Joan Eddy to stand down as Fitzroy president after 12 years

It’s the end of an era at Brunswick Street Oval, with long-time Fitzroy president Joan Eddy standing down from her role in the top job, leaving a lasting legacy at the famous club.

Joan has not only been instrumental in the rise of the Fitzroy Football Club since its merger with the Fitzroy Reds in 2008, but also with the rise of women’s football and a front runner for women in footy leadership.

Over her 12 years at the helm, Joan has been a great supporter of all aspects of the VAFA. Her contribution as a pioneering female president, input to committees, support of VAFA functions and attendance and measured contribution to meetings cannot be underestimated. As a role model it is hard to draw a parallel.

VAFA CEO Brett Connell congratulated Joan on her tenure. “What a wonderful legacy Joan Eddy leaves at Fitzroy FC. Volunteers make our game and Joan has been a magnificent role model for not only the community but female leaders at community level across the board. Well done Joan.”

Fitzroy’s website states, Joan Eddy has steered the Fitzroy Football Club incorporating the Fitzroy Reds from strength to strength, building on the club’s enviable and unmatched history in the VFA, VFL, AFL, VWFL and the VAFA to champion innovations in community football such as Indigenous recognition, women’s footy and player wellbeing and leadership programs.

Along the way she’s created the foundations for the club’s strong governance and ongoing financial growth and stability.

Talking about what makes the Fitzroy FC so special, Joan explained, “it’s the emergence of our identity as a community football club since the Reds merger that makes me feel most proud—the club’s commitment to the wonderful amateur tradition espoused by the VAFA motto, ‘love of the game’, the importance of being a relevant and contributing community partner, of working hard to champion inclusivity and diversity, of understanding that we still and always will, have so much to learn, and of realising that we all have so much more in common than we are different.”

You can read Joan’s full statement on the Fitzroy FC website here.

Joan told the Northcote Leader her two crowning glories have been the introduction of women’s football, not only at the club but across suburban football, and the club’s first senior men’s premiership since 1944 in 2018.

“There’s two on-field successes that are hard to separate, one is the establishment of women’s football and the other is the 2018 senior men’s premiership in Prem C,” Eddy said.

“(Women’s football) is a fantastic on and off-field story, women being able to play football at a senior level is a wonderful thing.

Vice-president David Leydon is set to take over as president at the club’s AGM on February 13.