Di is a diehard Doggies devotee
DIANNE Russo’s grandfather died of a heart attack during a Footscray game in the late 1940s, and for a fleeting moment last Saturday she feared she would suffer the same fate.
The Torquay grandmother’s heart was racing as she cheered on the Western Bulldogs at Spotless Stadium as they defeated Greater Western Sydney and booked an AFL Grand Final berth for the first time in 55 years.
Born and raised in Foot- scray, Ms Russo, now in her early 70s, is the secretary of the Barwon Bulldogs, a group of 200 mad-keen Doggies fans from Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast.
The group takes buses to every Western Bulldogs home game in Victoria, and has coaches running to the MCG for the Grand Final.
The Barwon Bulldogs sing their club’s theme song as their bus summits the West Gate Bridge, but Ms Russo suspects it will be on repeat for the full journey this week.
“We’ve been through the rough times, but it’s our turn now,” she said. “Our boys are just so full of self belief and positivity you can’t help but believe they can beat Sydney on Saturday. We’ve beaten Sydney twice at the SCG in the past two years, so we should be confident.”
Ms Russo’s favourite Bulldogs are classy onballer Marcus Bontempelli and Leopold dynamo Luke Dahlhaus, who has become a regular guest at the Barwon Bulldogs’ end-ofseason function.
She was 10 when her team won its only premiership in 1954, and fondly remembers her father taking her to the Footscray Town Hall that night to see the players wave from the balcony.
Seven years later she was at the MCG to see the Doggies beat Melbourne in the preliminary final but could not afford tickets to see the grand final loss to Hawthorn the following week. Heart-breaking preliminary final losses followed in 1985, 1992, 1997, 1998, 2008, 2009 and 2010, but her bond to the club only strengthened.
It was passed to her by her father and grandfather, Joseph Glanfield, who was at a Footscray home game at the Western (now Whitten) Oval supporting the team in the late-1940s when tragedy struck.
“He’d just watched Joey Ryan kick a goal and he had a heart attack and died there at the ground at three-quarter time,” she recalled.
“After last Saturday’s game I could almost understand how that happened; I was pretty nervous when we got 14 points behind, but our boys were just so tenacious. It was beautiful.”
The Barwon Bulldogs has buses running to the grand final with seats at $25 each. To book, phone Erin on 5221 2161.