‘The first time I’d seen tatts’: Swans and Royboys of old return to fly the flag

Jason Kimberley ran onto the SCG when Tony Lockett kicked his record-breaking 1300th goal in 1999, but in the crush did not get near the big man. Nearly a quarter of a century later, when Buddy Franklin kicked his 1000th goal, Kimberley was determined to mark the occasion with a flourish.

As the crowd flooded the field, he and his family laid out a picnic on a blanket on the half-forward flank, complete with champagne, beer and pies. “I’d known Dane Rampe since he got to the club, and as luck would have it, he walked up to me,” Kimberley said. “I offered him beer, wine and a pie. He baulked at the grog – said ‘Horse’ [John Longmire] would kill me – but give me a pie.” So they did.

Jason Kimberley and Monty Chapman ready themselves for the grand final.Credit: Eddie Jim

Kimberley founded a charity to fortify teachers and is best described as an adventurer. In footy, though, he is to the red-and-white manor born. His father, Just Jeans founder Craig, was variously president, benefactor and part-owner of South Melbourne and Sydney, as well as an AFL commissioner, and was the first non-player or coach to be inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame.

Jason Kimberley remembers that at school, he was the only kid with a South Melbourne jumper. Fitzroy jumpers were also rare. But opposite the Kimberleys in Brighton lived family friend Monty Chapman, an insurance broker and avid Fitzroy fan, and the footy banter flowed.

Chapman, now in his mid-80s and semi-retired, remembers being ushered into the Fitzroy rooms as a kid by another family friend who was on the club committee. “Kevin Murray – it was the first time I’d seen tatts,” he said. “And the half-time bottle of sherry!”

In time, both South Melbourne and Fitzroy were uprooted from Melbourne, South to become the Swans, Fitzroy eventually to become the Brisbane Lions via a merger. Now they reunite as grand finalists for the first time since 1899 (when, incidentally, South’s ruck was carried by Warwick Armstrong, the so-called “Big Ship” who later captained Australia’s Test cricket team).

Fans rushed the field at the SCG last year when Lance Franklin kicked his 1000th goal, a feat achieved by just three other players.Credit: AFL Photos / Getty Images

South and Fitzroy are the only expansion clubs who moved in whole or in part. The Power grew out of Port Adelaide, but did not move. The others are confections.

It’s why, despite some sneering up north about convenient reappropriation of their clubs, the Swans’ and Lions’ back stories matter. Both transplants were traumatic for many, and time still has not healed the wounds of some. It did not help that at different times, each club kept its distance from its past for fear of alienating itself in its new home.

Craig Kimberley.Credit: Fairfax Media.

But most stalwarts have been happy enough to hang on to the thread of history as it led to premiership success in their clubs’ new environs and the result is a solid rump of support for each expat club still in their former home town and a model for a modern all-areas football club.

“I know from Dad’s involvement that unless we went, we would have folded,” said Kimberley. It’s true; long before the riches of TV rights, the VFL did not have money to save them.

“We’ve come such a long way,” said Kimberley. “Sydney’s a tough market, but once you crack it, it’s a good place to be. We don’t have to get name players up there any more; we’ve got our own home-grown heroes.”

Chapman admitted to some disillusionment when the Lions left town, long since surpassed. “I’m philosophical about these things,” he said. “We’ve had some good times out of it. It’s quite unique to be a Lions barracker in Melbourne.”

Colin Carter, the former Geelong president and former AFL commissioner who was the architect-in-chief of the national competition, admits that aspects of its creation were ad hoc, protracted and messy.

“A lot of those deals were done out of desperation and politicking,” he said. “The Brisbane Lions was a bit of a shotgun marriage. South Melbourne went because people thought there was no alternative life for them. You couldn’t say there was a brilliant strategy in place.”

Still today, he runs across grumpy Fitzrovians. “Victorians have convinced themselves that their clubs are entitled to eternal life, but no one else is,” he said. “Coming from WA, I probably have a slightly more cold-hearted view.

“If it’s really about grassroots supporters, Port Adelaide deserved to be in the competition more than Fitzroy did, because they had more supporters. And that was essentially the change: Port Adelaide replaced Fitzroy. Sad for Fitzroy, but net good.

“And no one now would say South going to Sydney was bad, for the competition, for the club, for NSW. It’s been a success all round.”

Arguably, as the national competition has matured, so has Melbourne. Erstwhile angst about an interstate ambush and disinheritance has largely fallen away. The competition has evolved beyond geographic limits. Most big clubs at least have support everywhere, and players from everywhere. Comfortably more of both the Swans and Lions come from Victoria than anywhere else. It’s a national competition, but between clubs, not cities or states.

“There are new generations,” said Carter. “You bump into people who follow Sydney or Brisbane and never lived there. The television game has made it less defined where your support comes from.”

Kimberley endorses this. He said that whatever qualms his family felt when the Swans left town were dispelled when they played their first game as a full-time Sydney club and the Kimberleys were barracking from their lounge chairs in as full-throated a manner as if they were in the grandstands.

“In some ways, it’s like they never left,” he said. “They’re not physically at the Lake Oval. But there’s more to it than that. The geographical boundaries have shrunk over time. It feels as if they’re just around the corner.”

At this grand final, everything old will be new again. The Kimberleys are going en masse, of course, cheer, cheering the red and the white. Chapman and a mate will be alongside them on tickets donated by Craig Kimberley, a boy from old Fitzroy wearing the Brisbane colours maroon and blue. Excited as they are, no one is expecting a picnic this time.

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