Brisbane Bears
| Brisbane Bears | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Names | ||
| Full name | Brisbane Football Club | |
| Nickname(s) | Bears | |
| Club details | ||
| Founded | 1986 | |
| Dissolved | 1996 | |
| Colours | ||
| Competition | Australian Football League | |
| Former ground(s) | Carrara Park (1987–1992) | |
| Brisbane Cricket Ground (1991–1996) | ||
| (1991–1996) | ||
| Uniforms | ||
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The Brisbane Football Club was an Australian rules football club and the first Queensland-based club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The club played its first match in 1987, but struggled on and off the field until it made the finals for the first time in 1995. The Bears merged with the Fitzroy Football Club after the completion of the following season to form the Brisbane Lions.
In 1986, the VFL Commission announced plans to set up privately owned clubs based in Perth and Brisbane, motivated by the need to sell multimillion-dollar licences to save a number of Victorian clubs which were struggling financially. A consortium headed by former actor Paul Cronin and bankrolled by entrepreneur Christopher Skase was awarded the Brisbane licence. Not long afterwards, the club was officially announced as the Brisbane Bears, signing recently retired Hawthorn player Peter Knights as coach, and unveiling a playing strip consisting of a gold with a maroon yoke and a triangular "BB" logo intended to represent a stylised map of the club's home state, Queensland, with the outline of a koala head appearing inside of the larger B.
The choice of the koala as a mascot and moniker was often mocked and tagged tacky as the Australian marsupial animal is not a bear and is typically sedate and hardly ferocious. Despite this, the bear appeared roaring on many of the marketing and promotional materials for the club, including the club's official VFL logo [1]. However, regardless of such marketing, the team's poor on-field performances in the first seven years allowed the Bears' mascot to be targeted gratuitously, with nicknames like "The Bad News Bears" and "The Carrara Koalas".
The new club was given very little time in which to set itself up, with few players and no suitable home ground. Brisbane's main outdoor venue, The Gabba, was encircled by a greyhound racing track at the time. The only other stadiums that were reasonably large enough to accommodate the Bears were rectangular fields designed for rugby league and rugby union, long established as the main football codes in Brisbane. Without an acceptable facility in Brisbane itself, the Bears-based themselves at Carrara Oval, an hour's drive south-east of Brisbane on the Gold Coast. Temporary stands, club rooms and facilities were erected on the slopes surrounding the field.
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