Brisbane-based VFL club had begun in 1984, with former actor and businessman Paul Cronin planning on purchasing a licence from the VFL believing that the VFL could not survive successfully without a national competition, however there were some in the VFL management that did not agree, most notably Alan Schwab. Cronin believed that Queensland was uniquely positioned in that it had an existing base in the Queensland Australian Football League (QAFL). Migration from the southern states saw the QAFL go through a period of expansion into the Gold and Sunshine Coasts in the 1970s and despite being less popular than the Queensland Rugby League and Queensland Rugby Union had grown to include a number of well established, wealthy and well supported clubs. The early 1980s had also seen in Queensland and QAFL recruited players making an impact in the VFL, including Frank Dunell, Warren Jones, Gary Shaw, Zane Taylor and young stars like Scott McIvor and Jason Dunstall. Cronin approached premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen in November 1985 to garner government support for the idea. In 1985 the QAFL had decided that pushing for a Melbourne-based club to relocate to Brisbane was the most viable option. The idea was helped in 1986 when incoming chair Ross Oakley's interest in mergers and relocations to help the VFL expand into a national competition. In June 1985 Brisbane sports promoter John Brown announced he would bid for a Brisbane licence along with entertainment promoter Michael Edgely. On May 22, 1986, at the Brisbane Parkroyal, the QAFL president John Collins and Ken Murphy announced plans to lobby for a Brisbane-based VFL team the QAFL still pursuing the relocation of an existing team. The VFL's Jack Hamilton flew to Brisbane in July 1986 to explore the options including club relocations (but denied that it was for Fitzroy), stating to the media that a Brisbane team would be possible in 1987 if a vacancy was available. He later stated that Brisbane was the preferred city for VFL expansion and that the VFL had hoped that it could retain all of its existing clubs during the expansion phase. A third bidder a consortium headed by Perth millionaire Alastair Norwood (head of Jeans West) was announced shortly after Brown's bid. The QAFL joined as a fourth bidder for the new licence, but stated that it was open to forming a consortium with any of the other three bids. Ken Murphy