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The Western Bulldogs, officially the Footscray Football Club, is an Australian Football League (AFL) club based at the Whitten Oval in West Footscray, an inner western suburb of Melbourne. The club draws its supporter base from this traditionally working class area and plays its home matches at the Etihad Stadium in Melbourne Docklands, also in the city's inner west. Historically one of the league's less successful clubs, both in terms of on-field success and off-field resources, the club has taken significant steps to all but eliminate this stigma. The club has had stable sponsorship and consistently strengthening membership figures (28,725 members in 2007). The Whitten Oval is also undergoing a $20m redevelopment[1] - set to make its headquarters and training facility among the best in the league. In recent years, the club has been finding increasing popularity within the football community for its highly skillful and attacking style of play - a style that saw it reach the semi-finals in 2006 and the preliminary finals 2008 and 2009. When still in the VFA, Footscray was the most dominant team winning 9 premierships.
[edit] Club history Footscray was relatively late in joining the Victorian Football League (VFL), the predecessor of the AFL. It did so in 1925 as the "Footscray Football Club", at the same time as Hawthorn and North Melbourne, all three coming from the Victorian Football Association (VFA). Footscray, also known as the Prince Imperials from 1880-1882, played in the junior division of the VFA before joining the senior division of the VFA in 1886. Following the famed break away of 1896, during which the stronger VFA clubs formed the VFL, the tricolours (as they were known during this period) became a force in the VFA. The club went on to win 9 premierships between 1898 and 1924. This included a hattrick from 1898 to 1900 and four premierships between 1919 and 1924. The 1924 premiership would be Footscray's last in the VFA. The club played against the then premiers of the VFL, Essendon, to be proclaimed the "champion of Victoria". [2]  [edit] 2009 seasonMain article: Western Bulldogs season 2009 Much was expected of the Western Bulldogs following their 3rd-place finish in 2008. They began the season with a 63-point thrashing of Fremantle in Perth, and then recorded solid wins over North Melbourne and Richmond before losing their next three games to West Coast (in Perth), Carlton and St. Kilda who would have won by more than 28 points had it not been for inaccurate goal-kicking. The Bulldogs then notched up their first away win against Adelaide since 2001, kicking eight goals to one in the third quarter to win by 32 points. The following week, they survived a determined effort from Melbourne by 14 points before succumbing to Geelong in one of the games of the season, storming home in the last quarter but failing to take the points when captain Brad Johnson missed from a tight angle after the siren, the Cats prevailing by two points. The narrow loss only seemed to spur the Bulldogs further, and they proceeded to win their next five games, including a 93-point drubbing of Port Adelaide in Darwin and a highly memorable 88-point win over the reigning premiers Hawthorn, 19.19 (133) to 6.9 (45). They led 9.6 (60) to 0.2 (2) at quarter-time and 13.10 (88) to 0.4 (4) at half-time. After a bit of a dip in form including losses to Collingwood, St Kilda and a massive upset against West Coast at home, the Bulldogs rebounded with a hard-fought 18-point against the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba, a win regarded by many fans as the best of the season. This was followed up by an equally impressive 14-point win over Geelong. In the final round of the home-and-away season, the Bulldogs needed to defeat Collingwood by more than 22 points in order to reclaim third place on the ladder. After controlling a tight game for three quarters, the Bulldogs managed to pull away and, with goals to Shaun Higgins and Brad Johnson, emerged victorious by 24 points, thus earning the right to play Geelong in the first week of the finals[3].
[edit] 2010 seasonMain article:Western Bulldogs season 2010 2010 NAB Cup
2010 Australian Football League season
[edit] VFLFootscray adapted relatively quickly to the standard of VFL football despite losing some of their VFA stars, and by 1928 were already a contender for the finals, missing only on percentage in 1931. Though they slipped to eleventh in 1930, 1935 and 1937, the following year they became the first of the new clubs to reach the finals. They fell back drastically in 1939, but during the war-torn 1940s were more consistent than ever, winning their first nine games in 1946. [edit] 1950s and EJIn this period, Footscray failed to win in finals, losing six first semis between 1938 and 1951. In 1953, however, they set a record of conceding only 959 points in the home-and-away games due to a powerful defence featuring Wally Donald, Herb Henderson and Jim Gallagher. They finally won the first semi against Essendon, and the following year took out their only premiership so far, beating Geelong and then Melbourne in the 1954 VFL Grand Final This success was in no small part due to two champions of the club - Charlie Sutton the wily and tough captain-coach at the time, and Ted Whitten snr., otherwise known as 'E.J.' or 'Mr Football', one of Australian Rules' best ever players. Charlie claims to have invented the modern play-on style of football - run, handball, run, kick. Teddy Whitten has been the source of more arguments than any other on who is the greatest player to grace the fields of Australian rules football. Whitten was also famous for his inventive and lightning flick pass ,which was banned due to the umpire's difficulty in distinguishing whether the ball was thrown, or hit with the open hand! However, Footscray failed to capitalise on their premiership success, falling off in the latter part of the decade and finishing with their first wooden spoon in 1959. But they bounced back to reach the 1961 Grand Final where they were beaten by Hawthorn. The rest of the decade was a bleak era for the club, particularly between 1965 and 1969, when they finished in the bottom three every year. [edit] 1970sTed Whitten Snr. retired as a player in 1970 and held the record for the most VFL games played at the time (321 games), but he would continue in a coaching capacity until the end of 1971. The 1970s were relatively better but the club still could not win a final - and by decade's end they were back near the bottom. The main stars of the decade included Gary Dempsey, the heroic ruckman who was badly burnt in Lara bushfire of January 1969 but managed to take out the game's top individual award, the Brownlow Medal in 1975. Promising South Australian import Neil Sachse had his neck broken in a freak accident while playing against Fitzroy at the Western Oval. He was left quadriplegic. In 1978 Kelvin Templeton became the first Bulldogs player to kick 100 goals in a season, including a club record of 15.9 in Round 13 against St. Kilda. [edit] 1980sWith the disappointing 1970's behind it, the club introduced an array of stars during this decade. Simon Beasley became a household name after being recruited from Swan Districts in Western Australia to provide the Bulldogs with a genuine replacement for champion Kelvin Templeton. Beasley was to go on to become the Bulldogs' record goal kicker, and face of the club during the mid '80's. Mick Malthouse was appointed senior coach in 1984, and a dramatic improvement saw them rise to second position in 1985 before a gallant ten-point loss in the Preliminary Final against Hawthorn. The club boasted a wonderful list at this time, with Beasley, Doug Hawkins, Brian Royal, Rick Kennedy, Steve Wallis, Peter Foster, Mick Mclean, Jim Edmond, Andrew Purser, Steve MacPherson and Brad Hardie forming the backbone of a new breed of Bulldog. The Bulldogs also narrowly missed out on finals action in 1987 when they were beaten by Melbourne in the last round, in front of a record crowd at their home ground. [edit] 1989Discontent between players, officials and fans reached an all-time low by the time the 1989 season came round. Barrie Beattie was replaced by businessman and prominent racing personality Nick Columb as Bulldogs president in March. Faced with the prospect of running a club of declining membership and sponsorship, he was also shocked to discover just how bad the debt situation was. While Columb was branded by some as the villain of the story, the wisdom of hindsight shows that had he not instigated the merger, the Western Bulldogs Football Club would cease to exist as it is today.[4][5] The Bulldogs survived a proposed merger with the Fitzroy Lions when the people of Footscray, led by businessman Peter Gordon and a host of others, rallied to raise funds to pay off the club's debts. In further developments, former club player Terry Wheeler was named as Malthouse's replacement while champion veteran wingman Doug Hawkins was appointed captain. [edit] 1990sThe Bulldogs began the new decade and their new lease of life in promising fashion, finishing in seventh place with twelve wins, including one against eventual premiers Collingwood, when rover Steven Kolyniuk ran around the man on the mark and kicked a goal to put his team in front. Although they just missed out on the finals, there was much to look forward to, and the year was capped off with diminutive rover Tony Liberatore winning the Brownlow Medal. After a disappointing 1991, the Bulldogs bounced back in brilliant fashion in 1992, finishing second on the ladder and making their first finals appearance since 1985. Danny Del'Re was a revelation at full forward, while champion veterans Hawkins, Royal, Wallis, Foster and MacPherson helped ensure the club played the most exciting brand of football for many years. Scott Wynd capped a magnificent year with the Brownlow Medal, while Chris Grant and Simon Atkins also had outstanding seasons. In 1994 and 1995, the Bulldogs again made the finals, only to again be eliminated by the Demons and the Cats. Leon Cameron and Danny Southern were stars, but it was a familiar story, with the team tripping at the final hurdles again. In August, club champion Ted Whitten snr. lost his battle with prostate cancer and such was his status in the game that he was given a state funeral. In his honour, the club renamed the Western Oval the Whitten Oval and a memorial statue was erected outside the stadium. Under the tightly focused management by club president David Smorgon, driven coaching by Terry Wallace, and the on-field leadership of Chris Grant (who narrowly missed a Brownlow Medal in 1996 and 1997) and Tony Liberatore, the club had a relatively successful period through the mid- to late 1990s, making the finals from 1997 to 2000. The 1997 season in particular, will be remembered for the club's cruelest loss, losing to eventual premiers Adelaide by two points after leading for much of the game. Rohan Smith, Brad Johnson, Chris Grant, Jose Romero, Paul Hudson and company were catalysts in a fine season, but without a premiership win, the club's future as ever looked on a knife's edge. During Smorgon's term, the club was renamed from Footscray to Western Bulldogs and moved their home games from the Whitten Oval, first to Optus Oval from 1997 to 1999, and then to the newly-built Docklands Stadium for the 2000 season.
[edit] 2000s After Terry Wallace's shock departure at the end of 2002, assistant coach Peter Rohde took charge, but after two miserable seasons, the Bulldogs anticipated a brighter future with the appointment of Rodney Eade as coach in 2005. Improvement was immediate with the Bulldogs winning 11 games and finishing ninth on the ladder in 2005, just missing out on the finals by half a game. Missing the finals dealt a blow to both players and supporters of the team as hot late season form saw the team being considered real premiership contenders, even though a finals berth had not been secured. In 2006, the Bulldogs continued to play well despite a disastrous run of injuries throughout the year; with five players having to have knee reconstructions, including captain Luke Darcy, Robert Murphy and a list of other major injuries to key players. Despite this setback, the Bulldogs finished the home-and-away season with 13 wins (see 2006 AFL season), making it to the finals for the first time since 2000, with Scott West and Brad Johnson continuing their inspirational standards. They won the Elimination Final against Collingwood in front of 84,000 at the MCG and reached the semi-finals before being defeated by eventual Premiers the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco Oval. Many fans expect the club to be potential Premiership contenders in the near future. (See Current AFL ladder) On 5 August 2006, Chris Grant broke the Western Bulldogs record for the most senior AFL/VFL games at the club. On this day he played his 330th game, breaking Doug Hawkins' previous record of 329 games. Looking for new markets, the club had played one game every year at the S.C.G. in Sydney and one home game each year at Marrara Oval in Darwin. On 16 August 2006, the league announced that the Bulldogs' Sydney "home" game would be played at Manuka Oval, Canberra (the country's capital) as of 2007, for the next three years. Prior to the 2007, the Bulldogs made a splash by trading for Brisbane midfielder Jason Akermanis. They were hot Premiership favourites early on in 2007, but yet again injuries took their toll, and they faltered in the last seven rounds, losing six games and drawing one, to finish 13th. In the following pre-season they traded away Jordan McMahon to Richmond and Sam Power to North Melbourne. They also recruited ruckman Ben Hudson and forward Scott Welsh from Adelaide and back Tim Callan from Geelong in what was a very successful trade week. In 2008, the Bulldogs were widely predicted for the bottom four after the pre-season, but have had a successful home-and-away season finishing in third place with fifteen wins, one draw and six losses (five of which occurred in the season's last seven games). The Dogs' finals campaign began with a heavy loss to Hawthorn by 51 points at the MCG in the first qualifying final, but won the subsequent semi-final against Sydney by 37 points. The Bulldogs lost their Preliminary Final match against reigning premiers Geelong. 2009 was a solid year for the Western Bulldogs, finishing the home-and-away season in third place again with fifteen wins. The finals began with a loss against Geelong although they had opportunities. The Dogs followed up the next week with a convincing win against the Lions. But the season ended on a bad note with a brave loss against St. Kilda in the first preliminary final. The Dogs had control and the opportunities, the game will be remembered by most supporters for the controversial down field free kick to Nick Riewoldt in front of goal that changed the game.
[edit] Membership baseSince the 1990s the Western Bulldogs have struggled for membership and financial backing, avoiding folding or merging with another club through heavy subsidisation from the AFL as part of a competitive balance fund. However, in 2006 the Bulldogs broke their membership record and continued to make modest year-on-year increases in membership in 2007 and 2008.
1 Following finals matches 2 Season yet to be played [edit] Honours[edit] VFAPremierships (9)
Runners-up (5)
[edit] VFL/AFL
[edit] Night SeriesPremierships (4)
[edit] Individual awards[edit] Best and FairestMain article: Charles Sutton Medal [edit] Brownlow Medal winnersMain article: Brownlow Medal
*Chris Grant gained most votes in 1997 but was not eligible due to suspension [edit] Leigh Matthews Trophy winnersMain article: Leigh Matthews Trophy
[edit] Coleman Medal winnersMain article: Coleman Medal
[edit] Scott West Most Courageous Player AwardThis is awarded to the player judged to be the most courageous for the season.
[edit] Australian Football Hall of Fame playersMain article: Australian Football Hall of Fame
[edit] Team of the CenturyIn May 2002, the club announced a team of the greatest players from the last century. [edit] Team of the Century
[edit] Club songWestern Bulldogs Club Song is sung to "Sons of the Sea".
Before the Footscray Football Club became the Western Bulldogs, the song used different Lyrics;
[edit] Club jumper
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] References
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