In 1995 Fitzroy was prepared to partially relocate to Canberra, which at that time had the Bruce Stadium and was ideal for football. It might have resulted eventually in a full relocation but with an ongoing Melbourne presence.

All those possibilities, and Tasmania, would have been preferable to what happened. It was simply the urgency to get Port Adelaide into the comp and a quirk of history (we were the most broke at the time) which worked against Fitzroy.

The current Launceston games for St Kilda and Hawthorn are only viable because they’re underwritten by the Tasmanian Government. Hawthorn-Fremantle had a crowd of 13,000. They’d get more at Albury. Fitzroy played some games in Hobart in the early 1990s without AFL or government support, but found Canberra to be more commercially viable.

Hawthorn fans understandably rejected the proposal as it meant an almost total loss of identity. If they’d adopted the name Melbourne-Hawthorn (that’s the hyphen principle) and if they alternated strips (say Melbourne colors for home, Hawthorn for away) I think it might have got up.

I guess you’ve had enough footy talk for now though.

I didn’t know about that story of Fitzroy-North possibly merging only to be vetoed by the Tigers. I agree it would have been good but North were already a “super side” in those days, as they proved by going on to win the flag again in ’99. They had Carey then so they hardly needed any of the Fitzroy players anyway. Richmond should have just let it happen.

I think it was in 1989 the AFL proposed a Fitzroy-Footscray “merger”, which would have been even better than merging with North because it involved two underdogs. As I recall it was the Footscray supporters who stopped that happening.

When Fitzroy went “broke” I think they owed not much more than $1million. So how come Carlton is still alive? They owe the national debt.

I’ve always thought that the AFL should encourage one of the Melbourne sides to “relocate” to Tasmania, which is a very strong footy State but needs a “kick-start” to be truly competitive.

The ideal side would be Richmond because they could then be called the “Tasmanian Tigers”. It’d also be poetic justice for what they did to the ‘Roys.

Then again, looking at Richmond today they’d probably struggle to beat Launceston reserves.

By the way, what the hell is “the Western Force”, an army reserve side?