THIS season marks only the fourth time in League history that Carlton, Essendon, Hawthorn and South Melbourne/Sydney Swans have contested the finals in the same year.

Strangely enough, this quirk has been an omen for the Lions.

The last time it happened was 2001, when the Brisbane Lions won their first AFL premiership; the time before that was 1996, Fitzroy's farewell season; the first occasion was 1986, Fitzroy's last visit to the finals in its colourful history.

That it is 25 years since Fitzroy was part of the business end of the season surprised even the key combatants in what became a memorable finals series partly because of the struggling club's heroics.

"No wonder I feel old," Scott McIvor said with a laugh.

"Well there you go — that has gone too quickly," Michael Conlan said.

Although 1996 is regarded as the 'finish line' for Fitzroy, it was a decade earlier when the Victorian Lions truly roared for the last time.

Victories by a kick in two cut-throat finals have become the stuff of legend, produced with the backdrop of uncertainty that came from a nomadic existence and a support base that, while hardy, was dwindling.

That season was the last of the VFL as we knew it. The Swans had been in Sydney for five years but the rest of the competition was based in Victoria. The name change to the AFL was still four years away, but the arrival of teams from Queensland (the Brisbane Bears) and Western Australia (West Coast) was only months away — the Lions having been almost dragged down the aisle to embrace the supposed riches in the sunny north.

This wasn't a new phenomenon for Fitzroy. "In 1979, the club had asked whether I would have an issue with us relocating to Sydney," Conlan recalled. "I came from Canberra so I said, 'No, not at all, that's even closer to home for me', and that's what they were planning to do in 1980 or '81.

"Just before '86, we moved to Northcote (in Melbourne's inner north) for our training venue, and that's when I could sense the club was in real trouble financially."

Life as a drifter — Lou Richards referred to them as the "gypsies of the league" in the opening minutes of the preliminary final broadcast on Channel Seven — leads to a myriad of recollections.

While Conlan spoke of the "barbaric facilities" at fading VFA club Northcote's ground, McIvor remembered occasional training nights at the Lake Oval in South Melbourne and even Waverley Park, the League's own ground in Melbourne's outer south-east.

The club was in the second and final year of playing home games at Collingwood's Victoria Park, where training access was also limited, and the squad would even have sessions at the oval alongside Merri Creek, which runs through Melbourne's northern suburbs.

If it was us-against-the-world — and the world was being a bitch — the players still won't use that as a crutch to lean on. If anything, it is a badge of honour.

"Maybe it was, but that certainly never affected how you played," Bernie Harris said bluntly.

"We just went about our business and that's all you did—if you were lucky enough to get a game each week, you just went out and did your best; I didn't think it mattered much.

"Fitzroy was used to all that stuff—training all over the place and not knowing what was going on; that was just part of playing for Fitzroy.

"All the players got on famously and we had a lot of good fun off the ground, as well as on the ground."

The 1986 season was the fifth in an eight-season period the Lions had qualified for September, although they only had wins over Essendon in the elimination finals of 1979 and 1981 to show for it.

They had not made the finals with such regularity since the period covering World War I and the early 1920s.

"Fitzroy was struggling from a membership point of view and from a financial point of view, but there was always this incredibly strong base — the players were so loyal to each other; the fans, even though it was only a small fan base, were really loyal people," McIvor said of the united front the club presented at the time.

"You still see people from the Fitzroy days and it's like you're almost family — the fans really embraced the players, so it was an incredibly strong feeling."

With six rounds to go in 1986, the Lions were 8-8, a game and a whopping 17.3 per cent out of the five. The next nine weeks would be book-ended by games against eventual premier Hawthorn — a 51-point win to Fitzroy in round 17 and a 56-point victory to the Hawks in the preliminary final.

One can mount a strong argument the four weeks before the preliminary final were the most glorious the club enjoyed after World War II, with finals triumphs over Essendon and the Swans being the only consecutive September wins it had posted since its last flag in 1944.

Those wins were against the same two teams the Lions had to beat in the last two rounds just to make the five.

After coaching Hawthorn (1978) and Carlton (1981-82) to premierships before being sacked by the Blues, David Parkin was in his first season in charge of the Lions; he effectively swapped positions with Robert Walls, who had returned to his former club.

Conlan and McIvor were in no doubt about the impact Parkin had in 1986; semi-final hero Harris was not so sure, openly admitting he and the master mentor did not see eye-to-eye and that was the main reason he departed for the Brisbane Bears after the season.

"Parkin came in like a ferocious general — he really came in like a lieutenant of the army," Conlan explained. "He was highly confident, he was very well organised, he had something to prove and he was very disciplined, and that's what we needed at that point.

"I'll never forget his comments that year: 'Don't ever worry or question the training and some of the tactics I'm preparing; I'll get you there, don't worry about that'. Those words always echo in my ears and we all believed that he'd get us there; we just followed his direction and trained exceptionally hard.

"Fitzroy had a lot of good athletes. We weren't a great football side but we were pretty good athletes, and we really worked on that. He was fantastic, 'Parko', and the boys just got on board and loved him."

McIvor agreed. "Parkin was brilliant. He really got the most out of the group," he said. "He can be such an inspirational character, David, because he's such a great speaker, but also he'd been through so much at Hawthorn and Carlton; he could draw on so much experience and pull people in."

Essendon was shooting for three premierships in a row in 1986, but its campaign was derailed early with season-ending injuries to stars Tim Watson, Darren Williams and Paul Vander Haar.

The Lions had also become the Bombers' nemesis, beating them by 45 and 35 points in their two home and away meetings.

Fitzroy was not without its injury concerns either as the elimination final loomed, with No.1 ruckman Matt Rendell and champion full-forward Bernie Quinlan both sidelined, and Leon Harris rushed back into the side after missing six weeks with a broken leg.

The stakes were high on a cold and wet day at Waverley, and if the then 20-year-old McIvor was not fired up enough about his first final, Parkin made sure he was right on the edge as the team prepared to file out of the rooms.

"Parko's come up to me, grabbed me, and he'd never done this before, looked me in the eye and said, 'Keep your eyes open for [Roger] Merrett at the first couple of centre bounces'. I was that pumped up to play, I was that excited.

"I remember being out on the ground in the warm-up and [Essendon coach Kevin] Sheedy was out there trying to fire them up. I don't know if 'Sheeds' would remember it but as he was firing them up, he was looking at me, and I was listening to him — there was plenty of fire and brimstone.

"It might have been the second or third bounce and I remember looking up and seeing Roger coming at me with the death glare on."
Merrett missed, and McIvor went on to have 25 disposals and kick a goal. He was rated best on ground in the one-point win.

Conlan was close to worst on ground after being blanketed by Michael Thomson — "I had a dog of a day" — but will forever be remembered for just his fifth kick of the game; unattended at half-forward in the dying minutes, he marked a pass from Leon Harris and kicked the goal that put the Lions in front.

"It was just one of those days where you don't get near it, and I often think, 'Gee I was even lucky to stay on the ground and not be replaced', so I was very fortunate," Conlan observed.

"It was wet and slippery and I could have sprayed it, but fortunately it hit the foot right and went straight through the middle.

"I often think if I'd missed that, I would have had to keep running and jump the fence, and if I had that kick five times again in those conditions, you probably wouldn't kick it five times in a row."

What often gets forgotten is that the following week Conlan starred with four goals in the come-from-behind win over the Sydney Swans at the MCG.

The Lions were inspired by the last-quarter introduction of Bernie Harris. He had kicked two of the side's eight goals the previous week against the Bombers and, against the Swans, he sparked a five-goal-to-two final term to help the Lions turn a 12-point deficit into a five-point win.

Harris had seven kicks, set up a goal for Richard Osborne and booted the match-winner to send his team into the preliminary final.

"When I got on the ground at least I had fresh legs; the other blokes had been going hammer and tongs for three quarters," he said.

One thing they all agreed on was the physical state of the team once they returned to Waverley to face the Hawks for a spot in the Grand Final.

Despite a flying start, the efforts of the previous fortnight — and the efforts to surge into September — had physically impacted, with Conlan and Harris estimating the Lions were down to 12 fit players by half-time.

"The elimination final was a David and Goliath performance, given we went in without Quinlan and Rendell, but I think the performance against the Swans was also terrific," Conlan said.

"It was a tough slog and the efforts of those two games took their toll by the time we met Hawthorn.

"Before the game, blokes were getting painkillers and blokes were ginger, they weren't 100 per cent. It had been backs-against-the-wall stuff and it was just an amazing couple of performances."

Harris added: "I started on the bench again, but warming up at half-time, I reckon I counted 12 who were jogging around, so we had blokes down left, right and centre. As it turned out, we weren't good enough."

This story first appeared in the AFL Record