Merger

‘The demise of Fitzroy is a deep wound rather than a scar.
A tear in the fabric of the game that will never truly repair.’
From the Foreword by Gerard Whateley

For the first time, this book reveals in full intriguing detail the causes and the effect of the Fitzroy Football Club’s demise from the AFL

It was nothing short of the worst year ever experienced by a VFL/AFL club. After years of doubt and anxiety over the club’s financial situation, where season after season, speculation and rumour was rife that the club would either fold or be forced to merge, club officials, players and supporters were finally faced with a no-win scenario - in 1996 the Fitzroy Lions ran out of money and they ran out of time. To save some remnant of the club, AFL administrators enabled the club to merge with the Brisbane Bears, creating the league’s first, and thus far only merger.

Merger tells the story of this historic and tragic season in an unprecedented degree of depth, scope and clarity to ensure that Fitzroy›s final, doomed season is both fully understood and not forgotten. It captures the story from above and below: from the Lions› beleaguered president and the hard-nosed AFL administrators he fought, to the players caught in the middle of these fateful events and the volunteers and supporters, those who were the heart and soul of Fitzroy, who were left shattered and disillusioned by the loss of their club.

In exploring the 1996 merger, the book asks pertinent questions about the current AFL and its relationship with supporters, with commercial interests and with its own heritage. This makes Merger more than a mere work of history, but a timely entry into an important conversation about the future of Australian rules football at the highest level.

About the Author

William Westerman is a Canberra-based historian, born and raised in Melbourne. Author of several books on the First World War, he currently works at the Australian War Memorial as the author of the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq, 2003-2011. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Adjunct Lecturer at UNSW Canberra. He is a third-generation Fitzroy supporter and his two sons are, like their father, members of the Fitzroy Football Club.