WE HAVE enjoyed the attention: kick-to-kicks at our schools, chats in our nursing homes, a little extra advice for our grassroots clubs, even a chance to watch Western Bulldogs train on our turf. They say they love us, happy to be back for a second annual AFL Community Camp.
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North Melbourne loved us too, bringing its playing squad to camp here the six consecutive years before the Bulldogs moved in. The Kangaroos had teamed with our state team North Ballarat Roosters much longer than that, playing a key role in the Roosters Victorian Football League premiership hattrick, 2008-10, and entrusting the Roosters to help star players like Andrew Swallow and Daniel Wells back in action.
If you are still a little skeptical how the Bulldogs’ partnership may truly be any different the answer lies both in the Bulldogs new Mair Street kennel and the fact the Bulldogs had the guts to promise this city AFL games every season for five seasons from 2017 at Eureka Stadium.
The Bulldogs are digging deeper. From the club’s top – president Peter Gordon and chief executive officer David Stevenson – right through playing ranks, Western Bulldogs have made clear they are not a pop-up operation here to visit like a suburban cousin on an obligatory family visit each summer.
The Bulldogs are making Ballarat home with a hub to extend the club’s existing and emerging community development initiatives, adapting each to best suit this city’s needs. Sons of the West men’s health, The Whitten Project youth leadership, Bulldogs Read for literacy – these are just the beginnings.
They have employed Brett Goodes, full-time in Ballarat, to spearhead community engagement. Goodes is a decorated footballer about Ballarat and with Western Bulldogs, who has wealth of experience in indigenous and youth projects. He will work with Bulldogs staff who specialise in community development rather than football.
The Bulldogs’ Mair Street base is not a merchandise shop or membership drive.
Western Bulldogs are extending their western front from the western suburbs into western Victoria but they have made clear this is not an invasion. They want to complement our existing community work, using their influence and reach as an AFL club to best fit Ballarat.
The Bulldogs are not planning to take over our football but add to it. We already have a VFL team but the Bulldogs can give us true AFL exposure and experience. They are building on a lot of the fantastic development work North Melbourne started here, but in their own style.
We will offer them a boutique stadium just down the road, unlike other clubs’ interstate ventures. A place they cultivate a true home ground advantage in a growth corridor for support.
The Bulldogs do not expect all Ballarat football fans to drop their allegiances and become fervent fans overnight. Nor are we likely to become as devoted as Geelong, where if Cats’ skipper Joel Selwood is seen buying a box of tissues, the whole town breaks out in a sweat fearing he might have oncoming flu.
The Bulldogs are making a big holistic investment in Ballarat. That should be reason enough for us all to be a bit more Bulldog.
