WESTERN Bulldogs Football Club will revert to its original name Footscray for Friday night's centennial fixture against Collingwood at the MCG.
The club was founded in 1877 and won nine premierships in the VFA before gaining entrance in the VFL ahead of the 1925 season at the same time as Hawthorn and North Melbourne.
Flanked by two of the club's favourite sons Bob Murphy and Tom Liberatore, Western Bulldogs president Kylie Watson-Wheeler revealed the name change on Monday morning, standing inside the new $78 million Mission Whitten Oval.
"I think our footy club is a unique one, and a special one, the heart of the footy club is in Footscray and always will be. I think the nod to that history is a proud moment for everyone associated with the footy club," Murphy said on Monday morning.
After the 1989 season, Footscray almost changed permanently. The club was in a perilous financial position and presented with two options from then-VFL commission chairman Ross Oakley: merge with debt-ridden Fitzroy or lose the club's licence to trade.
That led to the famous 'Fightback' campaign. A legal battle helped the club land an injunction to fight for survival. Within a few weeks, more than $1.6m was raised to save the club. By 1996, the club changed its name from Footscray to the Western Bulldogs to broaden its appeal to a wider region of the west.
"I think any club that survives for 100 years and is now in a position to thrive is incredible. Footscray nearly went under a few times and had an identity shift around survival," Murphy said.
"To now be what it is today and what Tom (Liberatore) led out on Saturday night is a club that is up to its eyeballs in the elite competition, something that makes all of us really, really proud. This facility is the envy of a lot in the competition and the team showed so much promise. I think the next 100 years will be even more exciting.
"It was a few years after the change of name, but call you what you want, the spirit of the footy club is the colours, the Bulldog and the geography. The place we are stood on right now is very special. I keep using the word proud deliberately because of the trials and how difficult it has been in various parts of the last 30 years, let alone 100 years. Today the club is solid in its foundations and who knows what the possibilities are for the future."
Murphy will lead a special pre-game ceremony before the first bounce on Friday night, which will include other iconic figures Kelvin Templeton, Tony Liberatore, Gary Dempsey, Easton Wood, Simon Beasley, Luke Darcy, Adam Cooney, Tom Boyd, Daniel Giansiracusa, Lindsay Gilbee, Rohan Smith, Scott Wynd and Brad Johnson.
After three years working in the football department at Fremantle, Murphy returned to Melbourne late last year and has not only returned to the media but has also returned to the kennel in a variety of roles across the administration.
"It's home, the Bulldogs," he said.
"I spent more than half my life here. It's in Tom's bones, it's almost elemental to us. It's a bit like describing what the rain is like; it’s part of who you are. I love being back in the colours and I'm in admiration of Tom and his teammates, 'Bevo' (coach Luke Beveridge) and his team. I ride the bumps every week."
With captain Marcus Bontempelli sidelined until Gather Round at the earliest due to a complex calf injury, vice-captain Liberatore has taken over the captaincy duties to start the year in a sign of just how much he has developed as a leader in the past few years.
"When I was a teenager I would have said I'd love to (one day captain the club), but during my early days probably not," Liberatore said.
"It is something I was infatuated with as a kid when I loved watching us growing up. I would never have expected to be captain, that's for sure."
Liberatore knows the Bulldogs' storied history better than anyone inside Mission Whitten Oval. He was a 10-year-old when his father Tony retired at the end of 2002, after playing 283 times in the red, white and blue, earning Team of the Century selection after winning the Brownlow Medal in 1990.
The 32-year-old admitted on Monday that his pep talk ahead of the win over North Melbourne on Saturday night caused him a bit of grief during the week, but he will be better now he has one under his belt.
"It was initially quite nerve-racking," Liberatore said. "There were moments during the week where I had five or 10 minutes where you get stuck in your own head thinking about how you can ruin the pre-game speech.
"Once we got settled and got the first one out of the way it was all good. 'Bevo' was pretty good to me pre-game, he had a nice little joke about the past and the whole room actually laughed."
Footscray is aiming to break its all-time home and away attendance record of 68,447 set against Richmond in 1974 – 58,997 is the club's biggest home crowd in 1993 – and is poised to eclipse that with Collingwood playing in front of more than 69,000 people nine times in 2024.
