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Fitzroy mourns the passing of Bill Jacobs.
7.00 pm Saturday 6th August 2011
The Fitzroy Football Club mourns the passing of former Fitzroy player and Treasurer Bill Jacobs who originally helped transform the Fitzroy Football Club into the ‘Lions’ back in the 1950s.
Bill Jacobs was well known for his exploits as a cricket player, administrator and professional broadcaster but few people know he was also partly responsible for naming Fitzroy Football Club, “The Lions”.
Fitzroy had previously been known as the Maroons up until about 1939 when they changed their nickname to the Gorillas, before Jacobs who served as the Fitzroy Football Club Treasurer suggested to the club in 1957 that it become the ‘Lions’.
Former long serving Fitzroy administrator Arthur Wilson, a member of the Fitzroy-Brisbane Lions Historical Society, said he believed Jacobs pushed the club to adopt the Lions after a trip to England. According to then Fitzroy secretary Ward Stuchbery, this idea was supported by Vice President Bert Walters.
In the Fitzroy 1957 annual report, members were told that traditionally the lion had been the symbol of England in both sport and war. Wilson said club minutes revealed the Lion was adopted after a suggestion from Jacobs, because like the lion, Fitzroy had a never-say-die spirit. The Club was eager to rid itself of the ‘Gorillas’.
In an interview conducted by Adam Muyt in 2005 Bill Jacobs spoke about how the Lion emblem was adopted,
“It was laughable. Most people thought the name Gorillas was a joke. It was more a media thing, a bit of a beat up. The great cartoonist of the day, Sam Wells, he used to play up a bit, he had a few favorites. And he always used to portray Fitzroy as Gorillas.
I think it was after a Committee meeting had ended and we were sitting around having a talk, and Ward Stuchbery and I brought it up that the Club should change the name to something better. I don’t know if it was any brain wave on my part, because even then the Coburg Football Club were the Lions, but I said something like, ‘Why don’t we become the VFL Lions?’ That’s how it got picked up. So they became the Lions. Everyone was sick of the Maroons and sick of the Gorillas and they thought it might have been an emblem for success or something.”
At first the Lion emblem that was adopted was a heraldic Lion rampart, but in 1965, at the instigation of George Coates, the Lion was changed to what became the iconic Fitzroy Lion emblem. From 1965 to 1996 this was the official Fitzroy Football Club emblem. Following the AFL merger, the emblem appeared on the Brisbane Lions jumpers from 1997 to 2009.
Bill Jacobs, known as “Fagan”, also played football with Brunswick in the VFA and spent one year with the Fitzroy seconds in 1941. He excelled at cricket, playing 226 consecutive games for the Fitzroy Cricket Club, which of course was then based at Fitzroy Football Club's current home ground, the Brunswick Street Oval. Playing for Fitzroy he claimed 448 dismissals as a wicketkeeper between 1937-56 and was captain coach of the 1953-54 premiership team. Jacobs, who was involved with Victorian cricket as a player, administrator and selector for 65 years was football and cricket commentator for 3AW for 34 years and called 25 consecutive VFL-AFL Grand Finals.
Bill Jacobs was farewelled at a service at the MCG on Friday 5th August.
The Fitzroy Football Club extends its heartfelt sympathies to the entire Jacobs family.
