Bulldogs

Footscray is a suburb of Melbourne. In 1997 the club became the Western Bulldogs. The suburb is still its base, and royal blue, red and white, the colours known as the Tricolours, are still the ones it wears.

The 1954 premiership was the club's first in the top flight. What followed was a long wait. In 1961 the side reached the Grand Final and finished runners-up. The next 55 years produced no flag. That run ended in 2016, when the Bulldogs beat the Sydney Swans in the Grand Final and finished a 62-year drought. It was their second premiership in the Victorian Football League and its successor, the Australian Football League (AFL).

The women's side added a premiership of its own in 2018, in the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition. In 2021 the men were back in the Grand Final and lost it again, so the club has now finished runners-up twice.

Before any of this, the club had built its record in the Victorian Football Association, where it took nine premierships. Its home ground today is Marvel Stadium, which seats 53,343.

The story began in 1877, when a group in Footscray formed the Footscray Football Club.