Australian Football Merger Series

NAB Cup preseason footy is within two weeks away, and I will post its schedule tomorrow. But to celebrate, I wanted to take all of the failed mergers (excluding N. Melbourne and Essendon with an unknown date) and compile them in a branding series. This will start with one that was the first of many proposals for the Fitzroy Lions - this in 1980 as a proposed relocation to Sydney, two seasons prior to the Swans moving from South Melbourne. The SFC monogram I used is courtesy of www.amorsevillista.com although I made a minor change to it.

Given that the merger would have provided us with this, we need to find out what happened next. As South Melbourne (now the Darwin Swans based out of Northern Territory - since 1992) were still in talks of relocating following the 2001 season as the Lions went from table toppers to cellar dwellers in two seasons. The teams had decided that Sydney was the place to be, yet the Swans had no interest in sharing the city with the Lions. The clubs would soon merge to form the Sydney Swans as there was no purpose for the Lions to return to the Melbourne area. The Swans colors would consist of red white and blue, dropping the gold from the Fitzroy identity.

* * * Brisbane is granted expansion the season immediately preceding the proposed merger of Fitzroy and Melbourne. * * *

-Ricky