To celebrate the club’s 100th anniversary in the VFL/AFL, ‘Bulldogs Through and Through: The history of the Western Bulldogs’ was recently published. Cade Lucas spoke to co-authors Darren Arthur and Andrew Gigacz about their own history with the Bulldogs and how they went from the outer at the Western Oval, to writing the official account of the club they love.
As most football fans would now be well aware, the Western Bulldogs, along with North Melbourne and Hawthorn, are celebrating centenaries this year.
But as somewhat less football fans seem to be aware, or care, these centenary celebrations come with an important caveat: all three clubs are well over 100 years old.
Rather, 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the Bulldogs, Kangaroos and Hawks being admitted into the then Victoria Football League from the rival Victoria Football Association (VFA) in 1925.
Of course, it’s still a significant milestone and given the VFA no longer exists (ironically now known as the VFL) and there’s barely anyone alive who remembers when these three clubs were part of it, it’s understandable that the pre-VFL history of each club has been largely overlooked.
Fortunately, the recently updated official history of the Western Bulldogs is an exception.
While published to mark 100 years in the VFL/AFL, ‘Bulldogs Through and Through – The history of the Western Bulldogs’ covers every year of the club’s existence, going all the way back to its founding in 1870 … something.
“If you go right back it’s probably 140 plus,” said club historian and co-writer Darren Arthur of how many years the Bulldogs have been in existence.
Arthur tackled the club’s murky origins in the book’s aptly titled first chapter “Shrouded in Mystery.”
“It may well have been 1876 or 1880, not the currently believed 1883. We may never know,” he writes in the sub-heading.
Opposite is a full-page black and white photo of two Footscray footballers – the Bont and Libba of the 1870’s – clad in blue, red and white striped lace-up guernseys, full length pants and hooped socks, with one of carrying a football under his arm the size of a balloon.
It’s one of dozens of striking images filtered throughout the book alongside an era-by-era breakdown of the club’s history, profiles of on-field and off-field greats, quirky facts and figures, the origin of its colours, name and jumper and a complete list of every player to have ever pulled one on.
It’s an exhaustive work that is at once a handsome coffee table book, a potted history Melbourne’s west and absolute a must for all Bulldogs tragics, which is unsurprising given it was written by two of them.
Despite growing up in Glen Waverley, Arthur was born into a Footscray supporting family and trips with his father across the West Gate Bridge to the Western Oval cemented his love for the club he’s been official historian of since 1992, wrote his masters thesis about and whose museum and heritage committee he’s involved in.
It’s through the latter than he met freelance writer Andrew Gigacz, who was born in the Bulldog heartland of Sunshine, but who scandalously spent his early years barracking for the Bombers.
“The truth is I didn’t become a proper Bulldogs support until my teenage years,” said Gigacz who blames his Bomber blasphemy on an Essendon supporting big brother.
“When I was nine I went to my first game at the Whitten Oval as an Essendon fan and the Bombers got smashed and from that point we started going to Footscray games every two weeks and it became like a second home.”
By the early 80’s Gigacz’s allegiance had crossed the Maribyrnong River. where it’s remained ever since. It made him the logical choice to write the chapters on the club’s most recent decades.
As the club historian, Arthur took charge of writing the rest, including a 1924 match against his co-author’s former team that might just be the most important in the club’s history.
“There was a championship of Victoria charity game played between the VFA and VFL premiers in 1924,” he said.
“We defeated Essendon and that was crucial to our entry to the VFL competition.”
Upon joining the VFL the following year, Arthur said Footscray soon developed a large following and benefited from being the only club west of the Yarra.
“It (the western suburbs) was quite isolated at the time and had a huge area and a population that took their football seriously.”
Despite this, the club had to wait nearly 30 years until they beat Norm Smith’s all conquering Melbourne in the 1954 Grand Final, for its first VFL flag.
It would wait more than twice as long for its second.
The team featuring club and western suburbs icons, E.J ‘Ted’ Whitten and captain coach, Charlie Sutton, achieved only a fleeting greatness.
The Footscray made another Grand Final in 1961, where they lost to fellow VFA alumni Hawthorn, but even with Whitten, the man who’d become known as ‘Mr Football’ and who was recently named the club’s greatest ever player, the Bulldogs’ fortunes slowly declined.
The club were still able to recruit champions, but they were increasingly players who shone brightly but briefly.
Among the brightest was Kelvin Templeton, a lanky kid from Gippsland who grew into a dynamic key forward that dominated the VFL in the late 1970’s.
“Probably the most brilliant I’ve seen,” said Arthur of Templeton, who won a Brownlow Medal, kicked more than 100 goals in a season and once scored an an astonishing 15.9 at the Western Oval.
“I was only a young kid and I was doing the paper round,” said Arthur of why he missed the momentous feat.
“Someone told me he kicked 15 and I said “oh rubbish, no one kicks 15.”
Templeton injured his knee soon after and then joined the likes of Barry Round and Bernie Quinlan on the growing list of champs the Bulldogs sold to other clubs to balance the books.
Money problems reached a crescendo in 1989 when clandestine attempts to merge the club with Fitzroy were discovered on the night of the club best and fairest. All hell broke loose and then so did an uprising: Fightback.
The story of how Footscray supporters campaigned to save their club has been well documented, but Arthur said it’s too pivotal to not detail again.
“Fightback was hugely significant because we may not have existed,” said Arthur of the campaign led by a young Footscray born lawyer called Peter Gordon.
Gordon assumed the Bulldogs presidency post-Fightback as the 80’s became the 90’s and the VFL became the AFL. A few years later, Footscray became the Western Bulldogs as Gordon handed over the presidency to businessman David Smorgon in 1997.
Champions like Doug Hawkins, Christ Grant, Brad Johnson, Scott West and Scott Wynd played for the club during this era, in teams that were sometimes very good, but never great.
But as Gigacz takes over the story as the club heads towards the new millennium, it’s clear two most significant Bulldogs of the time were off-field: Gordon and Smorgon.
“Its fair to say without both of them the club would not exist today,” said Gigacz who interviewed both men.
“Both acknowledge the other the same way. They’ve had a lot of disagreements over the years, but despite that they were glowing of their praise of the other.”
After 16 years at the helm, Smorgon handed the presidency back to Gordon in 2012 as the club embarked on what has become its greatest era, culminating in the drought breaking 2016 premiership.
Gigacz, who was at the MCG the day the Bulldogs defeated Sydney, said he could sense something was different once Luke Beveridge was appointed coach the previous year.
“It was the first time in my life as a supporter that I had the belief that this was a side that should win a premiership,” he said.
Equally as significant was the establishment of the Bulldogs AFLW team a year later, who then won a then a premiership of their own in 2018.
Women’s football has a whole chapter devoted to it, while there is a profile on Ellie Blackburn, the only female included in the club’s 25 greatest players which was announced at a 100th anniversary function in July.
Gigacz still shakes his head at being invited.
“I thought this is totally surreal, having been a nine year old kid attending his first game in 1974 having no concept he might one day be writing a history of the club and sharing a room with the greats.”
‘Bulldogs Through and Through – The History of the Western Bulldogs’, by Darren Arthur and Andrew Gigacz is out now through Slattery Books.