Last Saturday, I spent the day on the hill watching Brighton beat my old club, Fitzroy Reds, pretty easily in B Grade amateurs.

After largely falling out of love with the game, I spent a year and three games rediscovering that love at the Reds in 2012 and ’13, and for that I am eternally grateful.

One of the key successes of the amateurs is exactly that; it remains the amateurs.

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It strikes me as odd how many of those playing Australian football today are essentially professionals, being paid incredible sums of money to play, for example, in the Eastern Football League’s third division.

Now, I’m not so naïve to think that players in the ‘ammos’ don’t benefit financially in some way. While they may not be paid cash (though I’m sure some are), they benefit from increased professional networks, access to prestigious (and expensive) education opportunities, and straightforward job offers.

With the Reds, though, with no obvious connection to any schools or universities, and with no affiliation with any large businesses, the most anyone got was their tracksuit paid for.

The reason this is so important is that it remains one of the few clubs, particularly in the metropolitan regions, where men are able to play football for the same reasons that they played the game as children.

There are more game plans, more structures, and pre-season training is much more difficult than it was in the under-14s, but essentially people play for enjoyment, not for financial reward.

Beyond the lack of financial reward, there are other reasons that I fell in love with the club.



The first is its location. The Reds still play at Brunswick St Oval, the site of Fitzroy’s VFL glory days, where Haydn Bunton, Kevin ‘Bulldog’ Murray (who still attends the occasional game, Brownlow Medal hanging around his neck), and Bernie Quinlan dominated. The original grandstand still stands on the northern edge of the oval, a constant reminder of what once was.

Moreover, the ground is situated in what is now Edinburgh Gardens, one of my favourite parks. The location within the park means that many groups not affiliated in any way with the game, as well as the Fitzroy diehards, make their way to the grandstand or, weather permitting, arrive with picnics and blankets and set up on the hill at one end of the ground.

As much as I loved playing there, there were times where, in the middle of the game, I’d look over at some friends or family who’d come to watch and be envious of the sneaky drink in their hand and the sun shining overhead.

There was the committee who ran the club as well as any company, and a coaching group that understood that for the mostly young group, and for us older members, football came after work, study and life.

Despite all this, those you play alongside are the greatest determinants of your time at any specific club, and we had, and continue to have, a great bunch of guys.

I have a lot to thank Fitzroy for, as they allowed me to have that one final year of very enjoyable football that I so desperately wanted. We even had a chance to have some car horns tooting us.

Now, just to reinforce everything I thought about the club, they have created a women’s team. For someone who spends their life trying to create greater spaces for women to participate in a world designed largely for men, this is incredibly important and satisfying.

The women’s team, in combination with ACU, play their first game ever at Brunswick St Oval this Sunday at 1pm. I don’t know much about the team, but I’m confident that the club more broadly will adopt this team as equals.



As members of my club, I’ll be following the women closely this season, and hope that this is the beginning of something brilliant.