Fitzroy Football Club

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Women’s captain headlines VAFA Tragics

In a first for the award-winning VAFA Tragics program, Fitzroy-ACU Women 1 captain, Gemma Minuz, added a female playing voice to the mix this week.

In this first year of women playing in the VAFA, the Roy Girls are sitting nicely in equal first on the Women’s Premier division ladder so it was only fitting that the captain was the first to talk footy on the previously all-male domain of VAFA Tragics (with apologies to the VAFA’s own reporter Nicole Erasmus, who has featured on the panel before).

Proudly wearing her hand knitted red, blue and yellow scarf (courtesy of her mum), Gemma talked up the Roy Girls, the club and her team mates’ chances of making the final Big V team.

For a look at what she had to say, you can check it out here (Gemma is on around 8 minutes in):

Gemma Minuz on VAFA Tragics

First and last chance for Ball tickets

This week is your last chance to get in on the action and join in the fun of the Reds Ball 2017: Welcome to the Jungle.

The ball, which has a long tradition with the Fitzroy Reds, will this year be held at one of Melbourne's premier events venues, the Melbourne Zoo, on Saturday 15 July starting at 7.30pm.

Players, members, volunteers, family and friends are all invited to make this night something to remember. While it is not a sit down event, there will be plenty of seating available and opportunities to talk, mingle, dance, show off your outfit…whatever works for you.

Tickets are on sale only until Wednesday 5 July.

Your tickets include a four hour finger food and drinks package along with a DJ for the night.

Click here to buy your tickets today!

125 years of VAFA and Fitzroy names its greatest contributors

The VAFA has named this weekend’s round of footy, the 125 year Club Round, to celebrate the people who have made amateur football great throughout the last 25 years since the VAFA Centenary.

The Fitzroy Directors went back through the history of the club in the VAFA for the last quarter of a century, which of course included the successful days of the Fitzroy Reds, and identified four people who have made an incredible contribution to the club in the VAFA categories.

The four who have made the most significant contributions to the ongoing success of the club between 1992 and 2017 are:

VOLUNTEER – BILL ATHERTON
We don’t really have enough space to run through everything Bill Atherton has done for the Fitzroy Football Club during his continuous involvement with the club since 1995.

He has been a member and supporter for a lifetime. So much so that his son Ben also played for the club in the 2000s and 2010s and his wife Debbie has also helped with volunteering for duties while Ben was playing.

Bill calls himself the ‘back office’ at Fitzroy and to say things couldn’t run without him is an incredible understatement. Officially Bill is the football club’s Co-Company Secretary, but he is so much more.

Bill lived through the painful years of Fitzroy’s separation from the AFL and then proceeded to set up the Fitzroy Foundation, which helped to take Fitzroy out of administration. This allows Fitzroy Football Club to operate today as a thriving community football club.

COACH – GRAHAM BURGEN
Graham Burgen has extensive experience in men’s and women’s football as a coach, but his time with the Fitzroy Reds was incredibly successful. He coached for seven years altogether in two separate stints. In that time he coached the club to three flags in 2001, 2003 and 2005, taking the club from F Grade all the way to Premier C.

He was named VAFA coach of the year in 2003.

PLAYER – STEPHEN DRURY

Steve is also Fitzroy’s nomination for the greatest amateur player.

Fitzroy Reds Premiership captain and life member, Steve Drury, played and captained the Reds through a period of sustained success in the late 90s and early 2000s, finishing up on 200 games.

Steve was captain of the club for five years from 1999 through 2003 and was twice premiership captain, including in the year Fitzroy went undefeated and won the 2001 D3 premiership. He won four club best and fairest awards, sharing the honour in 1996 and 2000, and winning it outright during the premiership year of 2001 and then again in 2002.

UMPIRE – LLOYD BROWNE
Lloyd Browne has been Fitzroy’s official umpire for over 23 years and in that time he estimates he’s umpired about 400 games.

After doing just home games in his first season, Lloyd has umpired just about every week ever since. From 1994 to 2009, Lloyd umpired only Fitzroy Reserves games. Since the club's elevation to Premier C and subsequently B, he’s been included in an umpiring pool, officiating everything from C Thirds to A Reserves.

Congratulations is not really enough for these four. They will be celebrated and acknowledged at pre-game lunch during August, with official VAFA medallions presented to each. Details of the lunch will be released in the coming weeks.

More details of all four are on the Fitzroy website.

Pippos, Ashmore headline Women in Footy lunch

One of Australia’s leading sports presenters, Angela Pippos, will be the star of our third annual Women in Football lunch on Saturday 22 July at Brunswick Street Oval.

Brisbane Lions’ AFLW star, Kaitlyn Ashmore, will also join the fun and headline the female players attending on the day, including some of our own Fitzroy-ACU leading women.

Pippos is a journalist, TV presenter, radio personality, author and MC, and of course an Adelaide Crows fan! She’s appeared on many sports programs including Network Ten’s Before the Game and The Back Page on Fox Sports and is a regular on ABC radio and TV.

Angela has just released her second book, Breaking The Mould – Taking A Hammer To Sexism In Sport and the television documentary she wrote, produced and presented about the rise of women in Australian Rules football, League of Her Own, aired on the Seven Network in February 2017.

Fitzroy has featured great women in the football industry for the last few years at our Women in Footy lunches, including Katie Brennan, Lauren Arnell, Jane Lange (former Darebin Falcons Coach and now Carlton AFLW Assistant Coach), Steph Chiocci and more.

This is a great opportunity to hear Angela’s thoughts on what has been an incredibly successful year for women in football and maybe a little of what she thinks might happen next and what still needs to change.

There will also be an opportunity to hear from Kaitlyn Ashmore about her experiences in the first season of AFLW and how it felt to play in the first AFLW Grand Final.

Angela’s book, Breaking the Mould, taking a hammer to sexism in sport, is selling like wildfire and you can get your copy here

Perhaps you could bring it along to lunch and get an autograph on your copy.

Book now for the lunch now as tickets are likely to be very popular:

Bookings will close on Wednesday 19 July or as soon as they sell out.

Book Now for the Women in Footy lunch

Counting time with Suzanne Madeley

Fitzroy’s official timekeeper, Suzanne Madeley, is adept at watching the clock. She does it – week in week out – for the firsts, and the seconds, at home and away.

For this week’s Red Roy, Suzanne turns back time to take a look at the early days of the FFC, her family’s unbroken loyalty to the club, Fitzroy’s infamous local characters and football greats. In the process, she paints a vivid picture of what it was like to grow up and go to school in the benign shadow of the Brunswick Street Oval. It’s a great read.

Gabrielle Murphy joins the Fitzroy Board

Marketing and communications specialist, long-time Fitzroy Football Club volunteer, Gabrielle Murphy, has joined the Fitzroy Football Club Board.

Gabrielle works at the University of Melbourne and has also played an instrumental role in establishing the recently-opened Bargoonga Nganjin, Fitzroy North Library, after 25 years of campaigning and work as a member of Friends of the North Fitzroy Library.

Until this year, Gabby could most often be seen escorting the umpires to and from the field for the senior games at

Brunswick Street Oval in her volunteer capacity as umpire escort and interchange steward.

Gabby is the mother of Fitzroy backman, Max Ellis and former player, Monty

She will take on the role of Director Volunteering, which has been vacant this season.

Photo: Gabrielle Murphy showing the ropes to new umpire escort, Graham Brennan.

“Fitzroy has given me and my family years of happy watching and involvement. Now I’m looking forward to donating some of my time and energy to continue the work the club does in making our community richer and better.”

President Joan Eddy welcomed the appointment and said “Gabby brings a wealth of skill in the area of community activism and project involvement with experience in the establishment of Fitzroy High School and Fitzroy North Library just to name a couple.

“She’s also a long-time volunteer in footy in Fitzroy, first with the juniors and now the senior club, and her professional background in marketing and communications will also strengthen our development in these key areas.”

The club is still on the hunt for a Director of Football.

Long trip back from the Peninsula

Fitzroy seniors gave up a 20-point half time lead to go down to Peninsula Old Boys last Saturday, as the Pirates returned to their home ground for the first time this season and celebrated with a 14-point win.

It was a barnstorming finish from the home side as Fitzroy finished the game a number of players down, i

ncluding the best player on the day, Julian Turner, who will miss the next few weeks of football with a broken nose. A red card and subsequent report sees the Peninsula player sidelined for three weeks too.

There were moments of team and individual brilliance from Fitzroy, with defender Mark Obushak’s long running goal a first half highlight. Second gamer Sean Laidlaw continues to show moments of skill and talent, which indicate he’s likely to be a strong contributor for some time and Nino Lazzaro’s poise and decision making under pressure in the forward line, belie his age and experience. Corbin Stevic worked hard all day and kicked three goals, while captain Rory Angiolella took risks and tried to lift his team with some outstanding work in the midfield. Down back, Luke Baker and Max Ellis were tireless in defence.

It’s back to the drawing board for the coaching team who are getting quarters of outstanding footy from the side; but the team has not been able to string four quarters together in some time.

The Reserves had a resounding victory over an undermanned Pirates team, with Michael Cussen leading the way and surely pushing for a senior call up.

The final score was 15.13.103 to 6.7.43, with Tyrone Wells kicking four goals and the classy Lachie Henderson and Cussen scoring three apiece.

Fitzroy-ACU Women 1 gave Lauchlan Dalgleish the perfect start to his Fitzroy coaching career with a hard-fought win over Old Caufield Grammarians on Saturday morning at Glen Huntly Oval.

Lauchlan is standing in for Mick Symons, who is overseas for the month, and things were tight and tense at three quarter time when the scores were tied. Two goals in the final quarter against the outstanding Caufield team, saw Fitzroy-ACU maintain its winning streak and equal top spot on the Women’s Premier ladder. The Women 2 team had a very tough day out against top team SKOB Saints with Katie Hillier working hard all day.

Tomorrow the Thirds and Under 19(1) teams play a double header at Ramsden Street, with the Thirds coming up against their rival for the fourth spot, Old Trinity. With less than 2 percentage points currently separating the teams, this should be a great game. The Thirds will look to rebound after a big loss to the top side Old Scotch last week.

Whilst the Under 19s are showing us the future of Senior footy at Fitzroy, some of their success is providing challenges for the Under 19s coaches and this week Under 19(1) will play at home against top side St Bede’s/Mentone. Fitzroy will be looking for its second win of the season and has a giant challenge ahead.

Fitzroy U19 (2) has forfeited its game against De La Salle tomorrow – injuries, absences and senior call ups have depleted the Under 19 squad this week.

This week's games

Marcellin OC vs Fitzroy-ACU Women 1 – VAFA Wilson Women Premier – Bulleen Park West Oval, 9.50am, Saturday 1 July
St Mary’s Selesian vs Fitzroy-ACU Women 2 – Development Division 4 – Ferndale Park, 11.40am, Saturday 1 July
Fitzroy Thirds vs Old Trinity – VAFA Premier B Thirds – Ramsden Street Oval, 11.40am, Saturday 1 July
Fitzroy Reserves vs Old Brighton Grammarians – VAFA Premier B Reserves – Brunswick Street Oval, 11.40am, Saturday 1 July
Fitzroy Seniors vs Old Brighton Grammarians – VAFA Premier B – Brunswick Street Oval, 2.00pm, Saturday 1 July
Fitzroy U19 (1) vs St Bede’s Mentone – Holmesglen U19 Section 2 – Ramsden Street Oval, 2.00pm, Saturday 1 July