And by popular demand from TheMightyRedV, and dedicated to Xplosive....
A history of canine pursuits
The unspoken beginnings
The Canterbury-Bankstown Rugby League Club joined the NSWRL first grade in 1935. The Country Bumpkins, as they were dubbed, must have been a miserable side to follow. To say they had a shocker first season is an understatement.
In an era of lower score lines, Canterbury copped numerous hidings. Wests mauled them by 65-11; Easts slaughtered them by 87-7 and again by 65-10. But the worst loss came when St
George obliterated Canterbury by 91-6, a first grade premiership record which still stands to this day. If we had four point tries in 1935, the score line would have 110-6.
After 16 games, the Canterbury rabble managed just two wins over the luckless Sydney University. Incredibly, Canterbury conceded 660 points and leaked no less than 140 tries. In modern day scoring, this equates to a shocking defensive record of 800 points, or an average of 50 points per game!
In their history summary, the official Bulldogs website glosses over this information. They tend to head straight to 1938 and 1942; the clubs first premiership wins. The site then fast forwards to 1967. What happened in between? Well nothing really
Canterbury failed to win another premiership until 1980. It was a drought of some 38 years, no doubt when Sutherland Shire local Juan Pharkall was residing in Belmore.
Re-invent
for gods sake!
In an effort to stem the flow of failure, the Canterbury club decided to re-invent themselves. Their nickname, The Berries, was considered too soft
it took them 50 years to work this out. The Canterbury-Bankstown name was long gone and moves were afoot to wipe away the Canterbury name forever. They went for the mongrel and became The Bulldogs.
Things started to look up in the 1980s as the club put together a sprinkling of premierships. They also had some sporadic success in 1995 and again in 2004, perhaps the most boring grand final in history. To some degree, they managed to interrupt the decades of failure.
Super Duper League
With the coming of Super League, and Canterburys subsequent fall from grace, we enter a bleak period of rugby league history which many Bulldogs supporters are not too keen to discuss.
During the prevailing winds of greed and overindulgence, the Bulldogs did their bit to split the game in two. While many clubs indulged themselves, the events of the mid-1990s would ultimately dump Canterbury into the deepest mire of all.
In 2002, the Bulldogs were caught rorting the cap. They ripped off the level playing field by at least $1million and essentially, they were cheating. Investigations concluded that the Bulldogs were rotten to the core. The saga cost Canterbury 37 competition points, and delivered them the wooden spoon for 2002.
At the heart of this was the infamous Oasis project, a showcase development in Liverpool. It was revealed the club was using the $800million project to illegally pay players outside the NRL's $3.25million cap. At first, the Bulldogs were in denial, they hid behind a web of deceit and dug themselves in deeper. Eventually, embarrassed
Bulldogs CEO Bob Hagan resigned and publicly admitted that the club had been over the cap for years.
In fessing up about the undeclared player payments, Bob said, It's a long, long process and we've tried
since Super League days to get our salary cap in order.
Since Super League? That was in 1997. This begs the question: how much long, long, longer would this process had gone on if they didnt get caught?
The water under the bridge defence
Its a sordid history but when dealing with the truth, many Bulldogs supporters play the water under the bridge card. This is followed by contradictions as the same fans death ride any other team which goes over the cap by miniscule amounts.
Meanwhile, the courageous bad-arsed rebels in the Bulldogs fan base do their bit to keep the police force employed. Damaging phone booths, vandalising trains and belting up on other supporters are a feature of Bulldogs post-match celebrations. Naturally, many fans say its just a minority and again, many of the same desperately look for similar incidents at other games when trying to justify their own rotten reputation.
Regretfully, an essay of limited words does not do justice to the subject matter. Indeed, volumes more could be written. Suffice to say, the Bulldogs have had a chequered history and at worst, they have been a pox on the greatest game of all.
http://forums.leagueunlimited.com/sh...32#post2401332
