AustralianFootball.com Celebrating the history of the great Australian game
In this first article in a new series examining Footscray's 1974 VFL season – its 50th in the 'big league' – Mic Rees looks back at how the Bulldogs shaped up in the pre-season.
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As Port Melbourne players gather to relive the memories of their 1981 VFA premiership triumph, Mic Rees take a trip down memory lane and to look back at a Borough season of dominance.
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VFA footy and ATV 0 became synonymous in the '70s, and all eyes were on Channel 0 when Dandenong controversially claimed the 1971 flag. Mic Rees takes us back almost 50 years.
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After getting a run in the last quarter of his first game, Harold Martin looked forward to a long VFL career with Fitzroy. But as Mic Rees reveals, Martin's second chance never came.
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They won't be meeting in the 2019 Grand Final, but Richmond and Collingwood put on a hell of a show in the 1973 VFL Preliminary Final. Mic Rees takes us back 46 years.
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Mic Rees takes us back four decades as he profiles the hat-trick of flags won by Port Melbourne in 1980, 1981 and 1982 under the stewardship of captain-coach Gary Brice.
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Mic Rees looks back at the career of one of footy's greatest enigmas, Brent Crosswell, a four-time premiership champion who set the VFL world alight — when he was in the mood.
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As Mic Rees recalls the coaching careers of Norm Smith and Ron Barassi, he looks back at the event that shocked the football world, Barassi's defection from Melbourne to Carlton in 1965.
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Forty years after the season it chronicled, John Powers' classic football documentary The Coach has been re-released. Mic Rees revisits the seminal work.
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Mic Rees makes a very strong case for the belated inclusion of Kelvin Templeton in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
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Mic Rees takes us back to 1980, the year Kelvin Templeton shone in an otherwise dismal year for the Dogs, and took home the Brownlow Medal.
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A week after breaking their Kardinia Park hoodoo in 1972, the Bulldogs tried to break another at Victoria Park. Mic Rees tells the tale.
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Mic Rees takes us back to 1972 and down Geelong Road to see if Footscray could break a 27-year Kardinia Park hoodoo.
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Mic Rees catches up with Ray Walker, a Bulldogs stalwart through the first half of the 1960s. Like some other famous Dogs before him, Walker was a Braybrook boy.
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Almost 30 years ago, Mick Malthouse came very close to taking a team to a Grand Final in just his second season as a VFL coach. Footscray fan Mic Rees recalls the day the Dogs fell just short.
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Mic Rees looks back at the day Footscray put aside the upheavals of a season of woe to kick a then-record VFL score. The star of the show was Kelvin Templeton.
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A chance pick-up of an old photograph allowed "detective" Mic Rees to uncover the story of Footscray's night footy success back in the swingin' sixties.
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A look back at the early days of Mick Malthouse as both player and coach to coincide with the (recent) 40th anniversary of his VFL debut.
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Collingwood storm to an early lead, Carlton steady and record a memorable come from behind victory. Heard it all before? Perhaps not this one.
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I recently caught up with legendary VFA umpire Frank Vergona for a quick chat about the halcyon days of the Association.
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Michael Rees
Ranked Leadership Group ✭✭✭✭
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Joined 13th Jun 2012
Last seen 26th Aug 2014
AFL: To be completed
Local: To be completed
47 year old who has supported the Footscray Football Club since 1971, still hopeful that one day I'll see them play off for the "Big One". Member of the Port Melbourne Football Club for 34 years, the four premierships/Grand Finals won during that period have proved to be the best four days of football I've ever experienced.
Kelvin Templeton (Footscray) Jim Christou and Ryan McMahon (Port Melbourne)
Templeton's day out against St Kilda 1/7/78 1980, 1981, 1982 VFA Grand Finals 2011 VFL Grand Final
