Western Bulldogs, Aussie Rules Football

The Western Bulldogs (formerly the Footscray Football Club[a][1]) is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 in Footscray, an inner-western suburb of Melbourne, the club won nine premierships in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) before gaining entry to the Victorian Football League (since renamed the AFL) in 1925. The club has won two VFL/AFL premierships, in 1954 and 2016, and was runner up in 1961. The Western Bulldogs' home guernsey features two thick horizontal hoops—one red and one white—on a royal blue background. The club's headquarters and training facilities are located in Footscray at Whitten Oval, nicknamed "The Kennel", its original home ground. The club draws much of its supporter base from Melbourne's traditionally working class western region, and plays its home matches at Docklands Stadium (currently known as Marvel Stadium) in the Docklands area, also in the city's inner-west. In 1996, the club changed its name from the "Footscray Football Club" to its nickname, the "Western Bulldogs".