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Dockers sing the Blues

By Mr Dandalooa

The Blues will never tire of telling any footy buff that with 16 to boot, they have more premierships to toast than any other club.

Maybe it’s the club’s long-time political links that have seen them through. Or maybe it’s been the backing of a billionaire.

Over the years Carlton has been linked the Liberal Party, with former Prime Ministers Sir Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser and former political party and club president John Elliott among their most famous and political fans.

Unlike the Blues, St Kilda have only one premiership flag to flaunt and the 50th anniversary of Barry Breen’s heroics is not for another seven years.

Will we have to wait until then for Fremantle to start bragging about its premiership victories?

Some might argue that the style of game instilled in the club by inaugural coach Gerard Neesham has been a cancer to the club.

The propensity to play a short game, hinged on continual hand-balls to deliver the ball to the inside 50, has been fraught with skill errors, costly turnovers and game losses.

Since 1995, one can hardly remember a season Fremantle even came close to a premiership and now, 14 years later the team is going through another “team-building phase”.

The club has a chequered and controversial history, not for off-field antics, but for the massive promise that has seldom been delivered on-field.

The AFL announced on December 14 1993 that a new team would enter the league in 1995 and be based in Fremantle, to much fanfare in Western Australia.

The team endured some tough early years near the bottom of the premiership ladder, until 2003 when they finished fifth after the regular season rounds, making the finals for the first time.

That in itself should have sent warning signs to the club’s ever passionate and loyal fans, taking eight years to reach the finals.

The elimination final against eighth placed Essendon at Subiaco Oval was then the club’s biggest ever game, but it ended in bitter disappointment for Fremantle, with Essendon’s finals experience proving too strong for the young Freo team.

The Dockers went on to miss making the finals in the following two seasons, finishing both seasons and only one game outside the top eight.

After a less-than-average first half to the 2006 season, Fremantle finished the year with a club record nine-straight wins to finish in third position at the end of the regular season.

Alas, glimpses of hope emerge.

However, in the qualifying final against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium, the Dockers led for the first three quarters before being overrun by the Crows.

This trend, losing a winnable game in the third quarter, would come back to bit the Dockers time and time again.

In the following week the club won its first ever finals game in the semi-final against Melbourne at Subiaco Oval and the Dockers earned a trip to Sydney to play in its first ever preliminary-final.

But that was not meant to be and the following week at Telstra Stadium against the Sydney Swans, the Dockers lost by 35 points.

The Fremantle Football Club is now the only active club the AFL not to win a premiership or even play in a grand final.

They are credited, however, as being the only team never to have played in a drawn match, despite a controversial match against St Kilda at Aurora Stadium in Launceston, Tasmania in 2006.

During the game, which any footy buff would recall, St Kilda trailed by one point when the final siren sounded.

But, the field umpires failed to hear the siren although many commentators noted as being dangerously quiet during the game.

St Kilda’s Steven Baker then scored a behind which levelled the scores, before the siren was sounded a second time and he was awarded a free-kick for an infringement after he kicked the point.

Baker was allowed to take the kick again - where he also scored a behind.

Fremantle players and officials protested but failed to overturn the decision, causing controversy throughout the veins of the AFL.

The AFL did however eventually overturn the result the following week which was the first time such an event had occurred since 1900.

Freo was awarded the win and four premiership points.