It is the afternoon of April 21. Two teenagers play their very first games for the Bulldogs in hostile territory, in what might best be described as a tough initiation.
Within four seasons the two will be stars and both will play important roles in taking the Dogs to a Grand Final win, breaking a long premiership drought.
To which year and players are we referring? For many Bulldogs fans, a first guess will be this day in 2013, the day 18-year-olds Jack Macrae and Jake Stringer made their AFL debuts.
And that guess would be correct. But it only partly answers the question. On the same day — April 21 — in 1951, two other future Bulldog stars made their first appearances in the red, white and blue.
The first, 17-year-old Ted Whitten, went on to become a 321-game club legend. The second, 19-year-old Peter Box, would go on to win a club best and fairest and a Brownlow Medal.
Both played pivotal roles in Footscray's 1954 premiership win, Whitten commanding the Dogs' defence at centre half-back and Box dominating at centre half-forward.
Ironically it was Whitten who played at centre half-forward in the pair's debut match in 1951, with Box named in the centre. Their baptism of fire took place at Punt Road, Richmond's home ground.
The Tigers were heavily favoured to win, but the Dogs started the match — and Whitten his career — in the best possible way, with ‘EJ’ scoring the first goal of the match within 60 seconds of the start.
Whitten went on to be one of the best players in the match and Box also made an important contribution as the Dogs won a thriller, with Jack King kicking a goal off the ground to put Footscray ahead by a point only seconds before the siren sounded.
That win also marked Charlie Sutton's debut as coach. Upon his appointment to the role, Sutton advised the Footscray committee that a premiership was possible within four years. His timing was impeccable.
Macrae and Stringer had to travel a lot further for their first match, 62 years to the day after Whitten and Box commenced their careers.
The Bulldogs made a trip to Adelaide to take on the Crows at Football Park, and for Macrae and Stringer, it was more a baptism of water than fire.
Rain was falling heavily when the game began, and puddles had already formed all over the ground. The Crows adapted better to the wet conditions and won comfortably, but Macrae showed very good signs, collecting 16 touches and laying four touches.
Stringer, too, made his presence felt when he came on as a sub in the third term, picking up five possessions and laying two tackles in just over a quarter of footy.
It was not quite the exciting, victorious start that Whitten and Box experienced but Stringer and Macrae would experience the same thrill of sharing in premiership glory at the end of their fourth season, just as their predecessors had over six decades earlier.
