What a glorious time it is to be alive and in Footscray. It’s AFL grand final week and Western Bulldogs fans have been performing the rituals of the lead up to the big game with the enthusiasm of kids experiencing it for the first time.
You only have to look at the #PaintTheTown hashtag on Twitter to see what this means to the community. Houses, fences, pubs, shops, cars, MPs offices and even horses have all been painted red white and blue across the West. After 55 years, seven painful preliminary final losses, too many wooden spoons and one near merger, it’s been joyous.
Long-time Bulldogs fan Mark Seymour said on his Facebook page this week that the thing that makes Footscray special is that “everyone lives there”. You could certainly see what he meant by looking at the mass of red, white and blue who packed Whitten Oval for Thursday’s open training session. The faces of the fans are the faces of our community: diverse, battle scarred and, for today, exuberant.
Ratty woollen Footscray jerseys that looked like they might have gotten a run in the ’61 Grand Final mingled with women who came to the Dogs’ pack via the Horn of Africa and are now wearing red, white and blue Hijabs. Generations of Vietnamese-Australian families crowd the boundary line in front of a hill packed with hirsute hipsters who look like they could have come direct from Laneway Festival on the river’s edge. Men, women, children; they come from a thousand backgrounds, but they share a common belief in the team in front of them.
The usual paranoia and looming terror of being a Bulldogs fan is gone. As First Dog on the Moon has officially proclaimed, The Lid Is Off, and the fans are enjoying it. There’s a universal sense of satisfaction that the Dogs enter the game as underdogs. After three consecutive finals wins against significant odds, the Dogs fans much prefer it this way. Stuff the bookmakers. After what this team has endured this year, we know they can do anything. The Bulldog Tragician summed up the mood perfectly; Why not us?
The consensus is that Luke Beveridge’s boys aren’t just writing their own history, they are writing their own fairytales. The crowd is abuzz at the wonder of it all. There are magical stories everywhere you look on the training track.
Lin Jong, backing up from a best on ground performance for Footscray in last week’s VFL grand final, but just 21 days from a broken collar bone, moves freely. Surely he won’t play? But wouldn’t it be something if he did? Clay Smith is looking indestructible after the psychological torture of three (three!) knee reconstructions. After his performances of the past month he’s a strong chance for the Norm Smith medal.
There’s Tom Liberatore, the favourite son with the chance to redeem what was denied to his father. Or Liam Picken and Josh Dunkley, the overlooked sons of greats at other clubs, who have the chance to forge their own greatness with the Dogs. Marcus Bontempelli, the kid who teammates nicknamed “Footch” in promise of future glories just last year, already plays like one of the greats at just 20 years of age. And finally the old firm, Mathew Boyd, Dale Morris and injured Bob Murphy, the backline experience that gives the team its connection with the past and a solidarity that transcends the pups’ raw talent.
This is what makes following Footscray really special. It’s more than a club, it’s a community. Whitten Oval has seen more than a few moments that have transcended footy in recent years. Some in the crowd remember the funeral of local legend and dim sim king, Jimmy Wong, at the ground earlier this year. Thousands from the local community turned out to hear “Sons of the West” played over the loud speakers as his coffin was carried across the ground. Wouldn’t Jimmy have loved to have heard it played at a grand final?
Thousands more turned out to the ground to see Steph Chiocci and the Western Bulldogs’ Womens team win the Hampson-Hardeman Cup – the realisation of club vice-president Susan Alberti’s dream and the birth of a thousand more dreams for the Daughters of the West. After the weekend’s VFL premiership, wouldn’t it be incredible for all three teams at the Bulldogs to be cup holders at the same time? For once, Bulldogs fans are daring to dream.
But my own favourite moments at Whitten Oval are the citizenship ceremonies they’ve held there. The Bulldogs are the only sporting organisation in Australia who deliver settlement services to assist newly-arrived migrants and refugees for the Department of Immigration. You think differently about the role that a football club can play in promoting a sense of belonging in a community after you’ve seen an African refugee, in tears of joy at having just received Australian citizenship, belting out the Bulldogs team song with as much gusto as the national anthem.
There is plenty cynicism about modern professional sports. From the deserved contempt for the international sportocrats to the less admirable snobbery of the “Sportsball” knockers. But this week is a reminder of what we love most about sports. It’s the human experience writ large, a microcosm of the dramas, challenges and successes of life, and a reminder that life is better when lived as a part of something bigger than ourselves. And for this week, there’s nothing better to be a part of than the Western Bulldogs.
