How Fremantle Dockers transformed from funny to fearsome

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/sep/26/fremantle-dockers-afl-grand-final

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1) The purple bloom of birth

At first, it seemed the Fremantle Dockers had been dreamed up just for my amusement. With the OCD inherent in children under 10, I had long observed club colours, pondering the sociological implications of so many variants of blue versus the notable absentees of pink, purple, green and orange. Each new club of the 1990s resolved nothing – really, silver and teal? – but then along came Freo, granting a home to not one but two of the key excluded shades.

The result, a hot mess of red, green and white dumped on the chestpiece of a purple jumper, looked like Christmas facing a Ribena invasion. Switch on the TV and purple pervaded the AFL. Grape culture. Their first away strip was mostly green. Football had never looked like this. An intensely traditional competition was dragged into lurid modernity, a world of fluorescent scrunchies, hypercolour t-shirts and truly awful graphic design. But the men in bizarro didn't play too badly: without the draft concessions newer teams enjoy, they won eight games in their first season and 10 in their third, Winston Abraham in the process proving himself one of the game's exciting talents.

2) Comedy, tragedy, and fates inevitable

As the flush of novelty passed, Freo remained footy's comedians. Their colours clashed, their song appalled, their win ratio descended. They would develop an art form of picking players with hilarious names: Brad Bootsma, Antoni Grover, Byron Schammer, Keren Ugle, Garrick Ibbotson. They were new to an area where West Coast Eagles had already brought home two flags. The late columnist Matt Price made an art form of his public enthusiasm for the least stylish of clubs.

You could see why: Freo through the late 90s and early 2000s were lovable in their haplessness. Shaun McManus resembled a genial shaggy dog, Spider Burton's height was measured in gangleplex, Dale Kickett finally stayed still having spent one season apiece with four previous clubs. Uniforms developed extra white stripes that had players looking like employees of a donut franchise. When West Coast countered with its Rainbow Paddle Pop strip, an incensed Kickett tried to punch each Eagle in the head, copping a nine-week suspension in what was later termed the Demolition Derby.

Like any good comedy, though, Fremantle showed flashes of serious brilliance. No one represented this better than Clive Waterhouse, who could nail a 70-metre running bomb, snap a miracle from the boundary, fall on his arse and absent-mindedly swear at the change-room cameras in the space of a day. In that Demolition Derby he nailed seven goals as Freo won by a point. When Tony Modra arrived for three seasons, the two formed one of the most watchable combinations in footy. Paul Hasleby generated real excitement in 2000, picking up 30 possessions on debut and winning the Rising Star. With Freo, you genuinely never knew what would happen.

But the last aspect of the show was the black comedy of their recruiting and management. Drafts are a gamble, but when you look at Freo's trading history it seems cursed by the inexorable tragedy of Greek theatre. Peter Bell was deemed too slow before being traded to North Melbourne, where he won a premiership and All-Australian selection. Abraham won that flag with Bell, while Jeff White and James Clement thrived after eviction. By 2001, Fremantle's trades had directly handed other clubs Andrew McLeod, Darryl Wakelin, Jeff Farmer, Steven King, Matthew Lloyd, Scott Lucas, James Kelly, Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell, while Freo also missed chances at Chris Judd and Steve Johnson.

3) All I'm asking is a little respect

By the early to middle 2000s, Fremantle wanted to be taken seriously. Bell was lured home in 2001, Chris Connolly appointed coach in 2002. His dubious approach was to buy established players, trading high draft picks for Chris Tarrant, Trent Croad, Des Headland and the returning Farmer. None set the world alight, but Freo made progress. Their first finals series came in 2003, when they lost to Essendon at Subiaco after beating every interstate visitor that year. "We're trying to get noticed a little bit," Bell said before that match. "It's amazing how anonymous our team is in the scheme of things." In 2004 they narrowly missed the finals with 11 wins, but for the first time more than three of those came interstate, Freo finishing with five foreign victories. In 2006 they won their first final, eventually losing a preliminary final in Sydney.

4) A quieter empire

The years after that high-water mark looked glum. Established players subsided, Conolly resigned, two consecutive seasons yielded six wins each. Moments of Fremantle comedy remained, like their one-goal game against Adelaide. But crucially, Freo had started getting their recruiting right. Where 2006's draftees managed 13 games between them, the 2007 group are now on 174. In 2008 new coach Mark Harvey really nailed the team's first solid draft, getting Stephen Hill, Hayden Ballantyne, Nick Suban, Zac Clarke and Michael Walters in one clutch. 2009 yielded Nat Fyfe, Adam McPhee and Clancee Pearce. Lee Spurr, Michael Barlow and Matt de Boer were all successful rookie elevations, as were Ryan Crowley and Sandilands before them.

5) Hard-nosed modernity

When Harvey was sacked in favour of Ross Lyon for season 2011, it showed that Fremantle were prepared to get ruthless. At the same time the club reviewed their image, finally ditching their chaotic colour medley in favour of plain dark purple with a touch of white, and paring back the club song. Lyon's gameplan matched the new jumpers: hard edged, clearly defined and no frills. He demanded every player buy into his approach or hit the road.

It worked: 2012 saw the now-official Dockers set a new club record of seven interstate wins, while this year has yielded six and one draw. Zac Dawson, Danyle Pearce and the revelatory Lachie Neale joined the roster, while Lyon set about getting everything out of the players he inherited. As per Bell's decade-old lament, most of Fremantle's side were underrated. Soon enough, they would be winning respect as a fierce team with fanatical defence. Fremantle will not concede free possessions, inside-50s or shots at goal.

The breakthrough was not making this year's grand final, or making the top four, or the first-up finals win. The breakthrough was last year, beating Geelong in a final at the MCG. For the Fremantle sides of old, the thought of knocking off a side of such September polish in Melbourne would have been impossible. This team did it, and while they stumbled the following week in Adelaide, they knew that level could be achieved. Beating the same side in this year's final in Geelong itself was the logical extension of that belief. In their home fortress, a team famed for free-flowing play was choked into submission. Sydney's subsequent fate in Perth was almost a formality. This Saturday, even the league's best attacking side on the foreign expanses of the MCG will hold no fear. Fremantle, conversely, instil it in others. It has taken nearly 20 years, but at last purple is no longer just the backdrop for football comedy.

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