‘I remember when …’: Former Fitzroy Lion Anthony McGregor reflects on club’s final years

Local footy coach Anthony McGregor had a short stay in the AFL – but it was an eventful one. The utility from Prahran reflects on his journey.

Former Fitzroy Lion Anthony McGregor has held a number of local footy coaching roles since retirement, and currently leads Templestowe in the Eastern league. Picture: Davis Harrigan

It was a whirlwind AFL stint.

Anthony McGregor was selected by Fitzroy with pick No. 28 in the 1993 mid-season draft at the age of 20, riding the highs and lows at the foundation VFL club in its dying years until 1996.

A utility from Prahran in the VFA, his 41-game AFL career was overseen by four coaches in his three-and-a-half years at the Lions from Robert Shaw, to club legend Bernie Quinlan, Michael Nunan and caretaker Alan McConnell.

He shared the locker room with household names such as Alastair Lynch and Paul Roos, who were among a number of stars to move on before the club’s demise.

Here, McGregor reflects on his time at the embattled club including its final weeks in 1996 before the merger with the Brisbane Bears, with his career in the big-time coming to an end at the age of 24.

Since hanging up the boots at local level, he’s taken a keen interest in coaching and currently calls the shots at Eastern league outfit, Templestowe.

BECOMING A ROY BOY

If you go back six to 12 months before that, I was at Collingwood for approximately five or six years in the development program.

I didn’t make the grade there and didn’t continue on in senior footy, but Brian Taylor was coach of Prahran that year and obviously coming from Collingwood and then coaching Prahran, there was a few of us that went from Collingwood under-19s to Prahran in the VFA.

From there I basically just played some decent footy at the right time – there were a couple of televised games – and one in particular was against Port Melbourne.

At the time, best on ground got to drive a Ford Fiesta or something around for a week and I got BOG in the televised game against Port Melbourne, and the following fortnight, there I was training at Fitzroy.

The right people were looking, I suppose!

Anthony McGregor played 41 games and kicked 11 goals for Fitzroy from 1993-1996.

STARSTRUCK

At Fitzroy you had Alastair Lynch, Paul Roos, Paul Broderick and the list goes on and on – that side was a pretty handy side full of some pretty handy footballers. There was no talk of mergers in 1993.

In my first senior game, we played North Melbourne at Princes Park and they were on top at the time and we beat them by a point.

It’s not a bad debut when you’re playing against blokes like ‘The King’ (Wayne Carey) and John Longmire, and the list goes on and on for them as well – it was awesome. I think it was Brett Allison that I played on.

INSTABILITY

We had four coaches in my time.

My first coach Robert Shaw gave me a go and he was always in constant communication – he was awesome. You knew exactly where you were or where you weren’t.

Then along comes Bernie Quinlan which I found to be the exact opposite – everyone’s probably got personal opinions but I didn’t get a lot from Bernie. Then we had Michael Nunan and along with him came a hell of a lot of fellas from South Australia. It’s not that we didn’t see eye-to-eye, but there wasn’t a huge amount of communication, and not knowing where you were at the time. Caretaker coach Alan McConnell was always really good.

We didn’t really have our own ground and we were here, there and everywhere, and we trained in all different bloody areas.

It wasn’t the most perfect scenario, but it was what it was.

Alan McConnell served as Fitzroy caretaker after the sacking of Bernie Quinlan in 1995 and the resignation of Michael Nunan in 1996. He served as the club’s last AFL coach.

A PLACE IN HISTORY

As players, we did the best that we could possibly do.

Blokes at the top-end, the cream of the crop, were moving on to other clubs but they were well within their rights to try and earn what they could potentially earn.

But at the end of the day, it gave me opportunities.

Yes, we were, in hindsight, fighting a losing battle and having a lot of our cream taken from us, but for those who were on the fringe at times, I kept getting opportunities and I got to play 40-odd games where otherwise I may never have. I look at the glass half-full.

It’s something that probably comes up in trivia nights and different bits and pieces – when you look at books we’ll always be on that last page as Fitzroy’s last-ever list.

It’s part of history and we are part of a massive history of Fitzroy Football Club, and to be there at the very end was good, even though I missed the second half of that last year (1996) through injury.

I’m still proud to be part of it.

Fitzroy fans take the field after the club’s last match in Melbourne – a 151-point loss to Richmond at the MCG in Round 21, 1996.

1996 – THE FINAL YEAR

Each and every individual dealt with it in their own way, but you look at the second-last game, the Richmond game, it was quite a drubbing and I think overall there was a sense of ‘we’re done’.

We’d been through the wringer.

I’d snapped both hamstrings, but I was there (spectating at the MCG) and it was a sad day.

Not to be a part of it playing and missing out on the second half of the year, I missed out on a lot of that celebration as well watching from the sidelines. Not perfect in my scenario, but it was good to be a part of something, that’s for sure.

The Fremantle game – the club’s last match, played over in Perth – could’ve been done so much better.

It probably should’ve been done in Melbourne against another Melbourne-based side or a founding club. It could’ve been amazing for history.

To be shipped off to the other side of the country where our fans couldn’t go was disappointing, and there was a diehard fanbase.

It was the end of an era, and there was no turning it around.

I think the boys were exhausted, to be honest.

Coach Alan McConnell with players in the rooms at Subiaco Oval after Fitzroy’s last game – an 86-point loss to Fremantle.

Fitzroy fans with anti-merger protest signs – August 17, 1996.

AFL DREAM OVER AT 24

I was invited back to Collingwood the following year where I did the full pre-season under Tony Shaw and played in a couple of practice matches. I was actually invited to play in Hawthorn’s last intra-club practice match as well, there were no guarantees from Collingwood that they were going to pick me up.

In the last couple of minutes of Hawthorn’s intra-club practice match, I snapped my hamstring again – in half. And that was that.

The following year, my body was sort of broken but I went and played up at Barooga, then got myself right and played VFL again at the Northern Knights (otherwise known as the Northern Bullants), then we all went to play at Heidelberg and I played out the rest of my games there.

COACHING

I love being in club-land.

I don’t go and follow AFL or VFL but I do follow local footy – all sorts of local footy – and I love it.

If you can’t be involved in a playing sense, obviously the next-best way to be involved is coaching and I love mentoring.

Having a fairly hectic business – McGregor’s Artisan Butchery in Templestowe Lower – coaching is my outlet and it’s not a bad outlet to have, I reckon.