AFL AwFuL Neglect
Western Footscray
The Footscray Football Club had been in existance for about 120 years when its committee
decided, against the wishes of the entire football community, to change its name.
At the time the AFL teams could be abbreviated to four or three letters without relying
on those silly birds and animal names. Then the Footscray administrators come up with the
mind numbingly stupid idea of calling themselves the Western Bulldogs.
John Schultz in Footscray strip.
Now, the word "western" is geograhically descriptive and is not a noun. You will
never hear someone say "So-and-so plays for Western" or "Western are sure to make the eight".
But poorly considered as it was did anyone take a quick look at the other team names in the AFL?
Had they done so they would have noticed that WEST was already taken by a team that had
recently won a couple of premierships, the West Coast Eagles Football Club. Overnight
West Coast's four letter abbreviation of WEST was unavailble. I wonder what sort of
reaction would have come if the Footscray muddlers had chosen COLLford or CARLington or some
such.
So did the AFL advise Footscray to head down to the Nicholson Street Mall and ask
some drop-out for his opinion? No. They ratified the change and this makes the
AFL administration as culpable as the slow learners at Western.
The long-suffering Footscray supporters deserved better treatment as did West Coast.
While everyone is saying "sorry" could the Fat Controller get up in front of the TV cameras and
say "We're SORRY we made such a monumental stuff-up with the renaming of Footscray" or would
that be admitting he doesn't deserve his fat salary?
