Coach Fagan Takes Lions Back To Fitzroy In North Adelaide To See Where It All Started For The Club

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

In the lead-up to Saturday's Victorian-rules football grand final in Melbourne, the Brisbane Lions have taken a detour on their way down south.

Coach Fagan wanted to show the lads and the support staff where the Lions started, way before they were the Brisbane team.

"Here we are, boys," Fagan said. "Old Fitzroy. Soak it all in. These streets are where the club was born. Though they look a bit nicer, these were rough as guts back when the club started. Fitzroy was a real working-class area, don't let these big houses fool you. The Lions were forged in the crucible of struggle and triumph, soak it all in, guys."

The club expects to arrive in Melbourne tomorrow to acclimatise to the low humidity and noticeable lack of good Queensland-style manners in the town's hospitality staff, stuff like please and thank you, replying earnestly to the typically rhetorical greeting of "how ya going?" and maintaining polite but pensive eye contact with waitstaff.

More to come.