{"id":895290,"date":"2026-09-17T12:12:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/895290\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:12:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:12:33","slug":"afl-news-2026-sydney-swans-fremantle-dockers-fans-warring-over-cancelled-bat-ball-hotel-booking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/895290\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Sydney Swans, Fremantle Dockers fans warring over cancelled Bat & Ball Hotel booking"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pub brawl has broken out between thirsty Sydney<\/a> and Fremantle<\/a> fans ahead of Friday night\u2019s preliminary final \u2013 and at the centre of it is a sabotaged sesh on the sauce.<\/p>\n

The brawl \u2013 which, it must be noted, is entirely verbal \u2013 escalated after the leader of Fremantle\u2019s Sydney supporters group made a booking of 80-plus people at Redfern\u2019s Bat & Ball Hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Swans fans in full voice at the SCG.\u00a0Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Said pub is a designated \u2018Swans friendly venue\u2019. It is a popular watering hole of choice for the Swans faithful before home games.<\/p>\n

So when the administrator of a Swans Facebook group boasting almost 30,000 members caught wind of the looming Dockers takeover, he sprung into action.<\/p>\n

Matt Donnelly confirmed with nine.com.au that he called the Bat & Ball Hotel and asked the venue to cancel the Fremantle supporters\u2019 booking.<\/p>\n

His request was successful.<\/p>\n

Cue a radio rant.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Monday, I called up the pub and said, \u2018I\u2019m from the Freo Dockers group in Sydney, got 80-plus people\u2019,\u201d Liam Pack, the leader of the group, told Nova\u2019s Nathan, Nat and Shaun on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was 100 per cent honest and transparent with the pub.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbeknownst to me, it\u2019s been cancelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got about 100 text messages from fans that this one bloke\u2019s taking credit for it. I\u2019ve never seen the Sydney fan base this passionate. It\u2019s about a bloody pub booking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donnelly didn\u2019t wish to comment when contacted by nine.com.au as he had already explained his version of events to News Corp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Bat & Ball Hotel.\u00a0The Sydney Morning Herald<\/p>\n

\u201cI caught wind of a Fremantle-related group that had booked out the beer garden for 80 people, without telling the pub they were from Fremantle,\u201d Donnelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the pub then cancelled their booking as a request from myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried to tell them to go to another pub as this is our home base.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au contacted the Bat & Ball Hotel for comment.<\/p>\n

The warring Swans and Dockers supporters may need to break bread over a couple of Tooheys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pub brawl has broken out between thirsty Sydney and Fremantle fans ahead of Friday night\u2019s preliminary final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-895290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}