1975

[W W Biscuit]

Here's one for the oldies!

I began to follow the Doggies in 1975 at the tender age of 6, so my memories of this era are somewhat hazy. I've been watching the Round 2 game vs Fitzroy on YouTube again - the game in which Neil Sachse was injured

On paper, we seemed to have a pretty good team. Dempsey was in his prime, we had Sandilands up forward, Huppatz in the guts, a handy recruit in Peter Featherby, Superboot and Barry Round was still with us, Adrian Gallagher, Greg Parke, a young Geoff Jennings...not to mention a raw teenager by the name of Kelvin Templeton.

Looking at the season stats, we won four out of our first five games, so certainly must have been in the five early on. The game that really piqued my interest was the Round 4 game versus the mighty Richmond, where we crushed the reigning premiers at the Western Oval by eleven goals. Does anyone remember this game, and can you shed a bit of light on it? The hype surrounding the Dogs after this game must have been immense.

Footage of the Dogs around this time is so rare, so I am hoping that a couple of you will be able to dust off your memories

[ledge]

I remember one of the players saying they thought they could win the flag that year but when the Sache incident happened a lot of them were affected by it and were a little hesitant to go in hard.
It left a mark on the whole playing group and they weren't the same after it.

[Bulldog4life]

I remember one of the players saying they thought they could win the flag that year but when the Sache incident happened a lot of them were affected by it and were a little hesitant to go in hard.
It left a mark on the whole playing group and they weren't the same after it.

Yes you are right Ledge. I was at the match when Neil had that shocking accident. It affected the team throughout the year. None more so than Peter Welsh who lifted Neil up after the accident thinking he was doing the right thing. It wasn't.

[Twodogs]

I vividly remember being at the match when Sasche was injured. The thing that really strikes me all these years later is how quiet the crowd went. There wasn't a sound, I think everyone to a person was in shock at what was unfolding in front of us. The guy he had run into was visibly upset, even a little distraught and Sasche hadn't moved at all so we knew it was serious.

Anyway the Richmond game. I have vague memories of beating Richmond in an upset, but back then no matter where we were on the ladder Richmond were our bitches especially at western oval. In fact it got so bad from their POV that they started coming after our players and managed to pry our captain (David Thorpe) and our head case defender (bones McGhie) loose, they both preferred the glory of being dual premiership players rather than slogging it out at the bottom of the ladder with us-go figure.

The story of the day was something to do with Royce Hart. Did he get injured, reported, carried off the ground out cold sometging along those lines.

[Bulldog4life]

I vividly remember being at the match when Sasche was injured. The thing that really strikes me all these years later is how quiet the crowd went. There wasn't a sound, I think everyone to a person was in shock at what was unfolding in front of us. The guy he had run into was visibly upset, even a little distraught and Sasche hadn't moved at all so we knew it was serious.

Anyway the Richmond game. I have vague memories of beating Richmond in an upset, but back then no matter where we were on the ladder Richmond were our bitches especially at western oval. In fact it got so bad from their POV that they started coming after our players and managed to pry our captain (David Thorpe) and our head case defender (bones McGhie) loose, they both preferred the glory of being dual premiership players rather than slogging it out at the bottom of the ladder with us-go figure.

The story of the day was something to do with Royce Hart. Did he get injured, reported, carried off the ground out cold sometging along those lines.

I think his name was O'Keefe

[Twodogs]

I think his name was O'Keefe

That's it. I think it was Kevin O' Keefe, not Kerry O' Keefe.

I remember players from both sides sort of comforting him and that other players had grouped around Sasche and then some of them started turning away. That's when things started to look really bad.

[Bulldog4life]

That's it. I think it was Kevin O' Keefe, not Kerry O' Keefe.

I remember players from both sides sort of comforting him and that other players had grouped around Sasche and then some of them started turning away. That's when things started to look really bad.

Yes it was Kevin Td.

[I'm Not Bitter Anymore!]

I was at the match didn’t grasp the significance of the injury at the time

[HOSE B ROMERO]

Great thread Biscuit! I'm a little older than you and 74/75 was when i did my first bulldogs scrap book. Anyway you've just prompted me to dig it out. It's full of round by round match reports etc from the Herald Sun.

The dogs had made a rare finals appearance in '74(first since the 1961 grand final loss), and paid a record amount for a West Australian, Peter Featherby at the end of that season. Bobby Rose was the coach and Dick Collinson was President.

Yes, the Sachse tragedy occurred in round 2 against Fitzroy but the full extent of his injury was not known until later the following week(highly recommend his recently written autobiography). Interesting to note that in the reserves that day, new recruit Templeton kicked 10.

After a round 3 win against Geelong, journo Bob Crimeen wrote 'Bulldogs are a mystery.' He states '...on paper it is hard to detect any deficiencies but they continue to have lapses in games. With a goal to goal line of Merrington, Quinlan, Featherby, Parke and Sandilands; Dempsey, Huppatz, Gallagher and Jennings in the midfield and plenty of pace around the the flanks and wings, they should be doing better'.

Bulldogs slaughter fumbling Richmond, the headline read the following week. There was a double page centre spread with some great photos from the game and stating ' the years of pretending could be over' (they weren't). Sandilands was b.o.g and it looks if Templeton played his first game and got 3 goals. The game was played in front of 25388 (gate receipts $20332!). The dogs were sitting 4th.
Interesting to note teams still played with reserves. Also there may have been the centre diamond and not the centre square.

Round 5 saw the biggest crowd of the round(36,000) at the Western oval for the dogs/pies clash with us winning by 11 points to sit 3rd on the ladder.
The Herald/Sun had a voting system called Sunscore. Basically every player was rated out of 10. Sandilands was coming 3rd behind Jezza and Lethal Leigh.

Hmm, 3 bad losses followed to North, Essendon and the Saints. So much for the years of pretending being over. That must have been the last straw for me. The scrapbook finishes at round 8 with a lot of blank pages following.....

[Twodogs]

I found a scrapbook for a couple of years from 1978 the other day. Goes from Don Mackenzie to Royce Hart. A bit of drama concerning the signing of Simon Beasley. They were chucking serious amounts of money about for the times. Beasley's transfer fee was $175000. That sort of money would have bought a couple of houses (with some change) at the time

[Webby]

The club doctor on the day of the Sachse incident actually delivered me. He was our family doctor for years. I remember my dad (who had a lot of good, long chats with the doc) once telling me he'd asked him about it and he replied "Oh, yep. No, really don't like talking about that day, thanks mate." My dad did know from another account that, the moment the incident occurred, the doc, whilst bouncing up from the bench, yelled "call an ambulance, he's broken his neck."

It was pretty shocking for all involved and left a big impact. I think tat as the gravity sunk in, it must have impacted the club pretty significantly. 1975 was the first year in which we wore our "Hawkins era" triple hoops. Being round 2, Sachse's jumper was hardly worn. Seems silly that this is the first thing that struck me when I saw it in its surgically-cut-form in the club museum. "Geez, it looks brand new!" (This might sound silly to younger generations, but we were renowned for recycling jumpers. Due to the new design we obviously had to kit the side out in brand new garments.)

Seems somewhat poignant for a player who'd just begun and had his whole career ahead of him that the jumper is literally cut down in its prime.

[Twodogs]

The jumper in its casing in the museum is very poignant.

[W W Biscuit]

Great thread Biscuit! I'm a little older than you and 74/75 was when i did my first bulldogs scrap book. Anyway you've just prompted me to dig it out. It's full of round by round match reports etc from the Herald Sun.

The dogs had made a rare finals appearance in '74(first since the 1961 grand final loss), and paid a record amount for a West Australian, Peter Featherby at the end of that season. Bobby Rose was the coach and Dick Collinson was President.

Yes, the Sachse tragedy occurred in round 2 against Fitzroy but the full extent of his injury was not known until later the following week(highly recommend his recently written autobiography). Interesting to note that in the reserves that day, new recruit Templeton kicked 10.

After a round 3 win against Geelong, journo Bob Crimeen wrote 'Bulldogs are a mystery.' He states '...on paper it is hard to detect any deficiencies but they continue to have lapses in games. With a goal to goal line of Merrington, Quinlan, Featherby, Parke and Sandilands; Dempsey, Huppatz, Gallagher and Jennings in the midfield and plenty of pace around the the flanks and wings, they should be doing better'.

Bulldogs slaughter fumbling Richmond, the headline read the following week. There was a double page centre spread with some great photos from the game and stating ' the years of pretending could be over' (they weren't). Sandilands was b.o.g and it looks if Templeton played his first game and got 3 goals. The game was played in front of 25388 (gate receipts $20332!). The dogs were sitting 4th.
Interesting to note teams still played with reserves. Also there may have been the centre diamond and not the centre square.

Round 5 saw the biggest crowd of the round(36,000) at the Western oval for the dogs/pies clash with us winning by 11 points to sit 3rd on the ladder.
The Herald/Sun had a voting system called Sunscore. Basically every player was rated out of 10. Sandilands was coming 3rd behind Jezza and Lethal Leigh.

Hmm, 3 bad losses followed to North, Essendon and the Saints. So much for the years of pretending being over. That must have been the last straw for me. The scrapbook finishes at round 8 with a lot of blank pages following.....

That's awesome, Hose B. Great effort. I hoped that someone out there had a scrapbook! It is interesting that the Bulldogs juggernaut early in the season continued for a couple of weeks after the Neil Sachse diagnosis. Then it fell in a heap. Perhaps it was like delayed concussion...the enormity of it all slowly sinking in and destroying the mood of the playing group. Coming on the back of Robert Rose's accident, which I think was only the year before, it must have been horrible.

Laurie Sandilands looked unstoppable in that Lions game. He was the first Footscray captain I remember, so this era is special to me. All of those names - Quinlan, Dempsey et al - stand tall as heroes and legends to a little kid. I remember being very teary when we sold them off. I may even have discontinued my scrapbook

[Twodogs]

There are some copies of match reports in the papers in Google books now pushing into the 80s. I read the one where we won at Moorabbin in '83 after being 39 points down

[jeemak]

I've seen a particular player who I dearly loved playing with go in way too hard too many times, and only played with him a few games. He was a school captain of the school for which I played as an old boy, and was an absolute legend to play with. One day I saw him launch head first for the ball in the most courageous act I've ever seen on a football field, the level he was crunched hit me from 75m away. He lay flat on his back, convulsed to leaning up with blood coming from his eye, lay back down and then his legs just started flipping around perpendicular to the ground, with the odd violent kick.

He's a medicine man now, after stopping after that day. I talked to my Dad who was watching the game and he said it's the closest thing he's seen to Sachse going down. He said it with fear in his eye because he lived the cold bastard day and feeling that was that moment in our club's history, and a bloody horrible day for a loved son of ours.