To celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the famous Footscray Fightback campaign of 1989, Bulldogs fans have voted on the most significant moments for the Club over the last 30 years.
Today, westernbulldogs.com.au reveals moment 9.
The Bulldogs will take on Melbourne in Round 17 on a day dedicated to the Fightback – a time which saw an extraordinary fan uprising save the Club from a merger with Fitzroy.
On July 14, Footscray will take on Casey in the VFL, followed by the AFL game at Marvel Stadium.
VIEW THE ORIGINAL LIST OF 30 MOMENTS
9. Last game at Whitten Oval
By the latter stages of the 1997 season the Western Bulldogs had settled nicely into their new match-day home ground at Princes Park, having recorded important wins over Sydney, Hawthorn, Geelong, Carlton and Melbourne to sit in sixth place on the ladder.
As a Saturday afternoon pastime, watching the Dogs at Whitten Oval was already fast receding in the memories of some fans. But the club recognised the importance of giving a ground which had been their game-day home since inception a fitting send-off. After all, Whitten (previously Western) Oval had been the venue for 642 Footscray matches since the Club had joined the VFL, and many more besides in four decades in the VFA.
Creating an appropriate mix of old and new, the Club's first (and to date only) AFL match played at Whitten Oval under the Western Bulldogs moniker was against the West Coast Eagles, a club in only its 11th season of existence.
The Eagles were already a powerhouse, though, and heading into this farewell match were ahead of the Dogs on the ladder by percentage. A place in the top four awaited the winner of this match, which pitted Western against West, at the ground formerly known as Western Oval inWest Footscray. For the Bulldogs, this match would not only be about honouring all those who had worn the red, white and blue with this distinction at this iconic location, it was about improving their premiership chances.
Always a man with a sense of occasion, coach Terry Wallace took the unusual step of leading his charges outside of the ground before the match, and he addressed them in the shadows of the newly installed statue of the legendary Ted Whitten — at least in the shadows that would have been cast by EJ's form had the sun been shining. The weather, showing the same sense of occasion as Wallace, turned on a classical Western/Whitten Oval afternoon — grey, wet and, of course, windy, just as it had been for countless other games there for time immemorial.
That suited the Doggies down to the ground. Every player who had ever donned the Footscray colours had learned how to handle the vagaries of the Whitten Oval climate.
West Coast's players would have been intimidated enough when they ran out on to the ground with rain pelting down and the temperature hovering at just 9°C. A crowd of 26,704, the vast majority of them Bulldogs fans, greeted them with the hostility they would not have encountered often. But just to add to the intimidation, several Doggies players decided to 'target' young Eagle Michael Gardiner with some bumps and pushes before the ball had been bounced in anger. A scuffle ensued, which resulted in Dog Matthew Dent having to leave the ground under the blood rule before the opening siren had sounded!
What effect the weather, the crowd and the rough-house tactics had on the Eagles is hard to know, but the Dogs started the game with a rush, jumping out of the blocks with goals to Rohan Smith and Luke Darcy.
By quarter time, the Dogs had kicked four goals to one and led by 20 points. The margin had increased to 27 by half time and West Coast, despite kicking eight goals to six after the long break, were never able to bridge the gap. Rohan Smith, who had opened the game with a goal, had the honour of registering the last major kicked by a Bulldog at the ground as the Dogs held on to win by 18 points and move into the top four.
Twenty-two years on, much has changed, but Whitten Oval remains as the beating heart of the Western Bulldogs. The Dogs' VFL side, carrying the Footscray name, plays its home games at the venue, and the ground lights up summer evenings when the Bulldogs AFLW team plays at home. And Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon has not discounted the possibility of some future AFL men's games for premiership points being played here.
We may have farewelled it in a sense in 1997, but the Whitten Oval very much remains a community hub of the west, and the true home of the Western Bulldogs.
THE FIGHTBACK 30 SO FAR:
MOMENT 10
MOMENTS 11-15
MOMENTS 16-20
MOMENTS 21-25
MOMENTS 26-30
