Turn, and face the strange

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes' sang David Bowie. But adapting to change has never been a Bulldog Tragician strong point.

If it was left to me, no beloved player would ever be delisted (I was outraged that we could do that to the fearless, selfless Daniel Cross! though I guess it did lead to a fairly handy new number 4). And we'd still be watching footy at the Western Oval. (Was a bit of mud, a strong smell of sewerage, and the occasional dead rat in the toilets, actually all that bad, I ask, while silently giving thanks that the roof at Marvel is closed on freezing winter days.)

With that mindset, you could imagine Season 2025 was always going to be especially troubling. Just one - ONE! - 2016 premiership player in the teams during the first few rounds, alongside  new recruits whose names I'd characteristically failed to pay attention to. (They're all called New Dudes for the first few weeks until their characteristics begin to take shape).

But the worst thing was dealing with the departure of two beloved premiership stars. Their transfers to other Melbourne clubs could not be easily explained away, unlike - and I'm speaking generically here - an overrated, self-absorbed social media identity with a stupid mullet and silly moustache, who is far better suited to running around at that rural stadium with one of the Tragician's many hated clubs. (But I don't have anyone in particular in mind).

Unlike that nameless individual, Caleb 'Celeb' Daniel and Jackson 'Jacko' Macrae (we never did seem to grant him a worthy nickname) were wonderful players and selfless clubmen. Seeing them in opposition colours was going to be unusually painful, jarring and confusing.

In Round One, Jackson played his 200th game. Though for one hundred and ninety nine times he had worn the red, white and blue, somehow there he was, smiling for photos in his brand new St Kilda guernsey, while friends and family joined him in their equally new scarves.

Jackson Macrae had kicked THE most important goal in my footballing memory in 2016. Yet that moment, that precious unforgettable goal, held no significance for his new fans and team-mates.

At Marvel a few weeks later, Jackson Macrae played against us for the first time, hunting the ball, competing against those team-mates. Watching, with what could have been a level of chagrin, the awe-inspiring return of The Bont. Now he was a hapless bystander while our captain, after a long absence, wreaked his usual havoc. So deft was his touch, so imposing was his influence that Collingwood champion Scott Pendelbury wrote on social media that Bont was taking the piss; surely he must have surely been playing elsewhere.

Once upon a time, Jackson Macrae was the second year player that earnest draft pick Marcus Bontempelli asked for tips when he came to the club. Once, teenagers Jackson Macrae and Marcus Bontempelli went overseas together and cycled through Central Park. Once, Jackson Macrae stood singing our song, part of the victorious Bulldogs circle who'd achieved history, shedding silent tears because he'd played an immense part in getting us to our first Grand Final in living memory.

Footy. It's incomprehensible sometimes.

Caleb Daniel played his 200th game last night. He's a Kangaroo now, so 192 of those games were for us. A contingent of our players loved their former team-mate so well that they turned up to cheer him in the North Melbourne rooms pre-game and stayed to watch the match.

I tuned in too, hoping that he would play well and of course that they would beat the Bombres. Scanning the field for our diminutive, helmeted playmaker, I was shocked, even outraged, to see that Alastair Clarkson was employing him in the ruck. Was this the positional change and fresh start that 'Celeb' had been seeking?

It took me quite a while, maybe even a quarter or two, to realise that the bloke in the helmet was Tristan Xerri. (In my defence I was expecting North's vertical stripes to make Celeb look taller).

The Roos didn't win. I switched the TV off, as you can imagine, once the Bombres prevailed. North Melbourne, sadly, are a bottom four team. 'Celeb' is plying his trade there, playing a role, guaranteed of a game, but maybe resigned to the idea that he won't be again a premiership player.

It makes my heart ache.

Later I see footage of Celeb being chaired off the ground by his newly minted team-mates. Once, the Bulldogs fans would have been on our feet, cheering ourselves hoarse as we celebrated his milestone.

Once it would surely have been The Bont who was one of those hoisting him aloft, in appreciation of all those things they'd shared; long and grinding pre-seasons, boring team meetings, in-jokes and nicknames, bitter defeats and inspiring wins. Instead Bont is probably clapping him from a corporate box. And we the fans never got a chance to say thanks. To say goodbye.

Footy. It's just downright weird sometimes.

And yet for all of my professed loathing of change, I will most likely barely give a thought to our former champs after that first painful sighting of them in other colours. Our current team  swiftly become my focus as I enjoy a surprisingly entertaining and resurgent season. Players from other clubs that I claimed to detest when they arrived have, inevitably, become 'ours', shielded within our partisan embrace. Our former players fade gradually into the rear view mirror; that's how it's always been.

Despite my love of nostalgia, now I'm watching and applauding new heroes: Joel Freijah's bull-at-a-gate attack on the ball and sublime kicking skills (though not enough to call him The New Bont - respect, people!).

I'm invested in the New Dudes whose names I've gradually learnt and whose stories I'm beginning to learn.

Sam Davidson, the lifelong Bulldogs fan, medical student and mature age recruit, who is brave and dashing and runs relentlessly.

Josh Dolan, new contender for the Dailey Bailey  Baby-Face Award: he looks only 15 and provokes maternal anxiety from me whenever he goes near the ball. It can't be right that he is out there on the same field as the ever-thuggish brute Toby Greene.

Jedd Busslinger, who looks like a member of the Eagles - I'm talking the '70s rockband and not the West Coast version playing in Perth.

I'm applauding hard-nut Matt Kennedy's contribution to our team - and even clapping James Harmes' goals with less reluctance than usual, while claiming I'd always foreseen Rory Lobb would become a vital cog in our wheel.

I'm hanging on updates about Sam Darcy whose awful injury left a horrible hush around the stadium. I'm on my feet with the rest of the fans, chanting the name of Libba after he completed a run-down tackle on St Kilda speedster Bradley Hill.

It can't be all about the New Dudes when our beloved crab-running favourite is running around in vintage form.

Indeed, after the first few minutes, I'd forgotten the sorrowful pang every time I recognised Jackson Macrae in those unfamiliar colours. He was, sort of, just another player at the end of the match. (I was glad we were spared any horrible clutching-of-the-new-guernsey, looking skywards in celebration, moments from him too. But I think 'Jacko' has always been full of class).

Time hurtles by. Bowie said: Time may change me, But you can't trace time. It's mysterious, but I think I get it. Our club has been around for 100 years, after all. I haven't been there for all of them. Though sometimes, quite often actually, it definitely feels that way.

A note about the Bulldog Tragician blog

In 2013, I began this blog. It was my attempt to understand the mysterious hold of the Western Bulldogs, nee Footscray Football Club, on my life. It didn't take long to realise that the glue which held it all together was my family. My dad, the rover from West Footscray, who just missed the big time. My mum, an Irish immigrant seeing her first game as a 17-year-old in 1954. My siblings - the 'Libba Sister' Jackie, and my brothers Brendan and Damian - coming together at the games each week. The doings of our baffling and beloved club formed the backdrop to our family celebrations; the hum of conversations always centered around the disappointments, the victories, the endless fun and ridiculous stupidity of it all.

Until a day in 2016. The 'why' questions didn't matter any more.

In November 2023, my two brothers, my sister and mum met up. We get together every year, in tribute to the memory of my dad, 'the rover from West Footscray', who died far too young, on November 20, 1982.

Our 2023 finals defeat had been depressing even by the stratospheric standards of disappointment our club has often delivered.

Still, a new year beckoned, and the 2024 prospects of the Doggies was soon our main topic of discussion. What would be the nicknames of the new wide-eyed recruits? (For the new ruckman, Lachlan Smith, we agreed it was likely to be...'Smithy') We were looking forward to seeing the Son of Crofty; his dad Matthew had always been a firm favourite in our family, where we loved the fact that this ungainly defender somehow secretly envisaged himself as having the flair of a Krakouer brother.

Two weeks after that catch-up, my brother Brendan died very suddenly. It has been an earthquake in our close-knit family.

Cherished keepsakes of his Bulldogs-supporting life were part of the funeral: footage of him, selling 'Up Yours Oakley!' stickers, at the '89 rally that saved the Dogs. His Bulldogs scarf, the 2016 mementoes.

We kept showing up to our matches in 2024. But Brendan wasn't with us, to call out 'LIFT!' when the Dogs were losing, or 'BELIEVE' when things got tense, or his favourite call of 'BLOW THE SIREN!' if the Dogs got the first point of the match.

And with his passing, a crushing and heavy silence fell over the Bulldog Tragician blog.

Brendan was one of my first readers, my biggest fan. His one-word messages to me: 'Beautiful', 'Gorgeous', always kept me blogging on the many occasions, especially early on, when I wondered if there was actually anyone out there reading.

Even after writing this new post, I'm not sure if I want to continue. But I know many of you have followed this blog journey for many years, and felt it reflected your own lives and families. I have been asked why it so suddenly disappeared, so this is my explanation.

The empty chair

Brendan wrote a blog for me when I was overseas, in 2015. I think it was both beautiful and gorgeous. It is now also achingly sad. Please read it and remember him as we will, always. 

Kerrie Soraghan