Western Bulldogs
Encyclopedia : W : WE : WES : Western Bulldogs
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| Full name | Western Bulldogs Football Club (Formerly known as Footscray Football Club) |
| Nickname | The Bulldogs |
| Strip | Blue guernsey with red and white horizontal stripes around the midriff with bulldog logo. Blue Shorts. Blue Socks with Red and White trim |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Sport | Australian rules football |
| League | Australian Football League |
| Ground | Telstra Dome |
| Club song | 'Sons of the West' |
| President/Chair | David Smorgon |
| Coach | Rodney Eade |
| Captain | Luke Darcy |
However, contrasting this perception, the Whitten Oval is undergoing a $19.5m redevelopment - set to make its headquarters and training facility among the best in the League.
Club History
It has won only one premiership, while playing in the VFL/AFL, in 1954.This success was in no small part due to two champions of the club - Charlie Sutton the wily and tough Captain/Coach and the club's and one of Australian Rules' best ever players, Ted Whitten, otherwise known as 'Mr Football'. Charlie claims to have invented the modern play on style of football - run, handball, run, kick. While Teddy Whitten has been the source of more arguments on who is the greatest player than any other to grace the fields of Australian Rules Football.
Both before and after 1954 the club struggled to make the final '4' however it almost always managed to hold itself a few games above the 'cellar dwellers' on the ladder.
It had players of both quality and character such as Charlie and Ted, later Gary Dempsey, the heroic ruckman who was badly burnt in bushfires in 1967 but managed to take out the game's top individual award, the Brownlow Medal in 1975. Or Doug Hawkins, the roguish lad as much at home with a beer as taking on the likes of 'Dipper' on the outer wing of the Western Oval - the Doug Hawkins Wing. Even Simon 'the Pieman' Beasley, a deadly accurate full-forward and stockbroker who broke the image of blue collar players at the club.
In the dim distant past (1900 to 1925) the club won a string of premierships in the VFA (nine in total), but after the mightiest clubs had broken away and formed the VFL, the forerunner of the AFL.
Under tightly focussed 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. However, without a premiership win, the club's future as ever looks on a knife's edge.
During Smorgon's term, the club was renamed from Footscray to Western Bulldogs and moved from the Whitten Oval to the Telstra Dome. After Bulldogs legend E.J Whitten died, a memorial statue was erected at the Whitten Oval in his honour.
After a 'quiet' period under former coach Peter Rohde, the Bulldogs are looking to a brighter future with the appointment of Rodney 'Rocket' Eade as coach in 2005. Improvement was immediate with the Bulldogs winning 11 games and finishing 9th on the ladder in 2005, just missing out on the finals by 1/2 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.
The Bulldogs' 2006 season is proving successful - placed 4th (of 16) on the ladder, with 10 wins and 5 losses after 15 rounds. The Bulldogs continue playing well despite a disastrous run of injuries throughout the year, with 4 players having to have knee reconstructions, including captain Luke Darcy, and a list of other major injuries to members of its squad.
Although the club has a large and passionate supporter base, since the 1990s the Western Bulldogs have struggled for membership and financially, avoiding folding or merging with another club through heavy subsidisation from the AFL as part of a competitive balance fund. However, in 2006 the club has broken its membership record, signing up over 26,000 members.
Looking for new markets, the club plays one game every year at the S.C.G. in Sydney and one home game each year at Marrara Oval in Darwin.
Membership Base
In 2006, the Bulldogs broke their membership record. The bulldogs reached their target of 26,000 members only two minutes before the official closing time for all AFL memberships, which was at 5pm on Friday the 30th of June, after starting the day needing 140 new members to achieve the landmark. [link]| Year | Members | Finishing position² |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 20,064 | 3rd |
| 1999 | 20,491 | 5th |
| 2000 | 18,056 | 8th |
| 2001 | 19,085 | 10th |
| 2002 | 20,838 | 12th |
| 2003 | 21,260 | 16th |
| 2004 | 19,295 | 14th |
| 2005 | 21,974 | 9th |
| 2006 | 26,042¹ | |
Individual Awards
- Allan Hopkins (1930)
- Norman Ware (1941)
- Peter Box (1956)
- John Schultz (1960)
- Gary Dempsey (1975)
- Kelvin Templeton (1980)
- Brad Hardie (1985)
- Tony Liberatore (1990)
- Scott Wynd (1992)
- Chris Grant (1998) (Revoked, due to suspension)
- Luke Darcy (2002, with Michael Voss)
- Jack Collins (1957)
- Kelvin Templeton (1978, 1979)
- Simon Beasley (1985)
Current roster
As of April 9, 2006:
- Allan Hopkins (1930)
- Norman Ware (1941)
- Peter Box (1956)
- John Schultz (1960)
- Gary Dempsey (1975)
- Kelvin Templeton (1980)
- Brad Hardie (1985)
- Tony Liberatore (1990)
- Scott Wynd (1992)
- Chris Grant (1998) (Revoked, due to suspension)
- Luke Darcy (2002, with Michael Voss)
- Jack Collins (1957)
- Kelvin Templeton (1978, 1979)
- Simon Beasley (1985)
Current roster
As of April 9, 2006:
- Jack Collins (1957)
- Kelvin Templeton (1978, 1979)
- Simon Beasley (1985)
Current roster
As of April 9, 2006:
|
Cameron Faulkner |
|
Australian Football Hall of Fame Players
Team of the Century
In May 2002, the club announced a team of the greatest players from the last century.
| Backs: | Charlie Sutton | Herb Henderson | John Schultz |
| Half Backs: | Wally Donald | Ted Whitten Senior (captain) | John Jillard |
| Centres: | Harry Hickey | Allan Hopkins | Doug Hawkins (vice-captain) |
| Half Forwards: | Alby Morrison | Kelvin Templeton | Chris Grant |
| Forwards: | Jack Collins | Simon Beasley | George Bisset |
| Followers: | Gary Dempsey | Scott West | Brian Royal |
| Interchange: | Jim Gallagher | Arthur Olliver | Brad Johnson |
| Norm Ware | Tony Liberatore | Scott Wynd | |
| Coach: | Charlie Sutton |
Club Jumper
- This is the current jumper design. The club's 2006 sponsors are Lease Plan and Diadora.
- http://www.footyjumpers.com/
See also
Banners
Historically, the club has allowed supporters to mount banners with groups of supporters getting together to produce and pay for them. The slogans on the banners included:
- C ‘ ‘ n ’scray — a reference to the traditional Australian call of encouragement heard at both the footy and the racetrack of Come On abbreviated to C apostrophe apostrophe n and sometimes mistakenly written as carn. The team name Footscray was called out and written as ‘scray.
- Go the Doggies — a reference to the bulldogs going forward in attack.
External links
- [Official Website of the Western Bulldogs Football Club]
- [myAFL Bulldogs fan forum]
- [Full Points Footy History of the Western Bulldogs Football Club]
- [Footscray Not Western Bulldogs - History of the Footscray Football Club]
- [The Bulldogs Barking]
| Clubs in the Australian Football League |
| Adelaide Crows | Brisbane Lions | Carlton | Collingwood | Essendon | Fremantle | Geelong | Hawthorn Kangaroos | Melbourne | Port Adelaide | Richmond | St Kilda | Sydney Swans | West Coast Eagles | Western Bulldogs Former clubs: Brisbane Bears | Fitzroy | University |
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