Another year of the bloody Dogs

Why can’t I just choose to barrack for a successful team instead of constantly putting myself through this agony?

The answer is nobody chooses to barrack for Footscray.  You’re geographically marooned out there - you have no choice no matter how many bloody preliminary finals you lose.

I remember asking myself that question in 1996 when the club finished second from the bottom, managing to beat only one team all season: Fitzroy that year’s wooden spooners.

That was the year immortalised in the film Year of the Dog, a documentary made by someone who spent a year with the club, and one which should be compulsory viewing for anybody contemplating supporting any of life’s more unlikely causes. This clip from the movie shows you what the club was like at that time - Tehy just didn't know how to win. Watch at 2:27 for the famous "I'll spew up!" line form Plough.

It’s a film full of pathos, of sadness, of struggle and of disintegration.  It’s a film in which the weak, and sometimes the strong, are put to the sword.  Plots are hatched, backs are stabbed and careers are smashed.  It’s compulsive viewing because it tells the truth.

Good does not triumph over evil in that film.

I watched Year of the Dog with all the fellas the night before Footscray played in that horrible Preliminary Final against Adelaide, the one which, had they won, would have delivered the dream Grand Final featuring football’s perennial losers: Footscray and St Kilda.  Everybody’s second favourite teams, cute, lovable and harmless, Except for last night - bloody Saints.

As it was they squandered a huge lead and went down by two points. Adelaide after having an average season went on to win that flag, and the next one, despite the fact that Footscray, in those two years was far and away the most attractive and successful team in the competition.

I remember we all sat there in shock as we watched that film rolled on and on - had that season really been that bad?

We’d blocked it out of our memories already.  Each loss, each extraordinarily large defeat was somehow new and perhaps even more shocking in the reliving, as we were ten, a mere year later, basking in the unlikely glory of being Preliminary Finalists.