An article about this website appeared in the Footscray Mail newspaper in its Wednesday 31 st March edition. That newspaper's chief reporter Kellee Nolan interviewed me around a week earlier at my home. Kellee contacted the football club some time after leaving my house and spoke with the club. The title of the story was Caveman in fight for the ‘real' Dogs

Western Bulldogs staff member Damian Glass provided the clubs official view on the name change issue. These are three of his statements in response to the article on page four.

The Bulldogs have always been the team of the west and one of the chief drivers for that name change was to take on a name that reflected the entire western region of Melbourne.

I have provided examples throughout on why that is not sufficient reason to change the name from Footscray to Western Bulldogs. While attempting to resist continually repeating myself, but why don't the team of the north change their name from Carlton to Northern Blues? They have always been the team of the north. They could therefore reflect the entire northern region of Melbourne. Hawthorn has always been the team of the east, so to reflect the eastern region of Melbourne they should adopt the Eastern Hawks and discard Hawthorn. Is Essendon not in Melbourne's western region? As for always being the team of the west, why then do so many people in the western region only attend Bulldogs matches when the Western Bulldogs are playing the team that they support?

Well it isn't working is it? Again as mentioned elsewhere where are these new supporters who would have been enticed to us by our name change? As for the followers of other clubs, who reside in the western region, why haven't they changed teams? With the corporate sector, why do they need to support an organization named western rather than Footscray? Is the corporate sector full of anti-Footscray bigots? Would they refuse to invest in us because we are named Footscray? Do we have to conceal our identity or try and confuse people as to who we are to grab their money? Is some business in Footscray only prepared to support the club if we are known as Western Bulldogs? They won't have anything to do with us because we have the name of the suburb THAT THEIR BUSINESS ALSO OPERATES FROM! This is just beyond my comprehension. A business in Leeds Street, Nicholson Street, Paisley Street or any part of the Footscray Mall or Footscray the suburb is reluctant to do business with us because we are called Footscray? The corporate sector obviously is not doing much when we have to play our HOME games away and not just away but IN ANOTHER STATE! There's our corporate support for you

Footscray, or the Bulldogs, have always have had one of the lowest- if not the lowest-supporter bases in the competition By changing the name of the Western Bulldogs, in part we've managed to ensure our club has continued to be a part of the AFL competition and, by doing that we would argue we've also continued to preserve the proud tradition and history of the club.

Well firstly let me correct Mr Glass on the issue of always having a low supporter base. Would you say our supporter base was low in 1955 when we had more members than the eleven other teams in the competition? Same for 1933 when we had the highest membership in the VFL? Could it be argued that the 70,000 Footscray fans amongst the 80,897 at the 1954 Grand Final, was an example of always having had one of the lowest-if not the lowest –supporter bases in the competition? Secondly if we were still to be Footscray would the AFL would have drop punted us? Now why would they care what we are called? If we were the Timbuktu Llamas or the Antarctica Penguins what would it matter, as long as we are solvent, that is all they would worry about. Why would they be so keen on us to become the Western Bulldogs? They don't seem to be pushing for Richmond to become the Eastern Tigers, Carlton the Northern Blues or Geelong the Country Cats. Or are the AFL anti- Footscray bigots? If they are then why , what does the F word mean to them? On Mr Glass' third point about continuing the proud tradition of the club, how is changing the name doing this? We adopted Bulldogs as our nickname some years after joining the VFL in 1925. Prior to that we were the Tricolours. Maybe we should be the Western Tricolours to further cement our link with the tradition and history of the club? The name is the most important part of your tradition and how can the history of the club be preserved when the board refuses to acknowledge that Footscray was ever our title? Just look at the Western Bulldogs website. Footscray the word is only ever mentioned when someone is being quoted and usually a player from many years ago. Why are they embarrassed or ashamed of our name? I fail to see how any of our history is being preserved anyway when the club has a different name, song, ground and uniform to what it did in the past? What tradition is thus being preserved, is it the crushed rock behind both goals that we had to stand on at home games?

Moving away from the Footscray Mail article to other statements that I have heard from people. Here is a selection

The change of name has increased our support

You cannot be serious. Just refer to the daily newspapers and or the official Western Bulldogs website and read about how the club is campaigning for more lapsed members to renew from last year etc. As is mentioned before throughout this site, why are we last on the membership table? The population of the western suburbs these days would be well over 500,000 maybe closer to 750,000 so why has this name change not resulted in us having the highest membership of any Melbourne team? The club have monopolised the name Western, so why is the west not embracing the club?

If there were to be a vote on the name change issue then Footscray would have won

Absolutely 100% correct with that statement. Western Bulldogs would not have got up if a vote had of been held on the subject. If there were to be a vote now to re-introduce Footscray and discard Western Bulldogs then Footscray would triumph in that too.

That is why there was no vote. Because if it happened Footscray would have won and the club would be bankrupt if we had of remained Footscray. David Smorgon and his task force knew this, so by taking this strong and decisive action the club was saved.

Of all the excuses put forward by Western Bulldogs apologists, this is by far the most contemptuous and preposterous. I have got into quite a few heated debates over this and have nearly come to blows with a few blokes that have dared offer this piece of insulting garbage. This argument could therefore, be put forward by John Howard or Steve Bracks. ‘Oh we won't call an election because the electorate may vote in the opposition and they may possibly bankrupt us' So we at Footscray are not worthy of a democracy. Or is a democracy dangerous, as we won't know how to use it. So therefore we need a dictatorship to save us- ‘from ourselves'!! Next we will be told how to think, as there is no need to tell us how or who to vote for, that was taken away from us buffoons. ‘The peasants are revolting' ‘Yes I know. They are a revolting lot aren't they' That original statement was directed to me, about a year ago by someone defending the dictatorial stance. When I replied with the John Howard/ Steve Bracks not calling an election for the same reasons, (they might lose and their opposition would win and they may bankrupt us) the woman I was debating this with raised her voice and screamed at me that “My logic was illogical!” I was about to set her straight about the issue, but her husband intervened changing the subject and as I was in his car and on the way to another mate's house when this debate was on, I decided that it was not the time and place to pursue my support for Footscray and ask why she as a lifelong Bulldogs fan felt the need to defend a dictatorship instead of what so many Australians have died fighting for - Democracy. So I let it go and just had to wonder to myself why some people have such a low opinion of their fellow supporters intellect .I also had to wonder why some people have such unshakeable belief in David Smorgon's regime. What have they given us that is better than previous administrations? How many Premierships or Grand Finals have we reached since becoming the Western Bulldogs? The same number as every board since 1961.

We are from the western suburbs and Western Bulldogs reflects that

We are also from Australia, so why not call us the Australian Bulldogs? Speaking of Australia why don't we change our name to Down Under or Southern Land as we are south of the equator. Sporting events could therefore be billed as

Spain v Down Under
Down Under v Colombia
England v Southern Land
Southern Land v Canada

“ What do you think of when you think of Footscray? Underprivileged, third rate, not good enough and lacking success.”

That was a statement from David Smorgon back in 1996 just after his group had taken control. Never forget those words. Totally amazing that a new president can make such comments about the name of the club he had just obtained control of! Having just assumed the reins and instantly insult us all with his opinion of the club(or is it suburb) he had taken over Let's now take this opinion as if it is a true and accurate opinion of Footscray. Well why not just obliterate Footscray from everywhere? It has already been deleted from many circumstances. There is no longer a Footscray High School, Footscray Council, Footscray and District Football League, Footscray and District Hospital. So why not erase all other mentions of Footscray? West Footscray railway station can become West Western railway station. The primary schools in Geelong Road, Hyde Street and Argyle St can change to Western Primary School, Western Central Primary School and West Western Primary School. Local footy club can be the West Western Football Club as well as the school Should we think up another name for the suburb or will we just stick with the tried and trusted boring, unimaginative, mundane, inane, nonsensical, uninteresting and unrepresentative Western that is above? Assuming that we keep Western you can then write to the football club in this way.

Western Bulldogs Football Club

Whitten Oval
417 Barkly Street
P.O. Box 4112
Western West 3011
Victoria
Australia

Although I agree we should never have altered our name, it is too late now to change it back.

Why is it too late to change it back? The Russian city of St Petersburg had its name changed in 1914 to Petrograd. It was known as this for the next ten years until the Communist government decided to honour Lenin. So after Lenin's death in 1924, Petrograd was re-named Leningrad. This was altered after the fall of communism in the early 1990's when the famous city reverted back to St Petersburg Better late than never, and eight years is too long to be called Western Bulldogs, but not long enough for Footscray to be consigned to the history pages for ever. We can, should and will re-emerge just as St Petersburg did after 80 years.

'Footscray sounded similar to Fitzroy'

Footscray sounded similar to Fitzroy, just as West Coast and Western Bulldogs and both teams had the same abbreviation with FFC Footscray and Fitzroy are actual places and both clubs names reflect the suburb they originated from. It would have been ludicrous for either club to change their name due to their similarity with the other one. Whilst they commence with the letter F and conclude with the similar Ray and Roy they are considerably different to West Coast and Western Bulldogs. How many more times do I have to mention that West and Western are general directional terms that have no meaning to anything, with the exception of being left of somewhere or something? When the Perth based team were manufactured in 1987 they adopted West Coast (a poor name I believe, wish they could have come up with something more interesting) and then some years later our clubs administration decided that we should have a name, which is extremely similar to the name they selected. As to my point about abbreviations (WCE and WB) being similar, Footscray and Fitzroy were predominantly never abbreviated anyway. The FFC that applied to both clubs is not relevant to this argument because they only had one word unlike West Coast and Western Bulldogs. Every club that has multiple words in its name requires an abbreviation. For anyone to make an issue of the FFC, you would also need to take into account Carlton and Collingwood, as they are both the CFC. Need I add that as we all know, tragically Fitzroy is no longer with us, so that now leaves only the two C's as teams with the same (overwhelmingly unused) abbreviation. We will have to share the FFC these days with Fremantle rather than Fitzroy.

South Melbourne changed their name to Sydney

They play in Sydney these days, not in Melbourne! It is amazing how people cannot stick to the topic that is being debated. We still play our home games in Melbourne (then again when not being sold off to Sydney and now Darwin) That comparison is ludicrous as are so many others arguments put forward like Hawthorn being forced out of Waverley and Collingwood leaving Victoria Park for Olympic Park. Can people concentrate on the actual subject?

I don't care what we called. As long as we are in the competition

So why not change the nickname from Bulldogs to Sheep (or whatever you fancy)-“ As long as we are in the competition ” Also introduce a different colour scheme. Get rid of the red, white and blue and implement pink and green (or whatever you fancy) “ As long as we are in the competition ”, therefore “preserving the proud tradition and history of the club”. The love of paradox isn't it great.

But our boring, unimaginative, mundane, inane, nonsensical, uninspiring, unrepresentative, name is unique. No other club has a boring, unimaginative, mundane, inane, nonsensical, uninspiring and unrepresentative name.

So being Western Bulldogs is our way to stand out from the crowd? We are the in vogue trendsetters with our BUMINUU name. Well it seems we are the only dedicated followers of this fashion here as now one else is seeking us here and there. It hasn't taken off. Which perhaps you think is good? What a fertile field of material is here amongst the Western Bulldogs for University studies on the acceptance of mediocrity? Excellent case study Western Bulldogs fans would be for University students researching people who revel in an uninteresting mundane existence.

I like our boring, unimaginative, mundane, inane, nonsensical, uninspiring and unrepresentative name. The BUMINUU name was created especially for people like me. I reckon it was cool dude, how Footscray was deleted even though I always barracked for them and never thought of my team being anything other than Footscray. I had never heard of Western Bulldogs but now we are that I reckon it is good. I never thought about having an INFERIORITY COMPLEX until the name was changed, but now I consider yes I did have an inferiority complex about Footscray and always in my subconscious felt embarrassment about the name of the team I support. I still have an inferiority complex although I feel better that the unelected new board acted in changing our name. We as Footscray fans are too stupid to be allowed to decide our own fate so I am glad the 1996 changes were implemented without a vote, because I wouldn't know how to go about the procedure of voting anyway. It is too much for me to take in. Do you raise your left hand or your right hand? Or do you write it down on a piece of paper and if so what colour is the crayon they give us to write our preference with? Democracy and consultation should not be wasted on Bulldogs supporters. Waste of money and time providing us with an education because we are brain dead, plebeians who should be working as chimney sweeps rather than learning how to read and write (even in crayons)

Well there is nothing I can do about you is there? You are the mythical stereotypical Bulldogs supporter I have been attempting to explain does not exist.