Canberran Trevor Hancock is such a big fan of the ACT Brumbies that when one of his son’s was born, he got him a club membership before registering his arrival with Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Affectionately known as ‘Brumbies Man’, Trevor has followed the Canberra side since day dot; 1996.
His eldest son, Josh, who dresses up as Brumbies Boy became a club member two days after he was born, with his birth being registered another two days later.
Trevor also attended the 2001 and 2013 Lions tours.
He said he loved attending the matches because the Lions fans were passionate about the sport.
“They just love their rugby. It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, they always sing,” he told CD.
“I remember from the 2001 game where we won the third test and we went out with the Lions fans afterwards and we were just singing songs.
“We were teaching them Waltzing Matilda and they were teaching us their songs.
”Everyone just wanted to be there to enjoy rugby. It didn’t matter about the result.
“That’s what I love about the Lions tour – is the fans that tour with them are there for their love of rugby.”
This year he is attending seven matches, also travelling to Sydney (which has already run), Newcastle, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Another fan attending the Canberra match is Scotsman Mark Moffat who has travelled from Scotland to Australia to watch the entire tour.
He said the Canberra match was a good opportunity for the Brumbies to play against the Lions.
“Because they’re only every 12 years – whereas for the Lions players it’s every four years,”
Mark said.
“So you’ve got a certain amount of people that have played four times or four different groups of Lions.
“So I think just putting yourself against the guys here and I think when we played the Tahs (New South Wales Waratahs) number seven had a phenomenal game.
“So if you’ve got someone here at the Brumbies that plays themselves in a test spot that’s good.”
Mark also attended the Lions tour but only made it to the test series.
He said rugby was big in Scotland.
“There’s only like six million people, but it’s still, I’d say the second most popular sport – obviously soccer, or football as we call it, as the biggest one but rugby will be about second after that.
“It’s pretty important, it’s always in my life and it was always quite important growing up.”
Both fans attended a pre-match fan zone at the Dock in Kingston where everyone could join in for a singalong with the Australian Rugby Choir.
The 2025 match between the Brumbies and Lions was held at GIO Stadium Canberra on 9 July.
Brumbies were unable to follow up their 14-12 success of the 2013 tour, this time losing to the Lions 24-36.
The crowd of 23,116 was the highest of this season and eclipses the 21,655 achieved in 2013 for the last Lions tour.
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