Fremantle Football Club

The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed The Dockers, is an Australian rules football team which plays in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based in the port city of Fremantle at the mouth of the Swan River in Western Australia. In 1995 it became the second team from Western Australia to be admitted to the national Australian rules football competition, honouring the rich footballing tradition and history associated with Fremantle.

Matthew Pavlich has been club captain since the beginning of the 2007 season.^[1] High profile players since the club's inception include Pavlich, the league's tallest ever player Aaron Sandilands, former captains Peter Bell and Shaun McManus, former number one draft pick Clive Waterhouse, winners of the AFL Rising Star award Paul Hasleby and current Greater Western Sydney Giants midfielder Rhys Palmer, defender Luke McPharlin and forward Jeff Farmer.

The club is coached by former St Kilda coach Ross Lyon following the sacking of Mark Harvey at the end of the 2011 AFL home and away season. ^[2]

History

The AFL announced on 14 December 1993 that a new team would enter the league in 1995 and be based in Fremantle. The names "Fremantle Football Club", "Fremantle Dockers" and club colours were announced on 12 July 1994. Their first training session was held on 31 October 1994 at Fremantle Oval.

The decision to base the new club in Fremantle was primarily due to the long association of Australian rules football in Fremantle. The first match to be played in Fremantle occurred in the 1880s^[3] and the city quickly became a stronghold of the code, with Fremantle based teams winning 24 of the first 34 WAFL premierships.^[4] For over 100 years it has been represented by two strong clubs in the West Australian Football League: East Fremantle and South Fremantle. However it was not represented in a national club competition until 1995, eight years after the first expansion of the then Victorian Football League into Western Australia in 1987 with the creation of the West Coast Eagles.

In February 1996, Levi Strauss & Co., which produces the Dockers brand of clothing, challenged the club's right to use the name "Fremantle Dockers", specifically on clothing. As a result, the club and AFL discontinued the official use of the "Dockers" nickname in 1997. However, the team was still known unofficially as "The Dockers", both inside and outside the club, including in their official team song "Freo Way to Go" and the official club magazine "Docker".^[5] In October 2010, the strong association that members and fans have with the "Dockers" nickname lead the club to form a new arrangement with Levi Strauss & Co which allows the club to officially use the nickname "Dockers" as well as use the name on clothing and other brand elements.^[6] This name change was made in conjunction with changes to the club logo and playing strip.

The team endured some tough years near the bottom of the premiership ladder, until they finished fifth after the home and away rounds in 2003 and made the finals for the first time. The elimination final against eighth placed Essendon at Patersons Stadium was then the club's biggest ever game, but ended in disappointment for the home team, with the finals experience of Essendon proving too strong for the young team. They then missed making the finals in the following two seasons, finishing both years with 11 wins, 11 loses and only 1 game outside the top 8.

After an average first half to the 2006 season, Fremantle finished the year with a club record 9 straight wins to earn themselves 3rd position at the end of the home and away season, a club record 15 wins in a year and a double chance for their September finals campaign. In the qualifying final against Adelaide at AAMI Stadium, the Dockers led for the first three quarters before being overrun by the Crows. The following week (15 September) saw the club win its first finals game in the semi-final against Melbourne at Patersons Stadium. The club subsequently earned a trip to Sydney to play in its first ever preliminary-final the following Friday night (22 September) at ANZ Stadium against the Sydney Swans, where they lost by 35 points.

Fremantle is currently one of two clubs in the league (the other team being the Gold Coast Suns) that has not won a premiership (or played in a Grand Final), following Port Adelaide's win in 2004.

The club is also one of two clubs in the league (the other team being the Gold Coast Suns) to have never to have played in a drawn match, despite a controversial Round 5 match against St Kilda at Aurora Stadium in Launceston, Tasmania in 2006. The Saints trailed by a point when the final siren sounded, but the field umpires failed to hear the siren which many commentators had noted as being "dangerously quiet" during the game. St Kilda's Steven Baker then scored a behind, levelling the scores, before the siren was sounded a second time. Baker was awarded a free-kick for an infringement after he kicked the point and was allowed to take the kick again – which he also scored a behind from. Immediate protests from Fremantle players and officials failed to have any effect, causing controversy throughout Australian rules circles. However, the AFL overturned the result the following Wednesday—the first time this had occurred since 1900—and awarded the win and four premiership points to Fremantle.

Recent history

In 2007, following Chris Connolly's resignation midway through the season, Mark Harvey, a three-time premiership player with Essendon, was appointed caretaker coach for the club. During his seven matches for 2007, Harvey coached the Dockers to four wins and three losses.^[7] The club came 11th that year. The following year saw the club slumped to 14th.^[7]

In Round 15, 2009, Fremantle achieved the lowest score in its history and of the noughties, scoring only 1.7 (13) to the Adelaide Crows' 19.16 (130).^[7] It was held to just one point in the first half and the only goal scored came in the third quarter. Earlier that year, in Round 4, they scored their lowest ever score in Melbourne, 4.4.(28),^[7] against eventual runners-up St Kilda.

After finishing 6th in the 2010 regular season, the team booked their first finals appearance since 2006 and third ever home final. The team played Hawthorn at Patersons Stadium and despite being considered underdogs, went on to win by 30 points. The win came from strong performances from Luke McPharlin and Adam McPhee who limited the impact of Lance Franklin and Luke Hodge, respectively.^[8] The team's second ever win in a finals match qualified them for a semifinal to be played against the Geelong Cats at the MCG the following week. In a one-sided contest, Geelong won easily by 69 points.^[9]

Season 2011 saw Fremantle lose just once in the first six rounds (against Geelong), before injury struck to several players, none more important than premier ruckman Aaron Sandilands. The Dockers ended up finishing 11th on the ladder after losing their last 7 games of the season, with the injury list growing longer each week. Key players Matthew Pavlich, David Mundy, Nathan Fyfe, Luke McPharlin (late withdrawal), Hayden Ballantyne, Adam McPhee, Nick Lower (suspended) and Matthew de Boer all missed the final game of the season against the Western Bulldogs, which was Mark Harvey's last game as senior coach of Fremantle.

Western Derby

Fremantle's biggest rivalry is with the other Western Australian team, the West Coast Eagles, who they play twice each year in the home and away season, in the fiercely contested "Western Derby" matches (Derby is pronounced /ˈdɜrbi/ in Western Australia). West Coast were victorious in the first nine games, before Fremantle won in round 16, 1999. Since 2006, when the Dockers won both derbies in a season for the first time, Fremantle has been the more successful team, winning nine of the twelve games, including seven in a row between 2007 and 2010. The term derby is named after the Fremantle Derby games between East and South Fremantle in the West Australian Football League, which for almost 100 years have been considered some of the most important games in the local league.^[10] The 1979 WANFL Grand Final still holds the Subiaco Oval football attendance record of 52,781.^[11]

St Kilda rivalry

The history of rivalry between the Dockers and the St Kilda Football Club dates back to 2006 and the infamous AFL siren controversy at York Park. The match was set into a state of confusion with Fremantle leading by one point when the siren (which had not been very loud all game) was not heard by the umpires who then allowed St Kilda tagger Steven Baker to score a point after time had elapsed and, as a result, the match ended in a draw. The outcome of the game was taken to the AFL Commission and it was decided during the week that as the siren had gone Fremantle were judged to be the winners, disallowing Baker's point.

The rivalry intensified during the 2011 off-season when Fremantle controversially sacked coach Mark Harvey and replaced him with St Kilda's coach Ross Lyon in equally controversial circumstances. The move was met with much criticism towards Fremantle's president, Steve Harris, and CEO, Steve Rosich, claiming that they had "backstabbed" Harvey. Lyon was also met with wide-spread criticsm and was accused of backstabbing St Kilda by many Saints supporters as the club was made aware that Fremantle had approached Lyon during St Kilda's lead-up to its finals campaign.

Such is the large interest in the future contests between Fremantle and St Kilda for this reason, the AFL has provided two "blockbuster" games between the two clubs for the 2012 AFL season, with the first match being on prime-time Friday night in Round 4 at Etihad Stadium.

In the 2012 Pre-Season draft, Fremantle selected former St.Kilda defender Zac Dawson with the 10th pick after there was speculation that he would re-unite with former coach Ross Lyon at the Dockers.

Club

Fremantle Football Club has its training and administration facilities at Fremantle Oval. The club encourages fans to attend Monday night training sessions, when players remain on the field after training to meet their supporters and sign autographs.

The team's home games are played at Patersons Stadium which has naming rights over Subiaco Oval. Between 1995 and 2000 they also played home games at the WACA Ground.

Current squad

See also Fremantle Football Club drafting and trading history for the complete list of Fremantle's draft selections, delistings and trades

Current coaching staff

• Senior Coach: Ross Lyon
• Assistant Coaches:

• Simon Lloyd (also Senior Development Coach)
• Michael Prior
• Todd Curley
• Mark Stone

Leadership

Awards

The Doig Medal is the Fremantle Football Club's annual fairest and best award. Currently, the Fremantle coaching staff give every player votes on a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis after every match, including Finals Series matches. Top votes are awarded for what is regarded as an elite performance. At the end of the year the votes are tallied and the Doig Medal Night is held to announce the winner. Variations on the voting system have been used in past years. The awards ceremony has been held at the Fremantle Passenger Terminal (1995), Challenge Stadium (1998–1999), Fremantle Oval (2000–2001), the Grand Ballroom at Burswood Entertainment Complex (2002–2005, 2008–current) and the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre (2006–2007).

The Beacon Award is presented to the club's best first year player. Mature aged recruits Michael Barlow and Tendai Mzungu have won in recent years, despite being significantly older than most first year players.

Guernsey

Until 2011 the Fremantle Football Club used the anchor symbol as the basis for all of their guernseys. The home guernsey was purple, with a white anchor on the front separating the chest area into two panels, which were coloured red and green to represent the traditional maritime port and starboard colours. The away or clash guernsey was all white with a purple anchor. Since the end of the 2010 home and away season the home jumper is purple with 3 white chevrons and the away jumper is white with 3 purple chevrons.^[13]

One game each year is designated as the Purple Haze game, where an all-purple jumper with a white anchor is worn. This game is used to raise money for the Starlight Foundation. After the guernsey re-design to a predominately purple home jumper, Fremantle wore the starlight foundation logo, a yellow star, above the highest chevron for their Purple Haze game.

Since 2003, the AFL has marketed one round each year as the Heritage Round. Until 2006 Fremantle wore a white guernsey with 3 red chevrons, to emulate the jumper worn by the original Fremantle Football Club in 1885. However in 2007, the selected round had Fremantle playing Sydney, who also wear red and white. An alternative blue and white striped design was used, based on the jumper worn by the East Fremantle Football Club in their 1979 WAFL Grand Final win over the South Fremantle Football Club. This Fremantle Derby still holds the record for the highest attendance at a football game of any code in Western Australia, with 52,781 attending at Patersons Stadium.^[14]

In September 2008, newly appointed CEO Steve Rosich confirmed that the Fremantle Football Club would undergo a thorough review of all areas, including the club's team name, song, guernsey and logo in a bid to boost its marketability.^[15] However he later confirmed that the purple colour will be maintained as it had become synonymous with Fremantle.^[16]

Records

• Premierships: Nil
• Highest ladder position: 3rd, 2006
• Wooden spoons: One (2001)
• Finals series reached: Three (2003, 2006, 2010)
• Biggest winning margin: 112 points, against Collingwood, 8 May 2005, at Patersons Stadium, 28.12 (180) to 10.8 (68)
• Biggest losing margin: 117 points, against West Coast on 15 April 2000, at Patersons Stadium, 28.10 (178) to 9.7 (61); against Adelaide on 11 July 2009, at AAMI Stadium, 19.16 (130) to 1.7 (13)
• Longest winning streak: 9 games (Round 14, 2006 – Round 22, 2006)
• Longest losing streak: 18 games (Round 22, 2000 – Round 17, 2001)
• Highest Score: 28.12 (180) to 10.8 (68), against Collingwood, 8 May 2005, at Patersons Stadium
• Lowest score: 1.7 (13) to 19.16 (130), against Adelaide, 11 July 2009, at AAMI Stadium

Individual awards and records

• Brownlow Medallists: None
• Norm Smith Medallists: None
• Coleman Medallists: None
• AFL Rising Star award: Paul Hasleby, 2000; Rhys Palmer, 2008
• All Australians: Matthew Pavlich 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008; Peter Bell 2003; Paul Hasleby 2003; Aaron Sandilands 2008, 2009, 2010.
• International rules representatives: Heath Black 2005; Matthew Carr 2003; Ryan Crowley 2006; Paul Duffield 2010;^[17] Robert Haddrill 2004; Paul Hasleby 2003; Garrick Ibbotson 2010;^[17] David Mundy 2006; Matthew Pavlich 2002, 2003; Brett Peake 2006; Clive Waterhouse 1999
• AFLPA Best First Year Player Award winners: Paul Hasleby 2000; Rhys Palmer 2008; Michael Barlow 2010
• AFLCA Best Young Player Award winners: Stephen Hill 2010; Nathan Fyfe 2011
• Most games: Matthew Pavlich, 256 games (as of 2011)^[18]
• Most consecutive games: Matthew Pavlich, 160 games (Rd 15 2001 – Rd 16 2008)^[19]
• Most goals: Matthew Pavlich, 489 goals (as of 2011)
• Most goals in a season: 72 Matthew Pavlich, 2007^[20]
• Most goals in a game: 10 Tony Modra vs Melbourne, Rd 10 1999, MCG^[21]
• Mark of the Year winners: Tony Modra 2000; Luke McPharlin 2005
• Goal of the Year winners: Winston Abraham 1996; Hayden Ballantyne 2011

Attendance records

• Record attendance (home and away game): 45,436, Round 1, 30 March 2003 at AAMI Stadium v Adelaide
• Record attendance (home game): 42,770, Elimination Final, Sept 5 2003 at Patersons Stadium v Essendon.
• Record attendance (finals match): 61,373, Preliminary Final, Sept 22, 2006 at ANZ Stadium v Sydney.

Finals results

Song

The official song of the club is Freo way to Go. It was written in the mid 1990s by Ken Walther and unlike many of the other Australian rules team songs, it is played to a contemporary rock tune but is based on a traditional Igor Stravinsky arrangement of a Russian folk song, Song of the Volga Boatmen.^[22]

The song is regarded with a great deal of derision from many opposition supporters^[23][24] and equally fierce loyalty from many fans. At the end of the 2010 season, there was speculation that the song would be changed at the same time as the jumper and logo was changed, but only a review of the song was announced.^[25][26]

On 26 October 2011, the official website of the Dockers released four options for members to vote on to be the club song in 2012 and beyond. One of the songs titled "Freo Freo" was written by Australian indie-rock group and the Dockers' number one ticket holder Eskimo Joe.^[27]

Membership base

Despite a relative lack of on-field success, Fremantle has surprised many with record membership figures. The club in 2005 had the fastest growing membership in the AFL competition with home crowds growing at a similar rate. The club's recent membership slogans have emphasised the passion of Fremantle fans for their team.

Fremantle Football Hall of Legends

The Fremantle Football Hall of Legends was inaugurated by Fremantle Football Club in 1995, in recognition of the new AFL team’s links with its home city’s football heritage. The inductees are nominated by the two clubs from the Fremantle area in the WAFL: East Fremantle and South Fremantle. In time, players who represented Fremantle in the AFL will join their predecessors in this prestigious Hall.

Ceremonial positions

Number 1 Ticket Holders

It is traditional for each club to recognise a prominent supporter as the No. 1 Ticketholder. Fremantle originally chose to award this to the sitting member for the Federal Seat of Fremantle. This was roundly criticised as the member may or may not be a Fremantle football supporter and unnecessarily linked politics with sport.^[33] The policy was soon changed to select a well-known Fremantle identity for a two year period.

On 23 April 2010 Eskimo Joe were announced as the number one ticketholder for the Fremantle Football Club, replacing golfer Nick O'Hern.^[34] The band's drummer and guitarist Joel Quartermain hinted that they might pen a new theme song for the club

We'll give it a crack. We're back here this winter writing our new record so, while we're at it, we may as well knock off a new theme song.

—Joel Quartemain, ^[34]

Other high profile fans include former Premier of Western Australia Alan Carpenter,^[37] Federal Minister of Defence Stephen Smith,^[38] author Tim Winton^[39] and journalists and television presenters Dixie Marshall, Simon Reeve^[40] and the late Matt Price.

Patrons

Since 2003, the Fremantle Football Club has had the Governors of Western Australia as its patron.

• 2003–2005: John Sanderson
• 2006–present: Ken Michael

Vice-Patrons

• David Malcolm – Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Western Australia (retired)
• Syd Corser
• Con Regan
• Steve Marsh
• Jack Sheedy

Mascots

• 1995–1999: Grinder – A cartoon-like docker man, in a similar style to Popeye, with a permanent snarl, oversized jaw and muscular arms.
• 2000–2001: The Doc – a straggly blonde-haired mascot, similar in appearance to Fremantle players Clive Waterhouse or Shaun McManus.
• 2002–present: Johnny "The Doc" Docker – a blonde haired surfer with a surfboard under one arm is the Docker's official mascot in the Mascot Manor promotion for kids.

See also

• List of Fremantle players – Alphabetical
• List of Fremantle Dockers league players – Ordered by debut
• Australian rules football in Western Australia
• Fremantle Football Club drafting and trading history
• Sport in Australia
• Sport in Western Australia

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

• Lovett, Michael (Chief editor) (2010). AFL Record Season Guide. Geoff Slattery Media Group. ISBN 978-0-9806274-5-9. 

External links

• Fremantle Football Club official website