Chris Fagan, football’s favourite grandfather, will become the 46^th 200-game coach in AFL history on Saturday afternoon – and the oldest by more than nine years.

The man who has taken the Brisbane Lions from cellar-dwellers to premiers and restored the club’s standing across the country, will be 30 days short of his 64^th birthday when his side takes on Hawthorn at the MCG.

The next youngest 200-game coach in history was his good friend and Port Adelaide rival Ken Hinkley, who was 54 years 324 days at the same milestone in 2021.

Among 381 AFL coaches all-time Fagan was the oldest when he coached his first game at 55 years 275 days in 2017. Tommy Williams, who coached one game at Fitzroy in 1964 when Kevin Murray was unavailable, was next oldest a 55 years  275 days from ex-Lions football boss David Noble, who was 53 years 310 days when he took over North Melbourne in 2021.

Astonishingly, Fagan was older in his first game than all but three of his 2025 coaching rivals are now. The exceptions are Hinkley (58), St.Kilda’s Ross Lyon (58) and North Melbourne’s Alastair Clarkson (57).

And there is almost 25 years between Fagan and West Coast’s Andrew McQualter, the League’s youngest coach this year at 38. 

Father to two daughters and grandfather to four, he celebrated 40 years of marriage to wife Ursula in January. They’ve been married longer than McQualter has been alive.

But this is not a story about age. It’s about a humble family man from Queenstown on Tasmania’s west coast which in the last census in 2021 had a population of 1808. A school teacher who has listened and learned for 48 years.

And who, according to leading AFL commentator Gerard Whately, in September last year masterminded “possibly the best finals campaign in football history” before completing “the greatest coaching story the game has ever seen”.

Fagan played for 13 years at senior level in Tasmania and coached for a further seven years before joining the AFL to begin what proved to be an 18-year apprenticeship in the AFL as an assistant coach and football administrator at Melbourne and Hawthorn.

It all changed in one phone call from Lions CEO Greg Swann to Fagan in September 2016 that neither will forget and the club will forever treasure.

As Swann recounts: “The first thing ‘Fages’ said to me was “I’m a coach you know. I’ve coached a lot and I’m interested in coaching. I want to be an AFL coach”.

So, a man which only the ardent Queensland football fans had heard of, joined Brett Ratten, John Barker and Brett Montgomery on a shortlist to front a coaching selection panel headed by Swann that included newly-appointed Lions football boss David Noble, list manager Peter Schwab, psychologist Matti Clements and Lions champion Simon Black.

Ratten had played 255 games at Carlton and coached the club for six years, and Montgomery had played 204 games with the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide, and been an assistant-coach for eight years at Carlton and the Western Bulldogs.

And Barker, a 168-game player at Fitzroy, Brisbane and Hawthorn, had been an assistant-coach at St.Kilda, Hawthorn and Carlton for nine years, including a 14-game stint as caretaker coach at Carlton after the sacking of Mick Malthouse in 2015.

But as Black revealed amid the Lions’ 2024 premiership celebrations, it was a no-brainer.

“I had never met him in my life (before the first interview) but within 10 minutes of being in his presence it was almost to the point where I couldn’t care if he knew anything about football,” Black said.

“His manner, his disposition, his authenticity and his care for people, I thought this man is going to be out new coach. He hadn’t coached for 10 years but he was really adamant to us that he was a coach, that was his passion.

“Great organisations are full of great people and ‘Fages’ is obviously one of them … he’s done a great job to pull it all together.”

Black’s generous assessment was in line with a view offered in 2014 by then Melbourne coach Neale Daniher, who had plucked Fagan from Tasmania to become assistant-coach at the Demons in 1998. According to the much-admired Daniher, the 2025 Australian of the Year, it was “the best recruiting decision I made in all my time at Melbourne”.

On 3 October 2016 Fagan was appointed to replace three-time Brisbane premiership player Justin Lepppitsch after his 2014-15-16 stint at the helm had delivered a 14-52 win/loss record and seen the Lions finish 15^th-17^th-17^th.

Things went pretty much as expected under Fagan in 2017-18 as the club rebuilt the football program, restoring a culture built around team and unity, hard work and respect. They had 10 wins and finished 18^th and 15^th.

But since 2019 he’s coached more games and wins than any coach in the League. It’s Fagan (107 wins–2 draws–46 losses-69.9% win ratio) from Chris Scott (101-1-52-66.0%), Hinkley (92-0-55 -62.6%), Luke Beveridge (84-0-63-57.1%), Simon Goodwin (80-1-64-55.6%), Damien Hardwick (77-4-52-59.7%), John Longmire (77-1-59-56.6%), Craig McRae (58-2-24-70.7%), Justin Longmuir (58-2-57–50.4%), Adam Simpson (46-0-78–37.1%), Michael Voss (43-1-37–53.8%), Matthew Nicks (43-1-72-37.4%), Leon Cameron (38-1-37-50.7%), Ross Lyon (37-0-41-47.4%), Sam Mitchell (37-0-43-46.3%), and Adam Kingsley (35-0-26-57.4%).

Since 2019 he’s the only coach to have taken his club to the finals in all six years. It’s Fagan (6) from Chris Scott (5), Beveridge (5), Hinkley (4), Longmire (4), Leon Cameron (4), Hardwick (3), Goodwin (3), Simpson (2), Nathan Buckley (2), Kingsley (2), McRae (2), Voss (2), John Worsfold (1), Longmuir (1), Lyon (1) and Mitchell (1).

And after going 1-5 in his first six finals in 2019-20 he’s gone 8-2 since – including a four-point loss in the 2023 grand final.

Fagan – whose Christian name is actually Christian not Chris - won’t like that the spotlight falls on him and his milestone at a time when his team is coming off a draw and a loss in which they gave up four-goal leads.  It’s not about him, he’d say.

But it would be wrong to ignore such an achievement by a man who has transformed the club and the lives of 93 players he’s coached.

Hugh McCluggage has played 192 of Fagan’s 199 games to head 19 who’ve topped 100 – Harris Andrews and Dayne Zorko (186), Eric Hipwood (177), Jarrod Berry (169), Charlie Cameron (164), Oscar McInerney (159), Cam Rayner and Zac Bailey (150), Lachie Neale (147), Ryan Lester (137), Daniel Rich (132), Darcy Gardiner (126), Lincoln McCarthy (122), Dan McStay (120), Brandon Starcevich (119), Callum Ah Chee (108), Mitch Robinson (105) and Jarrod Lyons (102).

And after he handed McCluggage and Berry their first AFL game in his third as coach he’s debuted 33 others – Cedric Cox, Alex Witherden, Jacob Allison, Sam Skinner, Rayner, Bailey, McInerney, Matt Eagles, Starcevich, Noah Answerth, Mitch Hinge, Deven Robertson, Tom Berry, Connor Ballenden, Jack Payne, Tom Fullarton, Keidean Coleman, Harry Sharp, Jaxon Prior, James Madden, Kai Lohmann, James Tunstill, Carter Michael, Darcy Wilmot, Will Ashroft, Jaspa Fletcher, Logan Morris, Bruce Reville, Shadeau Brain, Henry Smith, Levi Ashcroft, Will McLachlan and Sam Marshall.

He's coached against 38 different coaches – most often Hardwick (14), Goodwin (14), Chris Scott (13), Beveridge (12), Hinkley (11), Stuart Dew (10) and Alastair Clarkson (10). And he’s beaten all but two – Steven King as caretaker coach at Gold Coast in 2023 and Hawthorn’s Sam Mitchell, against whom he is 0-3 in 2022-23-24.

And he’s ticked off a long ‘win’ list against each opposition club …. at home and away.

Last year’s ‘away’ wins over the Western Bulldogs in Round 13, West Coast in Round 18 and Geelong in the preliminary final win were his first ‘away’ win against them to complete the list.

But there’s a technical ‘hole’ in the win list. He’s beaten Hawthorn twice in Launceston but he’s 0-2 against the Hawks at the MCG. So Lions fans will be hoping they can win on Saturday to tick that off together with his first win over coach Mitchell.