The Fitzroy Story
By John Granger
History and culture have weaved wondrous paths in Fitzroy. Football club photographs at the North Fitzroy Arms Hotel provide insights of the old town showing flint-eyed teams of serious, tough men with laser-parted oiled hair. The 1944 premiership team was Fitzroy’s last and, nearly 80 years on the team’s remnants reside in Brisbane.
Until around 1960, Fitzroy was a ‘working man’s suburb’. Rows of single-fronted terrace houses … the wood merchant and the iceman ‘delivered’ and the baker’s carriage ‘clip-clopped’ around the streets. Fitzroy’s Brunswick Street oval was a mud heap after a light shower but weather, or mostly inadequate team performance, never deterred the faithful.