Footscray Football Club, now better known as the Western Bulldogs, is an Australian rules football team which competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The side is based in Footscray, a western suburb of Melbourne. Footscray Football Club's home colours are blue, red, and white. The club plays home matches at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne and at Mars Stadium in Ballarat.
📜 Western Bulldogs History
A football team based in Footscray is documented as early as the 1870's; the Footscray Football Club which still exists today was likely formed between 1870 and 1876, though the club's official formation date of 1877 coincides with the establishment of the Victorian Football Association (VFA), when official records began to be more meticulously kept.
Footscray enjoyed success in the early 1900's, including winning VFA premierships, and in 1925 the team joined the then-Victorian Football League (VFL), which served as a direct antecedent of the AFL. By then, Footscray was already known colloquially as the "Bulldogs", with the first live bulldog mascot appearing on the field in 1928. The team reached its first finals in 1938, won its first premiership in 1954, and would lose the grand final in 1961.
For a while, Footscray's 1954 victory would be its only one: the club would have to wait 62 years for its second premiership, which came in 2016, following a grand final victory against the Sydney Swans. Footscray also reached the 2021 grand final, but were beaten emphatically by Melbourne.
