Back to Western Bulldogs/Footscray Part 2
The 1980s proved to be a decade of dramatic change for the sport of Australian football, while for Footscray it was a period of almost unalleviated hardship, culminating in probably the narrowest escape from extinction ever accomplished by a major club.
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Tearaway rover Geoff Jennings. (Click to enlarge.) |
With former Richmond champion
Royce Hart as newly appointed coach, Footscray fronted up for the 1980 VFL
season with considerable optimism. Hart favoured a style of play which was
based on the coaching philosophy of his former mentor, Tom Hafey. Centred on pace
and long kicking to position, it required its exponents to be in the peak of
physical condition. Unfortunately, it also presupposed a level of pure
football ability of which few of the players at the Western Oval at the time
were capable. In two complete seasons at the helm, Hart oversaw returns of 5
wins and 17 losses for 10th place in 1980, and an execrable 2 wins and 20 losses
for 11th place the following year.
After 10 rounds of the 1982 season, Hart was replaced by former Geelong and current Bulldog ruckman Ian Hampshire, who promptly retired as a player, but matters scarcely improved, as Footscray ended the season with just 3 wins out of 22 matches, and the wooden spoon. In 1983, however, Hampshire began to turn things around. The Bulldogs were tough, resilient and competitive, attracting an average attendance of 20,088 to their home games (the highest figure since 1963), and rounding the season off with 3 consecutive wins to take their total for the year to 10, which was good enough to secure 7th place on the ladder. In 1984 the improvement continued, but 12 games in, with Footscray well in contention for a finals place, Hampshire astonishingly resigned. It would be left to his replacement as coach, former Richmond journeyman Mick Malthouse, who just failed to get the Bulldogs into the 1984 finals, to transform the nucleus of Hampshire's side into a credible premiership contender. |
This is not to suggest that Malthouse did not himself make adjustments and improvements to the team. Chief among these was the acquisition of a trio of highly talented Western Australians: eventual 1985 Brownlow Medallist Brad Hardie, strong running Claremont utility Allen Daniels, and experienced rover Tony Buhagiar of Essendon via East Fremantle. With these additions to the mix the Bulldogs in 1985 enjoyed their best home and away season since their VFA days, winning 16 of 22 matches to qualify for the finals in 2nd place. Lacking in big game experience, however, Footscray was overwhelmed by Hawthorn to the tune of 93 points in a damp squib of a qualifying final. Distressed and annoyed, Malthouse nevertheless remained outwardly calm, and under his astute guidance the Bulldogs bounced back in the following weekend's 1st semi final to overrun North Melbourne after half time and notch up a well deserved 19.23 (137) to 16.11 (107) victory, with former Swan Districts spearhead Simon Beasley bagging 7 goals.
| It was clear almost from the
start of the preliminary final re-match between Footscray and Hawthorn that on
this occasion the Doggies were not going to be pushed aside so easily.
Playing with a tenacity and verve which befitted their nickname, the Bulldogs
led 4.4 to 2.2 at quarter time, and then trailed narrowly (4 points and 1 point)
at each of the subsequent changes. The Hawks were clearly discomfited, and
when Footscray edged out to a 9 point lead early in the final term it seemed
that the unthinkable (to everyone except Bulldog supporters) might happen.
Ultimately, however, it did not: Hawthorn steadied, Footscray players made a series of unforced
errors at critical times, and the final result was the one that most pundits had
predicted, a win to the Hawks, albeit by a significantly narrower margin (10
points) than in the previous meeting between the sides a fortnight earlier.
The 1985 season was just about the only alleviation of the decade to Footscray's gloom. Never remotely the wealthiest of clubs, there were intermittent murmurings throughout the 1980s of re-location (to Brisbane), amalgamations and oblivion. Then, near the end of the 1989 season, it was announced that the club was insolvent, and would be merging with (or, more accurately, be being taken over by) Fitzroy in 1990. Despite this, only 8,673 spectators showed up at the Western Oval for the team's final game of the year, in which the Bulldogs trounced Richmond by 72 points. However, when the heat was really applied by the VFL, and it was clear that the club's prospective extinction was not merely hypothetical, but virtually certain, those with red, white and blue blood surging in their veins rallied to the cause. |
Steve Macpherson, a former Clarence utility who gave the Bulldogs good service for more than a decade. |
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'The Hawk' - click to enlarge. |
This cause, in simple terms,
involved the raising of $1.5 million dollars in just twenty-one days, a prospect which
at the time appeared about as likely as a Footscray premiership within the next
twelve months.
Speaking for all Bulldog aficionados, and indeed the majority
of genuine football lovers everywhere, Peter Gordon, leader of the Footscray
Fightback Foundation, declared: "If Footscray and if Victorian football can
win this fight, we will stop these men in their tracks. These corporate
lawyers and bankers and ex-parliamentarians who sit behind closed doors and
outside the public gaze and make decisions about what sort of game we want to
have...." (See footnote 29)
When, miraculously, it appeared that Footscray was on course to meet its $1.5 million target, the VFL promptly upped the ante by declaring that the club needed to raise a further $3.5 million by January 1990 in order to meet its anticipated running costs for the forthcoming season. Of course, it is a fact of history now that the Footscray Fightback Foundation managed to secure the required funds, and that the Bulldogs not only survived but went on to enjoy their best decade on the field since the 1950s. In a way, the fact that it was Footscray, the VFL's 'people's club', that managed such a resounding but unlikely victory over the self-appointed custodians of the game rendered it all the more gratifying and special; it seemed an archetypal case of the 'good guys' winning out over the forces of malevolence and greed which used the game for their own, primarily financial, ends without either understanding or truly appreciating it at all. |
Freed, at least temporarily, from the financial constraints imposed on it by the VFL, Footscray, which had finished 2nd last in 1989, roared up the list to 7th in 1990. Under new coach Terry Wheeler, who had played 157 games for the club during the 1970s, the Doggies produced an exuberant, attacking brand of football which delighted the crowds. After marking time somewhat in 1991 the side equalled its best ever home and away return the following season with 16 wins from 22 matches, good enough for 2nd place on the ladder going into the finals. Once there it managed a solid 29 point win over St Kilda in the 1st semi final, but unfortunately this was sandwiched between 61 and 64 point losses to Geelong in the qualifying and preliminary finals respectively. The side had captured the imagination of the public, however, and Terry Wheeler's selection as coach of the AFL All Australian team emphasised the scope of the club's turnaround.
Football in the modern era can be fickle, however: within eighteen months Wheeler was on the coaching scrap heap, replaced by former East Fremantle and Hawthorn supremo Allan Joyce, under whose aegis the side would contest the finals in consecutive years (1994-95) for the first time since the Charlie Sutton era. Drawing attention away from the on field action, however, was an event which united football supporters everywhere in grief: the death in 1995 of Footscray's and one of the game's greatest ever legends (a word that is often over-used, but not in this case), Edward James Whitten. Among the many sincere and touching tributes to the great man was one that he might have appreciated more than any other: the re-naming of his beloved Western Oval in his honour. Sadly, however, the ground would not be used for senior AFL football for much longer.| XXXX | ||
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Chris Grant takes a screamer. (Click to enlarge.) |
Back on the field of
play, after a disastrous 1996 season which yielded just 5 wins and a draw
and 15th place on the 16 team ladder, Allan Joyce went the same way as his
predecessor, and it was left to his successor Terry Wallace to assemble
arguably the second greatest team in the club's history. In 1997, the
first year under the new and somewhat contentious (not to mention
misleading) 'Western Bulldogs' banner, there is little doubt that the team
was good enough to win a premiership, but a calamitous and inexplicable
last quarter fade out against Adelaide in the
preliminary final scuppered its chances. It was the same story a
year later, albeit that on this occasion the margin was somewhat greater
(68 points as against 2). Sadly, a team possessing many fine players
and capable of playing a scintillating brand of football will probably be
best remembered for choking when it really mattered.
As was suggested at the outset, however, football is not just about premierships (although let it not be forgotten that the Bulldogs, with ten, have won more than many clubs). In the twenty-first century football at the highest level, which is governed more than ever by economic factors, is first and foremost about survival, and there are few if any clubs which, based on their own experiences, have such a rich, varied and exciting tale to tell on that score as the 'honest Aussie battlers' of Footscray. In terms of their on field contribution to the game, the Bulldogs during the 1980s and '90s gave us as diverse and talented a selection of players as any other club, including: |
A trio of very different Brownlow Medallists in the shape of
Brad
Hardie, Tony
Liberatore and Scott Wynd. Hardie was a robust, supremely well balanced
and highly skilled pack pocket player; Liberatore was a pint-sized terrier who
led the league in the number of effective tackles applied in seven out of eight seasons between 1990 and 1997; and
Wynd was a tap ruckman in the classical style who also brought his team mates
into the play with his strong marking around the ground.
Western Australian sharp shooter Simon Beasley, who won the Coleman Medal in
1985 with 105 goals.
The man who, according to one of his greatest rivals, Hawthorn's Robert
Dipierdomenico, 'was Footscray' (see footnote 30), Doug
Hawkins. A fast, aggressive and highly skilled wingman, Hawkins played a
club record 329 games for the Bulldogs between 1978 and 1994.
Strong marking key position forward Chris Grant, a bona fide match winner of the
highest order.
Latter-day AFL All Australians Rohan Smith, Paul Hudson, Scott West, Brad
Johnson, Nathan Brown, Luke Darcy and Lindsay Gilbee.
It is men like these who epitomise the club's ethos, and who hopefully will help ensure its continuance well into the future. However, irrespective of what the future holds, the club has made a significant and unique contribution to the history of the game, one which deserves to be extolled and treasured.
Where now?
or
29. Quoted in Unleashed: a History of the Footscray Football Club by John Lack, Chris McConville, Michael Small and Damien Wright, page 258. Return to Main Text
30. Quoted in Both Sides of the Fence by Doug Hawkins, page 69. Return to Main Text
