Coorparoo Australian Football Club

Coorparoo Football Club was an Australian rules football club based in the Brisbane suburb of Coorparoo from 1937 until the club folded in 1995. The club left the Q.A.F.L. following the 1993 season due to the financial strain experienced since the recent introduction of a minimum salary cap, and joined the B.A.F.L. for the 1994 and 1995 seasons. The Coorparoo Junior Australian Football Club has continued as a stand-alone club since 1993 to the present. The Coorparoo Kings Football Club also operates out of the same oval in Birubi Street. Both teams club colours are navy blue with a white monogram.

Formed in 1935, Coorparoo played in the QANFL from 1941 to 1963 and the QAFL from 1964 to 1993. They were nicknamed the Roos. For the 1953 and 1954 seasons they merged with Yeronga.

Footballers to have played or coached at the club include Carl Ditterich, Jason Dunstall, Kevin O'Keeffe, Terry O'Neill, Michael Gibson, David Wearne, Stephen Wearne, John Pitura, Bill Ryan and Mark Maclure.

When Carl Ditterich left Coorparoo he returned with a notice to sue (for breach of contract) following his sacking by the club's board. The awarded $36 000 placed the club in financial hardship which the Q.A.F.L. premierships in 1984 and 1986 momentarily covered, but in the long term, without an improving local demographic made the club difficult to keep afloat. The insistence of the Q.A.F.L. to introduce a minimum salary cap by the end of the decade would prove catastrophic.

After the 1995 season, the original Coorparoo club sold the facilities to the Brisbane Bears, and although the last senior team to play was in 1995, the name continues in the form of the Coorparoo Junior Australian football club. Twenty years after the original Q.A.F.L. club folded, the Junior football club is now very strong with multiple teams in each age group as well as a popular Auskick venue on weekends.

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