DOGGY TALES: TELL US YOUR OWN STORY:We want to know why you barrack for the boys from Whitten Oval, your favourite players or stand-out memories. Who were some of the colourful characters you met on the terraces at the Whitten Oval? What has been the highlight of your time as a Doggies fan? Can Brendan McCartney lead the current-day Bulldogs to the flag? Email us at webteam@yourweekly.com.au and we’ll publish your story online.
WE dated a long time. We met every second Saturday, 2.10pm, forward pocket terrace, six months of the year. In front of the EJ Whitten Stand, diagonally opposite the scoreboard.
The bewitching Western Oval and I had a long-standing love affair that still exists in memory today.
It was quite some journey. The scent of hot pies, hot chips, hot dogs and cold beer – the stench of cigarette smoke, flatulence and more cigarette smoke. It was a place to scream in despair, shout for joy or sigh in disappointment.
There was the fellow who’d dress in all his Bulldog colours but spend his time bagging his ‘beloved’ team; the old lady who would secure a front row seat for her and her yet-to-arrive-but-we’ll-get-there-just-before-the-siren friends with the longest red, white and blue blanket you’d ever see. The young couple who had gone to watch a game of footy but saw little of it.
You didn’t mind the drenchings, which were often. You’d just hope you’d found the feeling in your fingers and toes by the time you got back to the car. Still, you were happy as long as the lads had put in and put up the good fight. That’s all they could do in my early days. The Dogs only ever swapped wins with St Kilda and Melbourne. Won little else.
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The tide started to turn in 1983. A little bloke from Bairnsdale came in from the cold and lit up the soggy Barkly Street oval. Brian Royal brought with him a curly-haired shuffler in Steven Wallis and a collection of talls and smalls from interstate who led a huge revival.
The skilled ruckman Andrew Purser who punched above his weight and height (and gave Brian Taylor a backhander from yesteryear); Jimmy Sewell, an immediate cult hero with determination, marking skills and persistence. We started to win. And win often. There was a stirring victory over Hawthorn at their Princes Park home. Jim Edmond was dominant and flying high.
There was the Pieman Simon Beasley, who lit up a gloomy Western Oval sky one day with a 12-goal bag, and won a game after the siren against the Pies. Not that I saw it. I held my head in the hands and waited for the screams of delight, or the silence of defeat. Screams it was. And what a day.
You’d never leave after a win until you’d clapped the team off the ground and sung the Sons of the ’Scray at least three times. You’d watch Bluey Hampshire, Royce Hart, Don McKenzie or Michael Malthouse make the slow climb down from the mountainous coaches box in the sky from enemy territory.
You’d catch one last glimpse of Ricky Kennedy walking off the ground and wonder how on earth he ever let Tony ‘Plugger’ Lockett kneel over the top of him, fists flailing.
A red-head from WA reinvented the game with run from defence, and lo-and-behold, Brad Hardie even kicked the occasional goal. Won a Brownlow Medal too. There was the sublime talents of Michael ‘Magic’ McLean, the bull-at-a-gate run from half-back of Brian Cordy, and the silky skills of his stick-thin brother Neil. Has anyone marked a high ball better than the elder Cordy?
And didn’t I love the recycled players. Those who gave up their day jobs to help the Bullies. Con Gorozidis, who at least always looked like he’d take another screamer; Max Crow, who must have been good because he came from Essendon; Allan Edwards; Bruce Duperouzel, who looked about 50 to this young fellow but was a legend from St Kilda; Tony Buhagiar, who’d been a Bomber star; Neal Peart, a big fellow from Richmond; St Kilda’s Mark Kellett, who shored up a poor defence with shoulders that went forever; Angelo Petraglia, the little left foot dynamo from North Melbourne who ‘hated’ a goal.
Then there was Peter Foster. Once at Fitzroy, quickly a Bulldog favourite. He gave Dermott Brereton nightmares when at centre-half back. At centre-half forward he’d mark everything. A true favourite.
Steve ‘Super’ Macpherson, his brother Rod, Micky McKenna, Ian Williams. All favourites.
Eight goals to nil in the first 20 minutes against Fitzroy, keeping Carlton goalless for a whole game … bar 20 damn seconds. Beating Essendon easily in their 1985 premiership year. If only we’d knocked off Hawthorn in the prelim. Ah, the memories …
Now we come to the ‘Hawk’, Doug Hawkins. He made a dirty day clean, a rotten loss bearable. They were the days when full backs kicked out to opposing ruckmen, no one else. Not when the Hawk was playing. They still kicked it to Doug. Didn’t matter if he was two-foot smaller, he’d outmark his opponent, or bring the ball to the ground, wheel around on either foot, and pinpoint a gun pass onto a chest. A superstar. Pity he always played on the other side of the ground, the ‘Doug Hawkins Wing’. He was magic. One day, close to the boundary with the ball, surrounded by opposition players, the Hawk calmly hand-passed the ball onto an opponent’s foot – out on the full. Mesmerising.
So many memories. I’m off to the footy. Go Dogs.
DOGGY TALES: TELL US YOUR OWN STORY: We want to know why you barrack for the boys from Whitten Oval, your favourite players or stand-out memories. Who were some of the colourful characters you met on the terraces at the Whitten Oval? What has been the highlight of your time as a Doggies fan? Can Brendan McCartney lead the current-day Bulldogs to the flag? Email us at webteam@yourweekly.com.au and we’ll publish your story online.
