Reptilia
Club Legend
We are safe. King just tipped Sydney and said we have already played our grand final.
-
AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
What They're Saying - The Bulldogs Media Thread - Part 2
- Thread starter Metal
- Start date
- Tagged users None
- Status
WallyStringhaus
Club Legend
- Aug 27, 2015
- 1,150
- 5,280
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
I know right...when Zach was at Grantland the stuff he was doing was mind blowing. Every second day he was posting these insightful and intricate articles of epic proportion and I'm thinking to myself, how can this guy continue to knock out article after article of consistently great writing and content and our 'experts' might do one column per week and it's absolute drivel...lazy is the perfect word for it!
Didn't he say that last week?
it speaks of how shit our media industry is that i'm weighing up even watching AFL round table at 8.30pm because i'm worried i'll think everything said is nonsense and i'll just get frustrated. And it's bloody GF week, when a fan should be able to lap up the exposure!
If anyone missed Mitch's appearance on Fox last night the dogs site posted it earlier - http://www.westernbulldogs.com.au/video/2016-09-28/wallis-goes-on-the-couch
NBates
Brownlow Medallist
Megalo, megalo, megalo..or sommit like that
Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
pappy
Senior List
David King has no idea, probably the most overrated analyst at fox. Kane Kornes impresses me, I think he has a big future.
Just like we did after beating the Eagles in Perth. And then knocking out the Hawks at the G. That's 3 GF wins in a row....beat the Swans and we match the Pies 4 in a row.
The ridiculous thing about King is that early in the season before the injuries started to have an effect on our game, he was raving about our contested and uncontested possession differential, and how much better it was than everyone else. Now that we are back to playing that brand of football (with a lot of our midfield grunt/class back in the team), the so called experts like King are somehow surprised by our success, and underestimating our chances every week.
zucvv
Team Captain
- Aug 24, 2013
- 406
- 798
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
Jason Johannisen says former Western Bulldogs coach Brendan McCartney had big influence
MICHAEL WARNER, Herald Sun
an hour ago
Subscriber only
WESTERN Bulldogs speedster Jason Johannisen believes former coach Brendan McCartney deserves some credit for his side’s stunning Grand Final run.
Johannisen said the club’s transformation since the chaos of late 2014 had been “a bit surreal”.
“Time has gone so fast,” Johannisen told the Herald Sun.
BACK-TO-BACK: BEVERIDGE TAKES OUT COACH OF THE YEAR
DECISION TIME: ROUGHEAD ON MEND BUT HEARTBREAK LOOMS
“Macca had a big influence on the young players because he did have a good game-style and he taught us a lot about contested ball, which we pride ourselves on.
“He had a big impact on that. The foundation was there and Bevo (Luke Beveridge) has put that extra touch and extra belief into the players that we can play some good footy.”
Johannisen, 23, was eight years old when his parents moved from Johannesberg to Perth “to give me and my sister a better opportunity”.
Brendan McCartney talks to his players. Picture: Sarah Reed
“Growing up in South Africa, all I knew was rugby, so that’s what I started playing in Perth as a junior,” Johannisen says.
“My cousin was playing footy at the time and they needed some extra numbers and that’s when I went across and played and fell in love with the game.”
Macca had a big influence on the young players because he did have a good game-style and he taught us a lot about contested ball.
Jason Johannisen
He was always blessed with speed, but was not a walk up to the AFL.
“I was in a couple of development squads but wasn’t really that good a player,” he said.
“My junior coach at the time had a relationship with East Fremantle and he got me over there to try out for the under 18s and the coach at the time, Steve Malaxos, was like, ‘Yeah, we believe you can play Colts’ ... and we ended up winning the under 18s Grand Final that year and I got rookie picked by the Western Bulldogs.”
For all his dash and dare, Johannisen is a self-confessed confidence player.
Jason Johannisen in action during the preliminary final. Picture: Michael Klein
“I like a lot of positive reinforcement,” he admits.
“Early in my career I struggled for self-belief, but at the minute I’m just sky-high and just believe I can play some good footy for the team and help them get a win.
“As soon as Bevo came in to our club his first thing was about building relationships with the players.
“It’s just the care he has for everyone and he knows how to get the best out of us.”
Johannisen polled six Brownlow votes in the first two games of this season, but feared his year was over when he severely ripped his hamstring against Carlton in Round 4.
“Initially they thought it was off the bone but there was just a hole in the tendon and we went to the surgeon and he told us to go with the conservative approach and not have surgery and I could come back in two months, and that’s what we did,” he said.
Current coach Luke Beveridge at Western Bulldogs training.
Beveridge rushed him straight back into the seniors and he kicked the match-winning goal with just seconds to go to pip Sydney in Round 15.
“JJ” lives alone at a house he’s built at Maidstone and spends his spare time buying clothes.
“Since I’ve moved to Melbourne I’ve just really got into the lifestyle of fashion,” he says.
“It was about two years ago really when I felt settled in. I just love the new trends.
“Instagram is probably the best tool for that. I follow heaps of trendy pages and it’s just something on the side that I do.
“We get paid monthly, so usually once a month I’ll have a big shop.”
How much would you spend?
“I wouldn’t tell you that ... but probably too much.”
He said mateship among the 42 listed Bulldogs players was a secret to their success.
“The care in this group is unbelievable,” Johannisen say.
“We are like a big second family and it’s just great to be a part of.
“We don’t just hang around at the footy club, we know everyone’s family outside of footy, too.”
MICHAEL WARNER, Herald Sun
an hour ago
Subscriber only
WESTERN Bulldogs speedster Jason Johannisen believes former coach Brendan McCartney deserves some credit for his side’s stunning Grand Final run.
Johannisen said the club’s transformation since the chaos of late 2014 had been “a bit surreal”.
“Time has gone so fast,” Johannisen told the Herald Sun.
BACK-TO-BACK: BEVERIDGE TAKES OUT COACH OF THE YEAR
DECISION TIME: ROUGHEAD ON MEND BUT HEARTBREAK LOOMS
“Macca had a big influence on the young players because he did have a good game-style and he taught us a lot about contested ball, which we pride ourselves on.
“He had a big impact on that. The foundation was there and Bevo (Luke Beveridge) has put that extra touch and extra belief into the players that we can play some good footy.”
Johannisen, 23, was eight years old when his parents moved from Johannesberg to Perth “to give me and my sister a better opportunity”.
Brendan McCartney talks to his players. Picture: Sarah Reed
“Growing up in South Africa, all I knew was rugby, so that’s what I started playing in Perth as a junior,” Johannisen says.
“My cousin was playing footy at the time and they needed some extra numbers and that’s when I went across and played and fell in love with the game.”
Jason Johannisen
He was always blessed with speed, but was not a walk up to the AFL.
“I was in a couple of development squads but wasn’t really that good a player,” he said.
“My junior coach at the time had a relationship with East Fremantle and he got me over there to try out for the under 18s and the coach at the time, Steve Malaxos, was like, ‘Yeah, we believe you can play Colts’ ... and we ended up winning the under 18s Grand Final that year and I got rookie picked by the Western Bulldogs.”
For all his dash and dare, Johannisen is a self-confessed confidence player.
Jason Johannisen in action during the preliminary final. Picture: Michael Klein
“I like a lot of positive reinforcement,” he admits.
“Early in my career I struggled for self-belief, but at the minute I’m just sky-high and just believe I can play some good footy for the team and help them get a win.
“As soon as Bevo came in to our club his first thing was about building relationships with the players.
“It’s just the care he has for everyone and he knows how to get the best out of us.”
Johannisen polled six Brownlow votes in the first two games of this season, but feared his year was over when he severely ripped his hamstring against Carlton in Round 4.
“Initially they thought it was off the bone but there was just a hole in the tendon and we went to the surgeon and he told us to go with the conservative approach and not have surgery and I could come back in two months, and that’s what we did,” he said.
Current coach Luke Beveridge at Western Bulldogs training.
Beveridge rushed him straight back into the seniors and he kicked the match-winning goal with just seconds to go to pip Sydney in Round 15.
“JJ” lives alone at a house he’s built at Maidstone and spends his spare time buying clothes.
“Since I’ve moved to Melbourne I’ve just really got into the lifestyle of fashion,” he says.
“It was about two years ago really when I felt settled in. I just love the new trends.
“Instagram is probably the best tool for that. I follow heaps of trendy pages and it’s just something on the side that I do.
“We get paid monthly, so usually once a month I’ll have a big shop.”
How much would you spend?
“I wouldn’t tell you that ... but probably too much.”
He said mateship among the 42 listed Bulldogs players was a secret to their success.
“The care in this group is unbelievable,” Johannisen say.
“We are like a big second family and it’s just great to be a part of.
“We don’t just hang around at the footy club, we know everyone’s family outside of footy, too.”
dogwatch
Premium Platinum
That's a bit harsh.
He's entitled to his opinions on the media - and the reaction to the media - just as you are. Surely we don't need a separate thread for "what we're saying about what they're saying"?
I'm sorry if you think that's telling you to pull your head in.
I'll say this about the Macca era: Everything that happened as a result of it has led us to this point.
Sure, it was real bad at times. I could probably go on about his flaws, of which there were many, but that doesn't matter any more. Because everything worked out so poorly under him, it allowed as at just the right time to pursue the best coach this club has ever had; and obviously we're now playing in a grand final. If things don't go to shit in 2014, Bevo would probably be helping the Saints to a grand final or something. Consider that.
Just funny how football works sometimes.
Sure, it was real bad at times. I could probably go on about his flaws, of which there were many, but that doesn't matter any more. Because everything worked out so poorly under him, it allowed as at just the right time to pursue the best coach this club has ever had; and obviously we're now playing in a grand final. If things don't go to shit in 2014, Bevo would probably be helping the Saints to a grand final or something. Consider that.
Just funny how football works sometimes.
Has anyone heard of a guy called Patrick Dangerfield? He's kind of like Geelong's version of Jong.
Jong's a better kick.
Norm De Guerre
Left of the dial.
Veteran
10k Posts
Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale Player Sponsor 2021
Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards Player Sponsor 2021
Western Bulldogs - Ed Richards 2019 Player Sponsor
Western Bulldogs - Bailey Dale 2019 Player Sponsor
Western Bulldogs - Mitch Honeychurch Player Sponsor 2018
Western Bulldogs - Nathan Mullenger-McHugh Player Sponsor 2018
- Mar 27, 2004
- 12,529
- 37,970
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Australian Farnarkling XI
Champion Data spoon feed him. Its no coincidence that they have both risen in the public eye at the same time.
- Sep 22, 2008
- 25,524
- 34,636
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Banned
- #1,066
Love JJ. Will be a bulldog for life, great to hear that he loves Melbourne.
Most exciting player in the AFL but he's so much more than that too. Just as confident in him when defending as anyone else bar Moz in our backline.
Most exciting player in the AFL but he's so much more than that too. Just as confident in him when defending as anyone else bar Moz in our backline.
Is it just me or has Barry Hall just contradicted himself saying "I'm not a Western Bulldogs man, I'm a Swans man....."
Sounds a lot different to what he was saying a couple of weeks ago.
On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
Sounds a lot different to what he was saying a couple of weeks ago.
On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
ThirdLegUp
Premiership Player
- Apr 29, 2013
- 4,086
- 6,680
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
Time impacts these things massively, albeit slowly.
Brian lake also said he is currently a hawk, but recognises that this opinion may change in time when he has no personal relationships with the players left, meaning they are all or mostly gone and a new hawthorn team emerges. Might have been the same for Hall straight after retiring, plus the not so glorious exit from the swans. Those wounds heal with time, though. But hall was a bulldog supporter before being drafted, and it was the dogs who gave him a chance when he was a periah and allowed him to be remembered in a better light when he finished. Considering himself a swan, who he captained to a premiership after a longer draught then ours doesn't mean he has any less love for the dogs.
- Sep 7, 2015
- 16,156
- 38,090
- AFL Club
- Tasmania
Baz is absolutely roided out of his mind these days and doesnt know what hes saying. Hes a bulldogs man. Always has beeen and always will be.
- Jun 17, 2014
- 13,098
- 20,670
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- ASADA
Anybody have HS subscription?
Your club’s season on a banner
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscri...9a66ff6e026d94b1f6ae6eb0cbc&memtype=anonymous
Your club’s season on a banner
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscri...9a66ff6e026d94b1f6ae6eb0cbc&memtype=anonymous
Bont2Bruce
Ready to rumble
- Mar 15, 2012
- 11,242
- 26,285
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- Footscray, Melbourne City
Danny McGinlay’s banner for your club this season
Danny McGinlay, Herald Sun
September 29, 2016 11:00am
MY TEAM is in the Grand Final. I’ve never got to write that sentence before! I’m going to write it again. My. Team. Is. In. The. Grand. Final.
I always tried to imagine what this would be like. It’s even better than I thought! I want to savour every single microsecond. I feel pressure because this is the week I will talk about with other footy fans for the rest of my life.
The first Grand Final I remember was 1987, Carlton beating Hawthorn.
Since then I have watched every single one and I have seen 14 of the 18 AFL clubs compete on the big day.
After Saturday it’ll be 15 of the 18; leaving only Gold Coast, GWS and Richmond as the virgin clubs… oh man can you imagine Tiger fans if they made the Grand Final?
It would be like the opening scenes of Dawn of the Dead.
Anyway, my point is I know what it’s like to not be in the Grand Final.
You feel a bit left out and it’s not fun.
So I have decided, as a little gift to footy fans who don’t support the Dogs or the Swans, I’ll give you one final taste of the excitement of seeing your team run out onto the ground.
Picture it, your song is blaring, your heart is thumping and then your lads run out.
The big banner goes up .. and it would say (in ladder order)....
GEELONG
HAWTHORN
GWS
ADELAIDE
WEST COAST
NORTH MELBOURNE
ST KILDA
PORT ADELAIDE
MELBOURNE
COLLINGWOOD
RICHMOND
CARLTON
GOLD COAST
FREMANTLE
BRISBANE
ESSENDON
On Saturday you will read the final Bulldogs banner for the year, I hope you like it.
I for one, also can’t wait to see which corporate sponsor adorns the Sydney banner.
GO DOGS!
Contact me on twitter @dannymcginlay and Instagaram@bulldogsbannerman
I also have a DVD out, available at my website dannymcginlay.com
Danny McGinlay, Herald Sun
September 29, 2016 11:00am
MY TEAM is in the Grand Final. I’ve never got to write that sentence before! I’m going to write it again. My. Team. Is. In. The. Grand. Final.
I always tried to imagine what this would be like. It’s even better than I thought! I want to savour every single microsecond. I feel pressure because this is the week I will talk about with other footy fans for the rest of my life.
The first Grand Final I remember was 1987, Carlton beating Hawthorn.
Since then I have watched every single one and I have seen 14 of the 18 AFL clubs compete on the big day.
After Saturday it’ll be 15 of the 18; leaving only Gold Coast, GWS and Richmond as the virgin clubs… oh man can you imagine Tiger fans if they made the Grand Final?
It would be like the opening scenes of Dawn of the Dead.
Anyway, my point is I know what it’s like to not be in the Grand Final.
You feel a bit left out and it’s not fun.
So I have decided, as a little gift to footy fans who don’t support the Dogs or the Swans, I’ll give you one final taste of the excitement of seeing your team run out onto the ground.
Picture it, your song is blaring, your heart is thumping and then your lads run out.
The big banner goes up .. and it would say (in ladder order)....
GEELONG
HAWTHORN
GWS
ADELAIDE
WEST COAST
NORTH MELBOURNE
ST KILDA
PORT ADELAIDE
MELBOURNE
COLLINGWOOD
RICHMOND
CARLTON
GOLD COAST
FREMANTLE
BRISBANE
ESSENDON
On Saturday you will read the final Bulldogs banner for the year, I hope you like it.
I for one, also can’t wait to see which corporate sponsor adorns the Sydney banner.
GO DOGS!
Contact me on twitter @dannymcginlay and Instagaram@bulldogsbannerman
I also have a DVD out, available at my website dannymcginlay.com
- May 21, 2008
- 5,219
- 4,801
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Other Teams
- NZ Breakers / New York Knicks
Anyone have any idea about what kind of financial benefit the dogs would make from not only the last 3 finals games, but also the grand final? (Excluding sponsorship money ) just Money from the actual games?
Think the winner gets 1.2 mil, runner up 660k. Think that's just prize money, not revenue from attendance & stuff, not sure.
Would imagine that the real money comes from growth in membership, sponsorship etc.
- Thread starter
- #1,075
A lovely article.
Opinion
‘They've faced sadness and defeat and loss.’ And now the Bulldogs are in the grand final
Gay Alcorn
It’s hard not to be swept up in AFL grand final week in Melbourne, to believe in the stories of struggle and hope and faith. And this year, they’re all true
‘The Western Bulldogs are in the grand final: the team the league tried to destroy in 1989 because it wanted mergers of Victorian clubs as it forged a national competition.’ Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
Thursday 29 September 2016 16.36 AEST
Raising my eyebrows, I could tell you a lot about Melbourne during grand final week. The city goes into itself, as though it’s the centre of the world, as though nothing else of importance is happening. No feel-good story is too trivial, no chasing down old footballers with tales of past glories too much effort, no dressing up houses with balloons and bunting too kitsch, no telling adults that painting your face in a team’s colours needs to stop at age 10.
I could tell you that one of the great joys of living in Melbourne is reading football commentary in grand final week. Columnists try hard to be literary (this is Melbourne and we expect it), straining to portray AFL football as a metaphor for life and struggle, for faith and hope. It’s hard not to be swept up in it, to believe in it. Only in moments of sanity do you recall that, well, it’s a game. Grand final week is Melbourne at its most silly, and most wonderful.
And yet, I can’t be arch this week, even in the Guardian. This week, it’s all true, or I’m prepared to believe it is. That bit about heroes and life and struggle, and fairytales and dreams and real people winning over the corporates.
The Western Bulldogs are in the grand final: the team the league tried to destroy in 1989 because it wanted mergers of Victorian clubs as it forged a national competition. Footscray, as the team was then called, had been around since the 1880s. It was dead broke, its facilities shabby and attendances at its games were dwindling.
The media reported its demise as though it was a fait accompli. “Footscray is in its death throes,” wrote one journalist. Another called up psychiatrists who worried that the club’s disappearance would exacerbate the “bitterness and isolation” already felt in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
But the team and its supporters resisted. People without much money gave whatever they could – the stories about pensioners tipping in a few dollars and children emptying their piggy banks would move a hard heart. And it survived, and has survived again and again, through more turmoil and heartbreak than most, without much support from the AFL, through decades of living on the edge of financial catastrophe in an era when money rules.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
The Bulldogs thank their supporters in the crowd during a training session at Whitten Oval on Thursday. Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
The team with its headquarters and heart in the western suburbs, Melbourne’s industrial heartland, that welcomed waves of migrants pouring in after the second world war and now refugees arriving with nothing but hope. The west is gentrifying close to the CBD but further out it’s still Struggletown, with high youth unemployment, drug problems and dwindling manufacturing jobs. A place that if not luckless, has to make its own luck.
A team that has battled on the ground too, more than most. A team that has not been in a grand final for 55 years – and it lost. A team whose single premiership was in 1954, when Robert Menzies was prime minister.
How can you coolly observe this grand final when talking to Susan Alberti, the club’s vice president, who has given away millions for good causes and who has as much as anyone driven the push for a women’s league? Her voice breaks when I ask her on the phone what it will mean if the Bulldogs win on Saturday.
“I just can’t wait to see the faces of all those people who have never given up,” she says. “They have faced sadness and defeat and loss. To see those faces light up, that’s what I want to see.
“I know how much some of them struggle. Some of them save up their pension, they don’t have the money, they pay (membership) by the month. Some of them are very old, they are on walking sticks, salt of the earth, wonderful, wonderful, people.”
I find my voice shaking a little, too, and tell her I have bought my “I’m on the Western Bulldogs Bandwagon” badge at the club’s merchandise store – a shop doing a roaring trade in scarves, beanies, flags, pyjamas, even a men’s skincare range. The Bulldogs are not my team, and Melburnians like to get behind any local team playing against a Sydney team – unless you’re a Swans supporter, of course. But this year, there is an extra emotional charge, something beyond parochialism.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Photograph: Gay Alcorn for the Guardian
It’s about history, long hard history, in an era of instant everything. It’s about Australian myths of egalitarianism, and underdogs and battlers. It’s about what sport used to mean. It’s about class, when we’re all supposed to be classless. Anthony Dowsley in the Herald Sun put it this way:
This team has taken on the powerful, the moneyed, on their own turf and, through sheer will, prevailed. After whipping last year’s grand finalist and then the triple premier, the club that capitalism tried to destroy defeated the team that capitalism built ... it is raging against the machine.
And it’s about that old-fashioned word, community. I cross the river to the club’s headquarters in Footscray to meet Les Twentyman, a youth worker who for decades has looked after disadvantaged kids in the west. We meet in the club’s cafe, Barkers. Everyone is welcome, and the place is packed. People wander around, talking to each other, grinning.
The cafe’s glass wall looks right over the Whitten Oval, and some people go outside and stare at it, or sit in the stands. Twentyman has lived in the west all his life, and he saw early that the love of football could be harnessed for good. For 33 years his youth foundation has run a Christmas party for children who would otherwise receive no presents – for the past two years, coach Luke Beveridge turned up on Christmas morning to hand out gifts.
“This is a massive buzz,” Twentyman says. “As I was driving here, I saw the traffic stop signs all coloured in red, white and blue. When you’re dealing with areas that are haemorrhaging with massive social issues around youth unemployment, homelessness, drug issues, gang issues, this is something that puts it all in the back seat.”
Peter Gordon comes up to shake Les’ hand – they are cousins. Gordon is the club’s president and as much as anyone led the heroic effort to avoid a merger in 1989. He’s a lefty lawyer, looks a bit like a Bulldog, and is well-known for his David and Goliath legal cases on behalf of victims of asbestos, thalidomide and tobacco companies. He is also a smart businessman who has long since made peace with the AFL, but he’s a true believer in Bulldog values.
“I don’t think there are many other clubs who open up their club to the community like we do,” he says, looking around the cafe. “You’ve got these big glass doors which open out straight out onto the oval. That is an intentional symbol of openness and access.” The club invests in its community, with men’s health programs, involvement in 38 schools across the western suburbs, and settlement services that look after new refugees.
He contrasts the Bulldogs with Carlton in the 1980s. “Under John Elliott’s leadership they were really trying to recreate an American franchise where they had dancing girls in short skirts that they called the bluebirds, and very high net worth corporate functions.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
‘I don’t think there are many other clubs who open up their club to the community like we do.’ Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
“Our philosophy was we can’t match that, we don’t seek to match it, what we seek to do is emphasise and prioritise the core values of our club. It ain’t a lot more complex than that. We try to do things in the community that are helpful, to be as open to the community as possible, and we’ve done it for a long time.” As for those jumping on the Bulldog bandwagon this week, they’re all welcome, he says with a smile. The bandwagon is big enough.
Martin Flanagan, one of the most beautiful writers about football, wrote a book about the Bulldogs in 1994. He tells stories about its working class roots and values, including the rejection of a new recruit in the 1930s because he was a strike breaker. “In the old days, if you weren’t a unionist you didn’t get a game.”
Flanagan says that in the last couple of years, a luckless team finally had a bit of luck, with a brilliant coach, a gifted captain, and a new purpose to the way they play.
“Footy is entertainment, and they are really exciting to watch,” he says.
They go into the final series and no one thinks they can win against West Coast in Perth. No one thinks they can beat Hawthorn, they do them, no one thinks they can do GWS in Sydney, they do them.
This could be the best grand final in years.
The strength of the two teams, Sydney playing its most attractive football in years, and the emotion of the Bulldogs story.
It might be an anti-climax, of course. The Bulldogs are the underdogs, of course. And it’s only a game, of course. Just to reach the grand final has burst a Bulldog dam of emotion, with supporters, officials, old players, new players, weeping uncontrollably when the team defeated GWS last weekend.
But who knows? It might turn out to be a fairytale, one that comes true in a cynical age. As Herald Sun sports journalist Rod Reed wrote this week, “if the boys from old Footscray can go all the way it will be the most popular premiership since … well, maybe ever.”
Over the top, perhaps, but maybe not. Woof woof.
Opinion
‘They've faced sadness and defeat and loss.’ And now the Bulldogs are in the grand final
Gay Alcorn
It’s hard not to be swept up in AFL grand final week in Melbourne, to believe in the stories of struggle and hope and faith. And this year, they’re all true
‘The Western Bulldogs are in the grand final: the team the league tried to destroy in 1989 because it wanted mergers of Victorian clubs as it forged a national competition.’ Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
Thursday 29 September 2016 16.36 AEST
Raising my eyebrows, I could tell you a lot about Melbourne during grand final week. The city goes into itself, as though it’s the centre of the world, as though nothing else of importance is happening. No feel-good story is too trivial, no chasing down old footballers with tales of past glories too much effort, no dressing up houses with balloons and bunting too kitsch, no telling adults that painting your face in a team’s colours needs to stop at age 10.
I could tell you that one of the great joys of living in Melbourne is reading football commentary in grand final week. Columnists try hard to be literary (this is Melbourne and we expect it), straining to portray AFL football as a metaphor for life and struggle, for faith and hope. It’s hard not to be swept up in it, to believe in it. Only in moments of sanity do you recall that, well, it’s a game. Grand final week is Melbourne at its most silly, and most wonderful.
And yet, I can’t be arch this week, even in the Guardian. This week, it’s all true, or I’m prepared to believe it is. That bit about heroes and life and struggle, and fairytales and dreams and real people winning over the corporates.
The Western Bulldogs are in the grand final: the team the league tried to destroy in 1989 because it wanted mergers of Victorian clubs as it forged a national competition. Footscray, as the team was then called, had been around since the 1880s. It was dead broke, its facilities shabby and attendances at its games were dwindling.
The media reported its demise as though it was a fait accompli. “Footscray is in its death throes,” wrote one journalist. Another called up psychiatrists who worried that the club’s disappearance would exacerbate the “bitterness and isolation” already felt in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
But the team and its supporters resisted. People without much money gave whatever they could – the stories about pensioners tipping in a few dollars and children emptying their piggy banks would move a hard heart. And it survived, and has survived again and again, through more turmoil and heartbreak than most, without much support from the AFL, through decades of living on the edge of financial catastrophe in an era when money rules.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
The Bulldogs thank their supporters in the crowd during a training session at Whitten Oval on Thursday. Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
The team with its headquarters and heart in the western suburbs, Melbourne’s industrial heartland, that welcomed waves of migrants pouring in after the second world war and now refugees arriving with nothing but hope. The west is gentrifying close to the CBD but further out it’s still Struggletown, with high youth unemployment, drug problems and dwindling manufacturing jobs. A place that if not luckless, has to make its own luck.
A team that has battled on the ground too, more than most. A team that has not been in a grand final for 55 years – and it lost. A team whose single premiership was in 1954, when Robert Menzies was prime minister.
How can you coolly observe this grand final when talking to Susan Alberti, the club’s vice president, who has given away millions for good causes and who has as much as anyone driven the push for a women’s league? Her voice breaks when I ask her on the phone what it will mean if the Bulldogs win on Saturday.
“I just can’t wait to see the faces of all those people who have never given up,” she says. “They have faced sadness and defeat and loss. To see those faces light up, that’s what I want to see.
“I know how much some of them struggle. Some of them save up their pension, they don’t have the money, they pay (membership) by the month. Some of them are very old, they are on walking sticks, salt of the earth, wonderful, wonderful, people.”
I find my voice shaking a little, too, and tell her I have bought my “I’m on the Western Bulldogs Bandwagon” badge at the club’s merchandise store – a shop doing a roaring trade in scarves, beanies, flags, pyjamas, even a men’s skincare range. The Bulldogs are not my team, and Melburnians like to get behind any local team playing against a Sydney team – unless you’re a Swans supporter, of course. But this year, there is an extra emotional charge, something beyond parochialism.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Photograph: Gay Alcorn for the Guardian
It’s about history, long hard history, in an era of instant everything. It’s about Australian myths of egalitarianism, and underdogs and battlers. It’s about what sport used to mean. It’s about class, when we’re all supposed to be classless. Anthony Dowsley in the Herald Sun put it this way:
This team has taken on the powerful, the moneyed, on their own turf and, through sheer will, prevailed. After whipping last year’s grand finalist and then the triple premier, the club that capitalism tried to destroy defeated the team that capitalism built ... it is raging against the machine.
And it’s about that old-fashioned word, community. I cross the river to the club’s headquarters in Footscray to meet Les Twentyman, a youth worker who for decades has looked after disadvantaged kids in the west. We meet in the club’s cafe, Barkers. Everyone is welcome, and the place is packed. People wander around, talking to each other, grinning.
The cafe’s glass wall looks right over the Whitten Oval, and some people go outside and stare at it, or sit in the stands. Twentyman has lived in the west all his life, and he saw early that the love of football could be harnessed for good. For 33 years his youth foundation has run a Christmas party for children who would otherwise receive no presents – for the past two years, coach Luke Beveridge turned up on Christmas morning to hand out gifts.
“This is a massive buzz,” Twentyman says. “As I was driving here, I saw the traffic stop signs all coloured in red, white and blue. When you’re dealing with areas that are haemorrhaging with massive social issues around youth unemployment, homelessness, drug issues, gang issues, this is something that puts it all in the back seat.”
Peter Gordon comes up to shake Les’ hand – they are cousins. Gordon is the club’s president and as much as anyone led the heroic effort to avoid a merger in 1989. He’s a lefty lawyer, looks a bit like a Bulldog, and is well-known for his David and Goliath legal cases on behalf of victims of asbestos, thalidomide and tobacco companies. He is also a smart businessman who has long since made peace with the AFL, but he’s a true believer in Bulldog values.
“I don’t think there are many other clubs who open up their club to the community like we do,” he says, looking around the cafe. “You’ve got these big glass doors which open out straight out onto the oval. That is an intentional symbol of openness and access.” The club invests in its community, with men’s health programs, involvement in 38 schools across the western suburbs, and settlement services that look after new refugees.
He contrasts the Bulldogs with Carlton in the 1980s. “Under John Elliott’s leadership they were really trying to recreate an American franchise where they had dancing girls in short skirts that they called the bluebirds, and very high net worth corporate functions.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
‘I don’t think there are many other clubs who open up their club to the community like we do.’ Photograph: Scott Barbour/AFL Media/Getty Images
“Our philosophy was we can’t match that, we don’t seek to match it, what we seek to do is emphasise and prioritise the core values of our club. It ain’t a lot more complex than that. We try to do things in the community that are helpful, to be as open to the community as possible, and we’ve done it for a long time.” As for those jumping on the Bulldog bandwagon this week, they’re all welcome, he says with a smile. The bandwagon is big enough.
Martin Flanagan, one of the most beautiful writers about football, wrote a book about the Bulldogs in 1994. He tells stories about its working class roots and values, including the rejection of a new recruit in the 1930s because he was a strike breaker. “In the old days, if you weren’t a unionist you didn’t get a game.”
Flanagan says that in the last couple of years, a luckless team finally had a bit of luck, with a brilliant coach, a gifted captain, and a new purpose to the way they play.
“Footy is entertainment, and they are really exciting to watch,” he says.
They go into the final series and no one thinks they can win against West Coast in Perth. No one thinks they can beat Hawthorn, they do them, no one thinks they can do GWS in Sydney, they do them.
This could be the best grand final in years.
The strength of the two teams, Sydney playing its most attractive football in years, and the emotion of the Bulldogs story.
It might be an anti-climax, of course. The Bulldogs are the underdogs, of course. And it’s only a game, of course. Just to reach the grand final has burst a Bulldog dam of emotion, with supporters, officials, old players, new players, weeping uncontrollably when the team defeated GWS last weekend.
But who knows? It might turn out to be a fairytale, one that comes true in a cynical age. As Herald Sun sports journalist Rod Reed wrote this week, “if the boys from old Footscray can go all the way it will be the most popular premiership since … well, maybe ever.”
Over the top, perhaps, but maybe not. Woof woof.
- Status
