The performance remains held in such fondness that a book commemorating the win was released in 2014, shortly after the match's fiftieth anniversary.

The game was remarkable for the extensive, detailed, and well-structured team strategies and player-against-player tactics devised by Clark (the stand-in coach-for-the-day), such that, in addition to Fitzroy playing an ideal game on a very muddy and waterlogged Brunswick Street Oval, the Fitzroy players played an inspired and tenacious game that completely nullified the experienced Geelong champions Polly Farmer and Bill Goggin, preventing them from combining their skills with one another and, in addition, kept Geelong's full-forward John Sharrock goalless for the match.

Today's League game at Fitzroy will see a battle betweentwo acting coaches — Wally Clark for the Maroons andGeelong's Neil Tresize.  .

Geelong’s ruckmen, Graham Farmer, John Watts, JohnYeates and Fred Wooller, should have little trouble winningthe knockouts and holding control in the air.

The game was predicted to be such a one-sided affair that none of the Melbourne radio stations bothered to send a commentator to broadcast the match.

[4] It is also significant that, on the following Saturday morning (13 July 1963) — based upon reports that the majority of the grounds upon which games were scheduled to be played that afternoon "were completely waterlogged" — the VFL’s adverse weather committee made the unanimous decision to postpone all of the Round 11 matches until the following Saturday and, in the process, move each of the season's scheduled rounds to a week later.

[5] The weather that Melbourne experienced over that weekend proved that the committee's decision was well justified — not only did the storms and heavy rainfall cause widespread flooding in the Glenroy (Merlynston Creek) and Elsternwick-Gardenvale (Elwood Canal) areas, extensive power outages over a wide range of suburbs, and the postponement of the entire Grand National Steeple meeting at the low-lying and water-logged Flemington Racecourse, but also forced the closure of the Newport to Altona railway line for several days.

[6][7] In addition to the playing arena itself being rather low-lying and very poorly drained—a situation that meant that whenever there was heavy rain, the Brunswick Street Oval had a strong tendency to be very muddy and seriously waterlogged for weeks on end;[8] the long, thin, and (comparatively) rectangular shape of Fitzroy's home ground, even when completely dry, always demanded significant tactical adjustments in visiting teams, especially those accustomed to playing their matches on wide, and (comparatively) circular-shaped oval football fields such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

[22] In particular, he instructed the comparatively inexperienced ruckman, Bryan Clements — whose last 10 senior games, over three seasons (1961–1963) had been with losing Fitzroy teams, and who had been specifically promoted from the seconds for this special reason — to come in from the right side of Farmer at each bounce and boundary throw-in, bump him, and allow the other (even less experienced) Fitzroy ruckman, Ron Fry (in only his fourth VFL game), to go for the hit-out unimpeded and unchallenged.

[24] Prior to delivering his pre-game address to the team, Wally Clark made sure that each individual player clearly understood and could remember the instructions they had been given on the previous evening.

Clark took the unusual step of opening the Fitzroy rooms to as many of the supporters that could squeeze in — the regular coach, Kevin Murray, routinely excluded all except the players from the change-rooms before the matches and at half-time[25] — and delivered an impressive, inspiring, and stirring speech, continuously interspersed by the ever more raucous cheers and encouragement of the assembled supporters, which sent the players out onto the field fully aroused, motivated, and eager to begin the contest.

[29][30][31][32] According to the football correspondent of The Age, "with eight men in the side who had not played in the previous round, the eager Lions outplayed Geelong in every phase of the game .

[27][28] Given Wally Clark's specific pre-match instructions, it is significant that, not only did "the Lions' plan to nullify star ruckman Polly Farmer .

[but also] Farmer's eclipse [not only] made hard work for the Geelong rovers Bill Goggin and Tony Polinelli [but], at the same time, turned Fitzroy rover John Hayes into a damaging player",[28] and, as well, although they kicked a number of behinds (Hamer, one; Sharrock, three, and Polinelli, four), none of Geelong's left-footers scored a single goal during the game.

This extraordinary performance, undoubtedly a consequence of Wally Clark’s meticulous planning, strongly contrasts with the fact that not only did Fitzroy fail to win another match during the entire 1963 home-and-away season and, as well, fail to win a single match in the 1964 season, it did not experience another victory until the second round of the 1965 season under its new non-playing coach, Bill Stephen, who had returned to Fitzroy after spending seven years as captain-coach and, later, non-playing coach of the Yarrawonga Football Club in the Ovens & Murray Football League — in other words, given that Kevin Murray did not coach the team on that day, the Fitzroy team was absolutely winless for Murray's entire two-season and 34-match captain-coach career (1963–1964).