A fan's personal journey to a premiership
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This is the Footy Record from round six, 1974, the first game of footy I ever went to (see picture right). I'm very lucky to have still have it. If it wasn't for Mum, I wouldn't. In my late teens I decided that it was time to move on with life and tossed all my old Footy Records into the recycle. All my footy life's little milestones into the bin. What a stupid thing to do.
Fortunately, Mum knew just how stupid. Years later, visiting her back at our old home in Melbourne's western suburbs, I lamented the loss of those Footy Records. Mum didn't say a word but asked me to finish making the cuppas. About a minute later as I poured the tea into our mugs, she returned, arms full. Full of all the Footy Records I thought I had consigned to doom.
"I knew that one day you'd regret throwing them out", she said smiling as she handed them over to me. All of our Mum's are angels but I've always thought that this gesture made my Mum even more of one than everyone else's.
That Footy Record comes from a match which saw Footscray defeat Essendon 17.12.114 to 8.16.64, a very comfortable 50-point win. I look back on that match with a comfortable sense of retrospective satisfaction with a Bulldog win. But it is distinctly retrospective, because when I attended that match on May the 11th, 1974, I did so as a nine-year-old Essendon supporter. And it wasn't until nine years later that I become a fully-fledged mad Bulldog.
As a five-year old, I idolised my brother John, an Essendon fan. I wanted be just like him, to do everything he did, to have everything he had - even his footy team. So I chose the Bombers, despite our local team being Footscray. But right from the beginning, there was a struggle within me about that. The Dogs kept calling me one way or another.
I tried to resist, and to justify my Bomber love. I remember once getting our Melway out and using a ruler to measure the distance from our house in St Albans to both Footscray's ground, Western Oval, and Windy Hill, Essendon's home base. The Doggies' ground was on our train line but I found that if I lined the ruler up in a certain way, I could convince myself that the distance from our house to both grounds was virtually equal as the crow flies.
Nevertheless, the vast majority of the footy games I attended over the next four years were at Footscray, and I came to know and love the players. I was there in 1975 when Neil Sachse, the Dogs' boom recruit from South Australia, crashed headlong into Kevin O'Keeffe and became a quadriplegic. I'll never forget the hush and feeling of dread that came over the crowd as they realised that something very, very serious had happened to this young star.
Heading to the Western Oval became my fortnightly winter ritual. I had one ear to the transistor radio to see how my Bombers were going but my eyes were fixed on the Footscray players and whoever their opposition was on the day. I hadn't realised or accepted it then, but the Dogs were already my team.
I almost escaped their clutches between 1978 and 1982 when my best mate from primary school started inviting me to go to Essendon games with him. There was no equivocating in Peter's mind - he was a mad Bomber. The fortnightly footy trips became journeys to Windy Hill. No longer would I stop and get off at West Footscray; it was on to North Melbourne and then back along the Broadmeadows line, past all the ancient inner suburban houses and out to Essendon.
I grew to enjoy that journey. The Dons of 1978 to 1982 were building, tentatively under Barry Davis but most definitely under Kevin Sheedy, who took over as coach in 1981. Peter and I began to take it all very seriously. The Bombers were going places, and we wanted to get there soon.
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But there were days when the Dons were playing away and I'd make the trip to back to Footscray instead of traipsing all the way out to Waverley or wherever. On those days I'd rejoin my old Doggies mates. Unlike Essendon, Footscray were going nowhere. The Bulldogs lost most weeks and a premiership wasn't even a twinkling in the eye of the fans.
And yet somehow I was enjoying those Western Oval days more than the Windy Hill wins. The Dogs would lose but my mates would all cheer anyway. And what really struck me was that they would laugh. Not at the lamentable losses but in spite of them. Those experiences taught me that the whole footy barracking experience wasn't just about winning flags. Of course, that was important but it was also about mateship, camaraderie, community.
Across that four-year period, one of my Footscray mates, John Weldon, kept badgering me about coming back to the Dogs. "You're not really an Essendon fan. You know your a Bulldogs' man at heart." And I knew somehow he was right. I kept going to Essendon games but by late 1982, I broke the news to Peter that it was all over between me and the Bombers. From the following year, I'd be a Bulldog.
Peter was devastated and I couldn't blame him. I felt guilty for betraying him. It began to tear me apart inside. Peter kept telling me about how close the Dons were to becoming a powerhouse side, to winning a flag. Just before round 22, 1982 I wavered. Essendon was playing Footscray at the Western Oval that Saturday. "Okay", I said to Peter, "how about this? If Essendon kicks 30 goals against Footscray today, I will remain a Bomber."
Peter wasn't impressed. There was no doubt that Essendon, about to head into its second finals campaign under Sheedy, was a far superior side to the Dogs but, in 85 years of VFL footy, the Bombers had never kicked 30 goals in a match. Peter and I watched the first quarter together and at the first break, Footscray was ahead four goals to three. Neither of us doubted the Dons would win but they certainly wouldn't be kicking 30 goals.
Or would they? They added eight goals in the second quarter to make it 11 for the half. Then, in the third term, they went completely wild. While the Dogs added three majors, the Bombers kicked 13! It was as though Peter had had words to them himself at the long break, imploring them to rally to keep his mate from defecting to the other side.
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Essendon only needed six goals to reach the required 30 in the last quarter. They kicked eight. During the following week, I apologised to John and said sorry, but I'd be sticking with the Bombers. I went to Waverley the next week and watched Essendon lose another Elimination Final. The Bombers had lost three in four years and five in 11 years. Lou Richards pronounced that they were suffering from 'eliminitis'.
But the Bombers were a good side getting better. A flag was on the way. I bought an Essendon membership in the pre-season of '83. The Dons had a stuttering start to the season but were getting back on track as we watched them beat Collingwood at Windy Hill in round four.
Something still wasn't right, though. Throughout the last quarter of that match I had my ear to the transistor radio. I was doing the opposite of what I'd done years earlier - watching the Dons but listening with more interest to how the Bulldogs were going against Hawthorn. The Dogs got up in an upset and I found myself wishing that I was there with John and my other mates, not at Windy Hill.
"30-goal promise be damned!", I said to myself. I had to be true to my heart and I knew then and there that my heart was with Footscray. Nine days later, on the ANZAC Day Monday, I found myself at the MCG watching Footscray take on Richmond. It felt right. In an incredible first quarter, the Dogs kicked 10 goals to nil against the might of the Tigers, Grand Finalists only the year before.
It was almost as though the players did it as a welcome home for me. But the Tigers spent the next three quarters closing the gap. In the end, Footscray hung on to win by two points. I realised then that it wasn't just "welcome home", but, "welcome home - your life isn't going to be easy from here but this is where you are meant to be".
Not easy? Talk about an understatement. The next 33 years would deliver quite a few highs and many, many lows. And while the highs were pretty high, they weren't the highest of highs. Some of the lows, though, they were most certainly the lowest of lows. Seven preliminary finals, seven preliminary final losses, some in the most achingly heartbreaking fashion imaginable.
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The first of those losses came in 1985. After years of mediocrity, Footscray appointed Mick Malthouse as coach and in just his second season at the helm, he took the 'Scray to second on the ladder. The Dogs fell 10 points short of Hawthorn in the preliminary final but another boom recruit in the form of Brad Hardie, in his first year in the VFL, won the Brownlow Medal and the future looked bright for the club.
But, barely 12 months later, things were showing signs of falling apart (not for the first or last time in the club's history). Malthouse and Brad Hardie had a falling-out that played out publicly with Hardie ripping off his long-sleeved jumper and gesturing towards the coach's box in the last game of the season. Hardie found himself at the Brisbane Bears the next year and, while Malthouse remained with the Dogs until the end of 1989, the club was struggling on and off the field.
Just how much it was struggling became clear at the end of that 1989 season. Malthouse departed, having spent the entire year (he later said) feeling like he was not wanted there. But Malthouse's departure was the least of the Bulldogs' worries. Crippled by debt, the club was told by the VFL that the only way it could remain part of the league would be to merge with Fitzroy.
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At that stage the VFL (which would become the AFL in the following season) was keen to 'rationalise' the number of clubs in Melbourne and its preferred methodology was via mergers. "The League would have given its right arm for a merger of clubs in Melbourne." Ross Oakley recalls in his book, The Phoenix Rises.¹ The combined club would become the Fitzroy Bulldogs and wear a jumper that was far more Fitzroy than it was Footscray. The club would become a "new force in football", spruiked Oakley in a press conference.
The Footscray faithful were having none of that and, led by a 31-year-old lawyer and passionate Doggies' man by the name of Peter Gordon, the 'Save the Dogs' group was formed. The group challenged via the courts the league's legal right to enforce the merger. And they won. Oakley, who became the public villain in the affair, was stunned by the passion of those who were about to do whatever it took to save Footscray as a club in its own right.
But the Dogs had a debt of $2 million, and this would need to be wiped. Oakley gave the Save the Dogs group an ultimatum. Raise the $2 million and the club would be saved. $2 million is a big ask, but the league turned it into a huge ask by putting a timeframe of just 21 days on the fundraising target. Galvanised, young Peter Gordon swung into action. He organised a rally for the following Sunday.
In several strokes of brilliance, Gordon announced at the rally that he had formed a new board to take the club forward and found a new coach for the team - favourite son Terry Wheeler. He introduced the board, the coach and the players who had committed to the club, each of them met with a deafening roar of approval. And then he introduced Irene Chatfield, a supporter who, with Gordon and a host of other 'rusted on' diehards, had declared that she would not allow her club to die. The roar was even more deafening.¹
Some $700,000 of the required $2 million was raised on that day alone. Over the next three weeks, through the goodwill of those who knew the worth of the club to the community, the funds were raised and the club was saved. Part of those funds were raised through the selling of a bumper sticker that read, simply, "UP YOURS OAKLEY". Oakley was never forgiven for his actions by most Bulldogs fans but these days he counts Peter Gordon - his nemesis in that period of turmoil - as a friend.¹
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With the club saved, Terry Wheeler (right) took over as coach and did a remarkably good job under the circumstances, taking Footscray to another preliminary final in 1992. The Dogs were easily beaten by Geelong but good times appeared to be at hand. Barely 18 months later, though, Wheeler was sacked as coach after a heavy loss (again to Geelong) in round two of the 1994 season. Incredibly, the Dogs had won in round one but it was deemed that Wheeler was not the man to take the club forward.
Over the next two decades, coaches came and went, and the Dogs rose and fell. In 1996, they once again almost fell off the precipice, as clubs everywhere engaged in discussions about potential mergers. Hawthorn and Melbourne came within a whisker of becoming one club between them. Somehow, Footscray survived intact, apart from a name change that saw it become the Western Bulldogs. That change of name was the brainchild of David Smorgon, who took over from Gordon at the end of the 1996 season.
Immediate success almost followed, as the Dogs rose from virtually last in 1996 (only Fitzroy, playing out time before its merger with Brisbane, finished lower) to play in a preliminary final. The Bulldogs led eventual premier Adelaide by almost five goals early in the final quarter of that match but were mown down by the Crows to lose in the most heartbreaking fashion, the final margin just two points.
The following year we got to the prelims again and once more took on the Crows. We thought redemption for 1997 was at hand, but Adelaide put us to the sword and won by 10 goals. So I'd seen four preliminary final losses in 12 years, the Bulldogs unable to take that final step into the Grand Final. But that was only the beginning. The same fate befell us three more times, in 2008, 2009 and 2010 under Rodney Eade.
Seven preliminary finals, seven losses. And I was there for all of them.
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After the three so-near-but-so-far seasons of 2008-2010, the Doggies missed the finals in 2011 and coach Eade departed. The unheralded Brendan McCartney was appointed to take us through a 'rebuild'. We picked up some good players in the draft - Jake Stringer and Marcus Bontempelli, in particular, were supposedly potential future stars. But the Dogs struggled through 2012, 2013 and 2014. By the end of McCartney's third season, there was talk of him having 'lost' most of the players.
In early October 2014, all hell broke loose when captain Ryan Griffen walked out on the club, requesting a trade. President Peter Gordon, who had re-assumed the reigns from Smorgon in 2012, acted quickly and decisively, and coach McCartney was gone with days. Soon after, the CEO was also gone. The club appeared from the outside to be on the verge of implosion.
Then it was announced that we were signing GWS's Tom Boyd as part of the trade for Griffen. We'd be paying for most of Griffen's contract while he played with the Giants AND giving Boyd seven million dollars over seven years. Boyd had been a number one draft pick but he'd played only nine games for GWS and had hardly set the world on fire. Now our club was not only on the verge of implosion but also in danger of becoming a laughing stock.
I remember taking a phone call from one of my close Bulldog buddies, Dave, as the awful drama was playing out. We were both stunned. Numb. Would there be any coming back from here for this club? Little did we know.
Luke Beveridge was appointed coach late in 2014. Most people knew very little about him, but those who did know him knew enough to recommend him to the Western Bulldogs board. The board liked what they heard and were prepared to take a punt on the new man. It proved an inspired choice.
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Everyone who knows even a little bit about footy knows what's happened since 'Bevo' took the coaching reigns. In under two years, he has transformed the Bulldogs from a laughing stock to a powerhouse, and he has done what so many before him couldn't do. Not just take the Bulldogs to a Grand Final but to a premiership, 62 long years after their last one. There are many Doggies fans thought they would never see another flag, particularly in those dark days of 1989 when it look like the club would cease to exist in its own right.
And the mighty Western Bulldogs have broken my drought, too, a lifelong one. Yes, there was a time in my youth when I wasn't quite a Bulldog through and through, but the love for the Doggies really was there all along. (And besides, Essendon went flag-less in the period I thought I was a Bomber fan anyway!)
On the day of the 2016 Grand Final, I celebrated at last with my regular Bulldog buddies, the friends I've been watching the red, white and blue with for so, so long. Two of them, Dave and Zitter, I've known since primary school - longer in fact. We even went to kindergarten together, not too many years after Footscray last made a Grand Final, and the immortal E.J. Whitten was still in charge.
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Incredibly, Dave and Zitter, too, flirted with other teams in the years that I did, Dave with Carlton and Zitter with Richmond. I have no feeling left for Essendon, and Dave none for Carlton (although he still loves Jezza - but then again, who doesn't?). Zitter still has a soft spot for the Tigers. He calls them his mistress, and he'd love to see them do well.
But we are all heart-and-soul Bulldogs and Luke Beveridge and the latest incarnation of the 'Scray has delivered us what we never thought could be possible in 2016, or maybe ever - a flag. An AFL premiership flag. The sounding of the final siren on Grand Final day was the moment we were delivered from a life of misery and torment, as we were enveloped by a sensation of disbelieving elation.
At that moment we were lifted into the air, or so it felt to us. We watched the post-game presentation from cloud nine, our already full hearts expanding further when Beveridge lifted his premiership medallion over his head and placed it over Bob Murphy's. We floated, first to the pub for a couple of celebratory ales, then on to Dave's house, to eat, drink and merrily commemorate the day we thought might never come.
The footy world is a wonderful place today, especially for us fans of the Bulldogs.
Footnotes
1. The Phoenix Rises, by Ross Oakley (with Jonathan Green and Geoff Slattery) (Slattery Media Group 2015) is available for $34.95 at books.slatterymedia.com/
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