Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon says the 2016 premiership is ‘history’, as the Club focuses on building toward the next period of on-field success.
Speaking to SEN’s Whateley program, Gordon said what while the Club is proud of the achievement, it has moved on.
“Inside the Club now it’s history, it’s an artefact, it’s a trophy in the a cabinet,” Gordon said.
“We’re proud of it, but it’s not going to kick us another goal, it’s not going to win us another game.
“I’m pretty satisfied that everybody inside the footy operations department, the playing group, understand that.”
As a Club that hadn’t been in a grand final since 1961, had to go back even further to 1954 to mark it’s last premiership, and who’s very existence was threatened in 1989, Gordon acknowledged did take time to adjust to.
Off-field, however, he says the Club is almost unrecognisable from the one he led from 1989 to 1996, and again from 2012.
“History will look back on these last five or six years as the most successful period in the Club’s history,” he told Gerard Whateley.
“We paid off a debt, we’re the only team in the 21st century to have won an AFL and an AFLW premiership, certainly the only team to have one an AFL, and AFLW and a couple of VFL premierships.
“We have virtually doubled our revenue and this will be the fourth year in a row we have made a substantial plus-million dollar profit, and our revenue, our balance sheet, is unrecognisable from what it was five or six years ago.”
And though the Club currently sits in 14th place on the ladder with a 4-9 record, with good, talented people in key positions, Gordon warned that the Dogs won’t be down for long.
“You haven’t see the last of the Western Bulldogs competing in the last couple of weeks of September,” he said.
“We’ve got a great coach, we’ve got a great footy manager, a good CEO, there are good people all around the place. and if there’s one consistency about the Western Bulldogs the last couple of years it’s too expect the unexpected. Don’t set any limits on us because you never know.”
