flew off at a 45 degree angle in my direction. I reckon it went out of bounds, but the goal umpire awarded him a point and the scores were then tied with only minutes left.
From the kick in the Saints worked the ball down to their end where Barry Breen managed to wobble a kick through for the winning behind. Moments later the siren went and big Ray Gabelich slumped to the ground in defeat. I guess he should have signed that kid’s autograph book a few years earlier!
Getting back to Fitzroy, they actually did St Kilda a favour by getting Big Carl rubbed out. His replacement in the side was Brian Sierakowski who had spent the whole year in the reserves. Big Siera turned out to be a star in the grand final and effectively shut the big Gabba out of the game. I’ll never forget Fitzroy!
NB: Years later Kieren Perkins stole my “kick it to me, kick it to me” line.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:29 pm
I found this on the BigFooty Forum:
Colin Hobbs takes credit for stirring up Carl Ditterich in the last game at Brunswick St in 1966.
Hobbs stood on Ditterich’s toes and made some reference to Ditterich’s ancestry and the result of the 2nd World War. Ditterich lashed out and got reported for whacking Daryl Peoples. Ditterich then proceeded to smash up the changerooms.
And there’s a good yarn here by historian Paul Daffey: http://www.fitzroyfc.com.au/local_rites_ch1.htm