Opinion How did you start going for the Bulldogs?

[candymanwb]

Like many of you on this forum, I inherited the RW+B in my blood. My grandfather grew up in the Western Suburbs and witnessed the 1954 flag aswell as our 1961 GF loss.
My mother (his daughter) was a keen follower of the bulldogs, but because our family has been on a pension since the early 90's I was never able to go to the city from Hastings to witness the Bulldogs play. Instead, we had to watch it on tv at home.
In 2004 I was School Captain at my primary school and I had to have photos taken with the local state member of parliament because our school had received funding for a new refurb, and it just so happened that the local member for Hastings was Rosy Buchanan (a bulldogs supporter).
We got talking about the football and she asked me how many games I've been to to which I've replied "I've never been".
A week later my principal called me up to his office to tell me that I've been invited to go to the President's Dinner that weekend at the Bulldogs Game against Collingwood with Rosy. I was absolutely bloody ecstatic!
On the night I sat on the same table as Eddie McGuire, David Smorgan, Campbell Rose aswell as Dave O'Neill. For the first time I ate an entree before a main, and got to see my Bulldogs live right in front of me at Telstra Dome.
Even though we lost that match, it was an incredible first match experience and I knew that I'd be a Bulldog for life after that.
The next year was quite funny too, I actually was in the same form as Rosy's daughter at Secondary College! Small world, huh?

 

[Mutt]

Nice read candymanwb - thanks for that.

 

[SPower]

Like many of you on this forum, I inherited the RW+B in my blood. My grandfather grew up in the Western Suburbs and witnessed the 1954 flag aswell as our 1961 GF loss.
Well done and Congrats on sharing your story!!

 

[Aldo]

Grew up in a family of non-footy supporters. Knew very little about the sport except I went for the Tigers and Lions (because I like big cats) and also the Swans (because I thought the opera house logo looked cool). Then when I started to go to primary school in Spotswood, I realised most of the kids went for either the dogs or the bombers. I thought dogs were way cooler than mosquitoes/planes and the colours were much better. Also, my best friend was a dogs supporter and begged me to go for them and a couple of the players came to the school once.

 

[Running Dog]

Not a very interesting story, but here goes- I lived in Footscray in the 80's, and adopted the Dogs as 'my VFL team'. I'd drifted away from footy a bit, but the fightback of 1989 rekindled the passion I had as a kid. When the league became the AFL I stuck with the Dogs, even though I moved back to WA shortly afterwards. I only wish I'd realised sooner that interstate memberships were available.

 

[Bont2Bruce]

My grandfather converted me at an impressionable young age, along with my mum before me. I used to take a little blue stool to games and stand on it in the outer at about age 6. If we won (which wasn't that often in the early 80s) there was always an ice-cream on the way home.