When the 2016 premiership flag is unfurled at Etihad Stadium on Friday, 31 March, some iconic Bulldogs will be on hand to mark the occasion.
Today’s ICON profile: Gary Dempsey
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The 2017 season marks 50 years since local Footscray boy Gary Dempsey made his debut for the Bulldogs, aged 18.
The young ruckman spent his first two years at Whitten Oval in the shadow of a champion, 1960 Brownlow Medallist John Schultz, but with Schultz retiring at the end of the 1968 season, the number one ruck spot was Dempsey's for the taking after an apprenticeship of 29 games.
However, by the time the 1969 season began, there was grave doubt that Dempsey would ever play his 30th match, let alone assume the team's number one ruck mantle. Two months earlier Dempsey had suffered horrific burns to his body when he was trapped in a bushfire trying to save the family property at Lara.
Dempsey's burns saw him spend some time in hospital, and his budding football career appeared to be over. But Dempsey was a fighter, and a remarkable rehabilitation saw him return to the field in August, only seven months after almost losing his life.
Alternating between the ruck and the forward pocket, Dempsey kicked three goals in his return match, a win at Whitten Oval over Essendon, and four the following week to well and truly announce his return.
1970, Dempsey's first full season back in the game, saw him establish himself as one the competition's premier ruckmen, to the extent that he finished second in the Brownlow Medal count to South Melbourne's Peter Bedford.
Dempsey also collected the club best and fairest award that year. It would be the first of six he won at the club.
Over the next eight seasons, Dempsey carried the ruck division at the Bulldogs with distinction. He came within striking distance of winning the Brownlow Medal each year from 1971 to 1974, and an outstanding season in 1975 saw him claim the coveted award.
Such was Dempsey's impact on the game that he still holds the record for the most number of Brownlow votes polled in V/AFL history. Dempsey's great strength lay in the fact that he was not only a great tap ruckman but a towering mark, repelling many opposition attacks and kicking the odd goal up forward when needed.
A noted on-field leader, Dempsey served as club captain in two stints, in 1971-72 and again in 1977-78. Playing many fine interstate matches for the 'Big V', Dempsey was named in the All Australian Team of 1972.
When the Western Bulldogs Team of the Century was announced in 2002, very few would have argued with the selection of Gary Dempsey in the first ruck position.
Dempsey's contribution to the game as a whole was acknowledged in 1996 as an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
