As Footscray entered its 30th season in the VFL, premiership success remained an elusive goal. The Bulldogs had certainly been competitive in their three decades in the 'big league', having joined in 1925 along with North Melbourne and Hawthorn. Indeed, their fellow 'newcomers' had shared 18 wooden spoons between them in that period, 10 to the Hawks and eight to the Kangaroos.

The Dogs had never once finished last in that time and had made through to the finals in seven seasons. By contrast, North had made the finals only three times, and Hawthorn had never once seen September action.

But there was great hope for the Bulldogs as the 1954 season dawned. The Dogs had lost six out of six finals between 1938 in 1951 but in 1953, they had finally broken through for a semi-final win and, although they fell short of Geelong in the Preliminary Final, the trend was upward. Many at Western Oval (now Whitten Oval) were hopeful the Dogs could go one or two steps further in '54.

Those expectations dovetailed nicely into those laid down by Charlie Sutton when he had taken on the captain-coaching role at the beginning of 1951. The club had initially appointed him for one season, but Sutton made it very clear to them that they should not expected overnight success: "I'm making no promises I can't keep. I won't win a premiership for you this year, or the next year, either. Don't expect miracles. It takes four years to make a League footballer. All I promise you is a fit side and one that will have 18 triers."

Charlie and his charges had been true to that promise in his first three seasons, always competitive, and in 1954 were primed to pounce. Two rounds into the season, however, the Bulldogs looked anything but premiership material. They had suffered defeats to St Kilda and Richmond, both bottom four sides in 1953, and sat ahead only of Fitzroy on the ladder.

The pressure was very much on Sutton as the Bulldogs headed into their round three match against the undefeated South Melbourne on May 1. Charlie and his team responded magnificently. With full forward Jack Collins snaring eight goals, the Dogs crushed the Swans by 87 points. The victory sparked a magnificent run for the red, white and blue. They won 10 of their next 12 matches, and the losses had been narrow away ones to the previous year's Grand Finalists, Geelong and Collingwood.

A slight hiccup came in rounds 15 and 16, with a loss to Carlton and a draw with North Melbourne, but the Bulldogs closed out the home-and-away season with solid wins over Essendon and Hawthorn to finish second on the ladder.

Taking on top side Geelong, the Bulldogs showed no signs of nerves in their semi-final contest, and with ex-Magpie Harvey Stevens (who had joined the Dogs in 1953 and immediately won the club's best-and-fairest award) dominating in the ruck, and Ted Whitten doing a fine job of keeping the Cats' key forward in check, they pulled away to win by 23 points. The Dogs had made it to their first VFL Grand Final and would take a power of beating from here.

The Herald's Alf Brown predicted Geelong to bounce back in the Preliminary Final, but, after Melbourne had been deluged by more than half an inch of rain over the previous 24 hours, it was the young Demons who prevailed on a muddy MCG setting up a Footscray v Melbourne Grand Final.

In the week leading into the big game, confidence at Western Oval was high, amongst fans and players. There was only one concern, but it was a big one — the captain-coach himself, Charlie Sutton. A nagging knee injury had kept him out of the Footscray side for the past two matches and be hadn't played full game-time in two prior to that. However, Sutton moved freely in the Bulldogs' final training session on the Thursday prior to the Grand Final and declared himself fit. Some small doubt remained, though, when he was named in the forward pocket rather than in his customary on-the-ball role.

On Grand Final morning, many pundits wondered if the Bulldogs might benefit from having had a week off and suggested perhaps the Dogs would outlast the Demons as the match wore on, particularly as the legs of Melbourne players might be heavy after having to slog through the mud a week earlier.

But Sutton, a master motivator, had other ideas. In his pre-match planning, he invoked his famous motto, "Shop early and avoid the rush". Many recall that phrase as a signal from Sutton to his players to 'rough up' up the opposition, and there is a partial truth to that. In a conversation with Ben Collins in 2008, Sutton explained to origin of the epigram: "I got that saying from ‘Checker’ Hughes (the legendary Richmond and Melbourne coach) when he coached the Victorian team. It meant get the jump-start on the opposition. And if there’s any rough stuff to take place, make sure you do it early on to upset them and get the upper hand.”

But the key message from Sutton's "Shop early" call was to hit the scoreboard rather than worry about the physical stuff. In his pre-match address to the players he said this:

"This is Footscray's day. If it gets hard, no fights, please. Keep going for the ball. That's YOUR job. Don't worry about ME. I'll look after myself."

Sutton's men carried this instruction out to a T. Melbourne had the advantage of the wind in the first quarter and hit the scoreboard first through their spearhead Noel Clarke. Many experts had predicted that the Grand Final battle would hinge on the success of the full forwards, Clarke and the Bulldogs' Jack Collins. They would ultimately be correct, but after Clarke's first strike, the Dogs exploded.

Despite kicking into the breeze, Footscray seized control. With Harvey Stevens controlling the ruck, he gave rover John Kerr first use of the ball and the Dogs attacked again and again, with Collins' teammates in the forward line giving him plenty of space to lead and mark. Collins did so superbly he had five scoring opportunities and converted three of them to goals by quarter time. His teammates combined to kick another three. In that period, the Demons could add only three behinds to Clarke's opening goal and the Grand Final's first change of ends arrived with the Bulldogs leading 6.3 to 1.4. They held a 29-point advantage and would have the wind at the backs for the next half an hour. The premiership was now theirs to lose.

Any doubts fans and players may have had heading into the second term were quickly dispelled when Collins kicked his fourth to extend the Dogs lead to six goals. To their credit the Demons showed some fight from there, kicking three goals to one for the remainder of the quarter, but the Bulldogs were still comfortably ahead at the long break, leading by 23 points. Melbourne's full forward Clarke had played well, but missed several shots, while Jack Collins rarely wasted chances at the other end.

Melbourne needed to make the most of their wind advantage in the third quarter if they were to have a hope of winning, but the brilliant Bulldogs were having none of that. Early goals to Ron Stockman and Sutton himself erased the ground the Demons had made up in the second term, and the two sides shared the remaining four goals of the quarter evenly. At three-quarter time, the margin was 38 points, and the Bulldogs had one hand on the cup.

There was a jangling of Footscray nerves when Ken Albiston kicked the first major of the final term for the Demons, but when Collins snapped his sixth, all doubts evaporated. Melbourne could not find another goal, while the Dogs added two more, the latter Collins' seventh. Collins had marked the ball again just before the final siren sounded, but he had been in the act of passing off to a teammate when it rang.

In any case, his seven goals had been pivotal to Footscray winning its first VFL flag. Sutton's decision to station himself in the forward line had also paid dividends, the captain-coach kicking three majors of his own. Along with Collins, Stevens and Kerr had been magnificent in taking the Dogs to premiership glory, while the man would later be dubbed 'Mr Football', Ted Whitten did a great job of leading a Bulldog backline that not only stifled Melbourne's forwards, but launched many counter attacks.

Footscray Town Hall had been draped in red, white and blue streamers the day before the Grand Final, and the triumphant Bulldogs gathered there after the game. The Mayor of Footscray, Fred Peart, presented the players to an adoring crowd, estimated at 6000, as fireworks of red, white and blue lit the night sky. Not far away at Western Oval, thousands more fans celebrated, at one stage burning an effigy of a demon.

The Bulldogs had finally had their day, and the players and fans partied long and hard. None of them were to know that it would be another 62 years before they could do so again, but for all present at that moment, the future was not on their minds. They were there to celebrate the culmination of 30 years of hard work, a Bulldogs premiership at last.