Football, as in life, has many sliding doors moments. For the Western Bulldogs there have been several in the 100 years since the club joined the VFL in 1925. The most famous of those came in October 1989 when the Footscray Football Club came within a whisker of a forced merger with Fitzroy.

History shows that Bulldogs fans, led by Peter Gordon, Dennis Galimberti and Irene Chatfield, prevented that merger through the ‘Fightback’ campaign. The Western Bulldogs have not only survived but thrived in the 36 years since.

Had that it not been for Fightback, the Bulldogs as a football club in the VFL/AFL would have ceased to be. History would have recorded 1989 as the club’s last season, and a 15-point loss to Fitzroy in the final round of that season as its last ever match.

But what about the Bulldogs’ last win? What would history have made of that?

Surprisingly, given the context of the crisis that was about to unfold, what would have been the Dogs’ final win came only two weeks before the season ended. Even more surprisingly, it was a comprehensive win – a 78-point thrashing of this Sunday’s opponents Richmond.

The Dogs went into that Round 20 match at Western Oval having not tasted victory in six weeks. Against the Tigers though they jumped out of the blocks with a five-goal-to-one opening quarter and never looked back. After an even second term the Dogs went on with the job in the second half, extending the margin to 56 points at the last break before running away to a 13-goal win.

Leading the way for the Dogs was ‘The Axe’, Simon Atkins, who sliced his way through the midfield and collected 28 touches and three Brownlow votes. Michael Ford (25 possessions and two goals) picked up two votes and veteran Doug Hawkins (32 disposals and a goal) claimed one, while Brian Royal kicked four goals.

Notwithstanding the fact that Richmond was second-last on the ladder ahead of the match, it’s difficult to fathom that such a crushing win came only weeks before the club’s potential demise.

That victory could well have gone down as the last in Bulldogs’ history. Fortunately the doors slid the right way in October 1989, and the Dogs have recorded many more great wins since, including a number against the Tigers.

One such win came in the opening round of the 2006 season. Coming off lean years in ’02, ’03 and ’04 the Bulldogs had appointed Rodney Eade as coach ahead of the 2005 season and showed great improvement in his first year at the helm, falling just short of a finals berth.

The 2006 season was therefore approached with great anticipation by all at the Kennel – players, coaches and fans alike. A Round 1 match on a Friday night against Richmond would provide a perfect chance to make an early assessment of whether the Dogs’ upward trajectory would continue. Like the Bulldogs, Richmond had also shown great improvement in 2005 under a new coach. Ironically that coach was Terry Wallace, at that stage the last man to have led the Dogs into finals action.

It was Wallace’s men who claimed the early bragging rights when the Tigers scored the opening goal of the match, but the Bulldogs soon settled and goals from Mitch Hahn, Brad Johnson and Lindsay Gilbee had the Dogs in front by seven points midway through the term. By quarter time the Bulldogs had six majors, with one each from Wayde Skipper, Daniel Cross and Nathan Eagleton making it six goals from six different players.

The Dogs took a 20-point lead into the first break and extended that to 29 after a somewhat lacklustre second term. It was a solid lead, but by no means a match-winning one, and the question of whether the 2006 iteration of the Western Bulldogs was the ‘real deal’ remained up in the air.

The question was answered emphatically over the next 60 minutes of play. A goal to Adam Morgan one minute into the third quarter triggered a second-half tsunami of Bulldogs goals. By three-quarter time the Bulldogs had doubled their half-time tally of nine goals. Eight of those came before the Tigers hit the scoreboard, a goal to Kane Johnson at the 23-minute mark.

The Dogs were 79 points ahead going into the final break and in no mood to take the foot off the pedal. They began the last quarter as they had the third, with a goal to Morgan after one minute. The rest of the term followed a similar script. Richmond managed only a single major for the term while the Bulldogs piled on seven more.

By the time the final siren sounded the Dogs had racked up a massive total of 25.17.167 and beaten Richmond by 115 points. That remains a record margin for the Western Bulldogs against the Tigers, and the club’s third biggest overall (behind the 128-point win over North Melbourne in 2021 and a 120-point win against Melbourne in 1985). The score of 167 is also still the Dogs’ highest against the Tigers and equal-sixth overall.

For the Western Bulldogs that win was indeed a true indication that they were the ‘real deal’. Under Eade the Dogs returned to finals action in 2006 and recorded an outstanding win over Collingwood before bowing out in the semi-finals.

After a temporary lull in 2007, Eade then led the Bulldogs all the way to preliminary finals in 2008, 2009 and 2010, coming within a whisker of a Grand Final in the second of those. A win over Richmond this Sunday will help the Western Bulldogs on their way to another finals push in 2025.