As long-suffering Western Bulldogs fans approached their seventh decade of heartache, a puzzling question niggled away at Kerrie Soraghan.
Why did they do it?
Raised by one-eyed Dogs supporters just a stone’s throw from Whitten Oval, Soraghan had an inkling it was something intangible about the off-field connections fans shared that made up for on-field disappointments.
In 2013, she started blogging as Bulldog Tragician, reflecting on these and other questions. Then, last year, the almost unthinkable happened – the Bulldogs won their first Premiership since 1954.
Soraghan’s account of the club’s journey from “daydream believers to premiership heroes” features in a new book, The Mighty West.
“I was trying to understand what fans got out of barracking for a team that has gone so long without a premiership, asking why this is so important to us, when we had been waiting so long for success” she said.
“There was something people responded to in the blog, I think partly because it was a women’s perspective and not just about who kicked the ball to who, but was about the little things in the crowd or the emotions.”
Soraghan admits it was difficult to truly believe her beloved Bulldogs could finally secure the elusive flag last year, sensing they would be weighed down not only by a horrific run of injuries but the club’s troubled history of so often falling at the final hurdle.
Yet as unswerving self-belief carried the team through sudden-death final after sudden-death final, Soraghan wondered whether their time had finally come.
“There was just something so infectious and different about this group,” she said.
“We have had our hearts broken so many times, but I just felt we had to strap ourselves in and enjoy the ride.”
After more than 60 years in the premiership wilderness, the perennially underdog Bulldogs now enter the 2017 season as reigning premiers.
It’s a situation to which Soraghan and other die-hard fans are quite unaccustomed.
“We were searching for the holy grail and I do wonder what will happen next,” she said.
“Our identity was so wound up with the battles and the struggles, it will be strange to be the hunted and no longer everyone’s second favourite team.”
The Mighty West will be out via Nero Books on April 3. It will be launched on Wednesday, March 29 from 6pm at the Railway Hotel, Yarraville.
