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History, romance, family: What it means to be Footscray
There was a time when the future of Footscray Football Club rested on one phone call. Ahead of its 100-year celebration, some of those who have defined the Bulldogs history reveal what it means to be Footscray.
The taskforce members sat on cardboard boxes and waited for the phone to ring.
It was 1996, a fan hummed amid the silence before the high-pitched landline broke the tension.
Former Western Bulldogs vice-president Sue Alberti and then-Footscray taskforce member recalls the formation of the group in late 1996 by then-president David Smorgon as a moment she feared could be the end for her beloved club.
“We called the meeting and formed a taskforce, and that’s when I really think it hit the fan of just how serious things were with the club,” she recalled this week.
“I did not think that we would survive and have a club that we could call our own.
“I can still remember the one meeting where we sat down underneath (the club facility) on boxes, all around this phone just willing it to ring to hear from this sponsor through Eddie McGuire. And thank god it did and they were on board and we were up and running.”
The Bulldogs fought to see another day – just as they had done in 1989 when the Irene Chatfield-led Fightback had saved the club from a proposed merger with Fitzroy, with eventual-club president Peter Gordon the spokesman for the Save Our Dogs campaign before the 1996 taskforce implemented a rebranding from the Footscray name to the Western Bulldogs in a bid to encompass the entire west of Melbourne.
To even make it into the 21st century had seemed a fallacy.
photo1.jpg
Peter Gordon spearheaded the Save Our Dogs campaign.
To 100 years in the V/AFL? “Absolutely not”.
Bulldogs games record holder Brad Johnson recalls pay cuts in the early 2000s “to help keep the club afloat”, having largely been shielded from the dire straits of the 90s as a player in his early years, drafted in 1993.
“The good thing that the club has always had is unbelievable fans and staff that have always seen a way to get the club out of a couple of these scenarios,” he said.
“I never had a sense that we weren’t going to roll out the following year.
“The good part about that was in ‘97 we bounced and became a really good team and it justified the decisions that were made. We as players played our part in all of that to set ourselves up to believe we belonged in the competition.
“We believed in the club and the colours and we wanted to be around.”
photo2.jpg
Susan Alberti was also integral to keeping the club afloat.
THE FIRE
To play in Footscray is to feel, former captain Bob Murphy says.
He’s the type to do that.
When you arrive at a footy club, as he did at the end of 1999, “you kind of inherit the history and the romance”.
“And the baggage,” he told this masthead.
“You do kind of take it on. And there’s landmarks in your career where you get a real sense for it … you get a reminder of what it means to people.”
There’s painted fences in the streets surrounding Whitten Oval, flags in windows and the same faces at training he used to see, now he’s back in club colours after a stint in WA.
“I’m clearly a hopeless romantic about the whole thing,” he laughs.
“It’s a romantic club. It’s an emotional club. And maybe sometimes to a fault. I’m to blame as much as anyone for indulging in it. But I do think that is who we are.
“But the sense of place … we’ve got that solid foundation, and not all clubs have. I think it’s an important thing that shouldn’t be brushed over.”
He’s back “home”, brimming with pride at what has been built in the heart of the ‘Scray at a ground where struggle once reigned supreme.
“It’s only 10 years ago that we never would have booked a 100-year celebration,” he said.
“At the end of 2014, it was grim. And look where we are. That’s only 10 years ago, but it probably shapes the next 100.”
photo3.jpg
Terry Wheeler, Rohan Smith, Paul Hudson, Kelvin Templeton, Rick Kennedy, Marcus Bontempelli, Luke Beveridge, Paul Dimmatina, Brian Royal, Tom Boyd, Tom Liberatore and Ellie Blackburn. Picture: Michael Klein
photo4.jpg
Dogs legend Kelvin Templeton with Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore. Picture: Michael Klein
THE FAMILIES
Bob says “you can take your pick of Liberatores” – Tony or Tom – and cites the late John Schultz as those “who are the Bulldogs, essentially”.
The latter Liberatore, in a twist of fate and of the calf of skipper Marcus Bontempelli, will lead the team as interim captain of Footscray – the team his father played 283 games for.
It’s not lost on Tony, whose pride in all of his children is evident, though it is Tom as a Bulldogs person that provides the greatest joy.
It’s Tom’s conversations with parents of players, of checking in on younger ones. “To me, that’s what footy and teammates is about,” Liberatore Snr said.
The care.
“It’s the same with Luke Beveridge,” he said.
“He just cares about his players, and it stands out like the proverbial. What I love about our footy club, is that everybody cares about each other. And it’s real.”
He learned resilience from his parents. He says Tom learned that from him.
“That’s my footy club … it is Footscray. And back in the day, that was Footscray. It was tough. There were no hipsters sipping on lattes, wearing clothes from Savers. They want to dress down. We all wanted to dress up.”
Liberatore has sat with the cheersquad a bit in recent years – people he says “know football and their team better than anyone”.
When the ball is bounced on Friday, he says there’ll be no room for romance, or milestones. Just footy.
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
THE FUTURE
On Friday night, as the Bulldogs celebrate their 100th year in the V/AFL – a milestone a raft of club greats concede they never thought it would reach – the beloved Footscray name will return.
The heart and soul of the west to beat on, with a famous second premiership cup added in 2016 – exactly 20 years after the taskforce to save the club for a second time in a decade.
Every Bulldogs person cites their hero – on the field or off it – who they credit with their role in getting the club to its century.
There’s Chatfield, and Gordon, and for Liberatore there’s his former coach Terry Wheeler, for Alberti it’s Smorgon.
The ones who saved it, who made it.
“When I was a little girl, I thought we were invincible and that nothing would ever happen to my club,” Alberti says, having seen the club’s only other premiership in 1954 as a child.
“I didn’t understand dollars and cents … I loved my colours and my club and the players and everything about it. The friends I made in the cheersquad. It’s been a lifelong journey for me, and to see us where we are today – stable and financially viable … it’s just incredible.
“The day of that 2016 premiership will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
There was a time when the future of Footscray Football Club rested on one phone call. Ahead of its 100-year celebration, some of those who have defined the Bulldogs history reveal what it means to be Footscray.
The taskforce members sat on cardboard boxes and waited for the phone to ring.
It was 1996, a fan hummed amid the silence before the high-pitched landline broke the tension.
Former Western Bulldogs vice-president Sue Alberti and then-Footscray taskforce member recalls the formation of the group in late 1996 by then-president David Smorgon as a moment she feared could be the end for her beloved club.
“We called the meeting and formed a taskforce, and that’s when I really think it hit the fan of just how serious things were with the club,” she recalled this week.
“I did not think that we would survive and have a club that we could call our own.
“I can still remember the one meeting where we sat down underneath (the club facility) on boxes, all around this phone just willing it to ring to hear from this sponsor through Eddie McGuire. And thank god it did and they were on board and we were up and running.”
The Bulldogs fought to see another day – just as they had done in 1989 when the Irene Chatfield-led Fightback had saved the club from a proposed merger with Fitzroy, with eventual-club president Peter Gordon the spokesman for the Save Our Dogs campaign before the 1996 taskforce implemented a rebranding from the Footscray name to the Western Bulldogs in a bid to encompass the entire west of Melbourne.
To even make it into the 21st century had seemed a fallacy.
photo1.jpg
Peter Gordon spearheaded the Save Our Dogs campaign.
To 100 years in the V/AFL? “Absolutely not”.
Bulldogs games record holder Brad Johnson recalls pay cuts in the early 2000s “to help keep the club afloat”, having largely been shielded from the dire straits of the 90s as a player in his early years, drafted in 1993.
“The good thing that the club has always had is unbelievable fans and staff that have always seen a way to get the club out of a couple of these scenarios,” he said.
“I never had a sense that we weren’t going to roll out the following year.
“The good part about that was in ‘97 we bounced and became a really good team and it justified the decisions that were made. We as players played our part in all of that to set ourselves up to believe we belonged in the competition.
“We believed in the club and the colours and we wanted to be around.”
photo2.jpg
Susan Alberti was also integral to keeping the club afloat.
THE FIRE
To play in Footscray is to feel, former captain Bob Murphy says.
He’s the type to do that.
When you arrive at a footy club, as he did at the end of 1999, “you kind of inherit the history and the romance”.
“And the baggage,” he told this masthead.
“You do kind of take it on. And there’s landmarks in your career where you get a real sense for it … you get a reminder of what it means to people.”
There’s painted fences in the streets surrounding Whitten Oval, flags in windows and the same faces at training he used to see, now he’s back in club colours after a stint in WA.
“I’m clearly a hopeless romantic about the whole thing,” he laughs.
“It’s a romantic club. It’s an emotional club. And maybe sometimes to a fault. I’m to blame as much as anyone for indulging in it. But I do think that is who we are.
“But the sense of place … we’ve got that solid foundation, and not all clubs have. I think it’s an important thing that shouldn’t be brushed over.”
He’s back “home”, brimming with pride at what has been built in the heart of the ‘Scray at a ground where struggle once reigned supreme.
“It’s only 10 years ago that we never would have booked a 100-year celebration,” he said.
“At the end of 2014, it was grim. And look where we are. That’s only 10 years ago, but it probably shapes the next 100.”
photo3.jpg
Terry Wheeler, Rohan Smith, Paul Hudson, Kelvin Templeton, Rick Kennedy, Marcus Bontempelli, Luke Beveridge, Paul Dimmatina, Brian Royal, Tom Boyd, Tom Liberatore and Ellie Blackburn. Picture: Michael Klein
photo4.jpg
Dogs legend Kelvin Templeton with Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore. Picture: Michael Klein
THE FAMILIES
Bob says “you can take your pick of Liberatores” – Tony or Tom – and cites the late John Schultz as those “who are the Bulldogs, essentially”.
The latter Liberatore, in a twist of fate and of the calf of skipper Marcus Bontempelli, will lead the team as interim captain of Footscray – the team his father played 283 games for.
It’s not lost on Tony, whose pride in all of his children is evident, though it is Tom as a Bulldogs person that provides the greatest joy.
It’s Tom’s conversations with parents of players, of checking in on younger ones. “To me, that’s what footy and teammates is about,” Liberatore Snr said.
The care.
“It’s the same with Luke Beveridge,” he said.
“He just cares about his players, and it stands out like the proverbial. What I love about our footy club, is that everybody cares about each other. And it’s real.”
He learned resilience from his parents. He says Tom learned that from him.
“That’s my footy club … it is Footscray. And back in the day, that was Footscray. It was tough. There were no hipsters sipping on lattes, wearing clothes from Savers. They want to dress down. We all wanted to dress up.”
Liberatore has sat with the cheersquad a bit in recent years – people he says “know football and their team better than anyone”.
When the ball is bounced on Friday, he says there’ll be no room for romance, or milestones. Just footy.
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
THE FUTURE
On Friday night, as the Bulldogs celebrate their 100th year in the V/AFL – a milestone a raft of club greats concede they never thought it would reach – the beloved Footscray name will return.
The heart and soul of the west to beat on, with a famous second premiership cup added in 2016 – exactly 20 years after the taskforce to save the club for a second time in a decade.
Every Bulldogs person cites their hero – on the field or off it – who they credit with their role in getting the club to its century.
There’s Chatfield, and Gordon, and for Liberatore there’s his former coach Terry Wheeler, for Alberti it’s Smorgon.
The ones who saved it, who made it.
“When I was a little girl, I thought we were invincible and that nothing would ever happen to my club,” Alberti says, having seen the club’s only other premiership in 1954 as a child.
“I didn’t understand dollars and cents … I loved my colours and my club and the players and everything about it. The friends I made in the cheersquad. It’s been a lifelong journey for me, and to see us where we are today – stable and financially viable … it’s just incredible.
“The day of that 2016 premiership will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
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