Cade Lucas
The director of a documentary about how the Footscray Football Club fought off attempts to merge it with Fitzroy in 1989, says he wants to tell the story of South Melbourne’s relocation to Sydney next.
Stewart Marshall’s film ‘Fightback’ was shown at Yarraville’s Sun Theatre on Saturday.
Speaking beforehand, Marshall said it was while researching Fightback that he realised the Swans relocation and attempts to merge the Bulldogs and Lions, were part of the same story.
“It all started from somewhere (the relocation and merger attempts) but fortunately the Footscray Bulldogs was that blockade,” said Marshall whose late cousin was the iconic Bulldogs cheer squad member and leader of the community fightback against the merger, David Porter.
Unlike the Bulldogs, the Swans were unable to resist attempts to move them north, the same fate that later befell Footscray’s proposed merger partner Fiztroy, when they relocated to Brisbane in the late 90’s.
In the late 80’s though, Fitzroy were part of a clandestine plot with the VFL and then Footscray president Nick Columb, to merge the two clubs without telling their members or supporters.
While the Bulldogs resistance to the plan is well known, Marshall said Fightback is the first time the Lions version of events had been told.
“The first interview we did, randomly because my dad suggested it, was to tell the Fitzroy story with Leon Weigard.”
Weigard was the Fitzroy president at the time and details how the struggling club almost merged with Footscray.
Then Bulldogs captain Doug Hawkins, then chief executive Dennis Galimberti, club supporter and the woman who took the VFL to court in order to stop the merger, Irene Chatfield are also interviewed, as is the club’s co-cheer squad leader Gary Munn, who gave Marshall the idea to do the film at David Porter’s funeral.
“At his (Porter’s) funeral, Gary (Munn) came up to me and said you need to get this story recorded and done now. Everyone’s forgotten about us. You need to get it documented now and you need to get it documented properly.”
Marshall’s film certainly does that, offering an insight into both football and life in the western suburbs in the late 1980’s.
More insights were shared with Dennis Galemberti at a Q and A afterwards.
Fightback is now being entered in film festivals and it’s hoped a wider release will occur next year.
Trailer: youtu.be/bIMuVi2MJ6I
