Ninety years ago – half a century before the Sydney Swans set up shop in the Harbour City — James Lindesay was heading to watch his team play at Lake Oval, on the banks of Melbourne’s Albert Park Lake.

“I was age 13 in 1933 when I first went to the old ground and saw Bob Pratt. He was an extremely high mark,” Mr Lindesay said.

The now 103-year-old, along with his sister Joyce Schirrman, 99, grew up watching the South Melbourne football team — which would later become the Swans — each Saturday.

“It was sad for us South Melbourne supporters to see our team pack up and leave Melbourne Park and go to Sydney. We sort of were cut off,” Ms Schirmann remembers.

But that hasn’t stopped the siblings’ devotion to their club.

The brother and sister duo will be among the Victorians this weekend remembering both grand final teams’ beginnings in the garden state.

The South Melbourne football team relocated to Sydney to become the Swans in 1982, while Fitzroy became part of the Brisbane Lions in 1996.

On Saturday, Mr Lindesay will be donning the personalised Sydney Swans jersey he was given for his 100th birthday during COVID-19 lockdowns. Fittingly, it has the number 100 hand-sewn on the back.

Ahead of his 104th birthday next Tuesday, he’s hoping for the ultimate gift of a premiership.

“I’m very apprehensive, but they are capable,” he said.

Old faithful gather in Fitzroy, South Melbourne

Meanwhile in Fitzroy, the Royal Derby Hotel has become something of a home base for Melbourne-based Lions supporters.

Publican Kane Trancedi, himself a devout Lions supporter, is expecting up to 450 Lions faithful to pack the joint on Saturday.

“We’ve got a massive supporter base, and it … hasn’t really come together for ages,” he said.

Fellow Lions diehard Ian Crawford has been a fan since he was in primary school in the 1950s.

Mr Crawford, who is chairman of the Fitzroy Brisbane Lion’s historical society, can still recall the “gut-wrenching” time when Fitzroy supporters had their club “taken away”.

But following the 1996 merger with the Brisbane Bears, the club came back in full force.

After the Lions narrowly missed out on a premiership last season, Mr Crawford is hoping they go the distance this year.

“Personally, I think it would be fantastic for us to win,” he said.

“I think it’s fabulous that we’ve come back again, and we’re vying to hopefully win the premiership this coming Saturday.”

South Melbourne — and now Swans — fans have long flocked to the Rising Sun Hotel, around 100 metres from the club’s original home ground.

Nowadays, owner Jon Woolley says more than 100 people show up to the pub to watch the first game of the season, and that number swells as the season ramps up.

“There’s such a full-on fan base here. It’s more than what people realise,” he said.

The ‘Barassi line’

Dr Hunter Fujak, a senior lecturer in sports management at Deakin University, describes this grand final as “really significant”.

“AFL is a code that has its origins in Victoria and the south-western states,” he said.

“Yet we have a grand final in 2024 that involves two north-eastern states, and that’s a unique situation.”

Football codes have historical legacies in different parts of the country, Dr Fujak said.

The “Barassi line” is a term coined in the late 1970s to describe a sociocultural line that divides Australia into areas more interested in Australian Rules Football (the south-west) and those more interested in the rugby codes (the north-east).

“It’s not exactly Australia divided by half, and it’s not exactly by state, but [it] tries to sort of capture the divergent football preferences of those areas,” Dr Fujak explains.

“This really will be a celebration of the AFL’s growth into those northern states that aren’t historically AFL areas.”

For many veteran supporters, this year’s grand final will be something of a “homecoming”, he added.

Grand final rematch ‘a dream come true’

The only time the two teams have faced off was way back in 1899, in a VFL final, when they were known as the South Melbourne Football Club and the Fitzroy Football Club.

During the semi-finals this year, the prospect of a repeat match-up crossed Lions fan Ian Crawford’s mind.

“I think it’s a dream come true. Truly,” he said.

And he naturally hopes history will repeat itself in full.

In Brighton, just a few suburbs down from where their footy fever took hold, Mr Lindesay and his younger sister Ms Schirrman will be dreaming of a very different result.

If their team does get up, the siblings say with a chuckle, they won’t be going out to get drunk.

A quiet celebration at their aged care home, and the thrill of victory, will do just nicely.