It was 10 years ago this weekend that Fitzroy Football Club played its last game, and like many other former supporters, I’m still searching for a team to call my own.

We are a breed that goes to the occasional random game, but have yet to fully adopt a team to the extent that we buy a membership or even a player badge We may be happy when a certain team wins, but don’t feel involved enough to actually sing the theme song.

Occasionally amongst the crowd there will be a Fitzroy beanie (not just at Brisbane games), and it stands out like a beacon and a reminder that there are still some of us out there. A few weeks ago I went to a game wearing my Fitzroy scarf, and despite some young child asking his father why I was wearing “strange colours,” some that saw me gave the occasional, “carn the Roys”.

At the start of the 1997 season, many of us looked north and saw Brisbane as a home away from home. They were a good team, with a splattering of Fitzroy players, but it was never going to be an easy merger. Fitzroy was built around the working class inner city suburbs of the late 19th century, and Brisbane was… Brisbane. Despite former Lion great Kevin Murray trying his best to make this new marriage work, it was clear that it just wouldn’t for some.

After a few more years of gliding through games with nothing but neutrality, people suggested that I support North Melbourne or Western Bulldogs because they were said to have the most in common with Fitzroy. But besides both having hardly any money and crappy facilities, I failed to see the connection.

I therefore resigned myself to support individual past players like Jarrod Molloy at Collingwood, John Barker at Hawthorn, and Matthew Primus and Stephen Paxman at Port Adelaide. But nearly all of the past players have gone and the remaining survivor of that group (Barker) will retire this week.

It is not all lost for us though. Living in the Fitzroy area, I console myself by walking to the old Brunswick Street oval every second week to see the Fitzroy Reds, wearing the old jumper, fight it out in the C grade amateurs. It may not be on the big stage, but it keeps the memories and any hope for a future alive.