Another season launch, another face-of-the-game up to his headgear in trouble. Only this time, the rumblings to the West sound much, much different.
I’ve resisted the urge until now to lay my allegiances on the proverbial card-table, but for the benefit of full disclosure, this blog requires it.
I am (for better or worse), a fourth generation, Canterbury Bulldogs man. That ought to explain a few articles of mine, eh?
I’ll allow some of you this brief intermission to wipe noses from snorts of disgust and to clear screens of any liquids spurted out of anyone’s mouths.
Anyway, I digress.
You’d think with Round One approaching and the match up between Dogs and Tigers, that there’d be shots fired across every conceivable bow in sight. But it appears this could not be further from the truth.
Oh sure, we love the fact they have the added distraction, and we realise that juicy paper-selling fodder like this is the last thing they’d want. But as a club community all too familiar with the tarred brush of media scrutiny, a strange thing has emerged among many Bulldogs fans in the light of day as the facts are unfolding.
Sympathy.
I kid you not. Bulldogs fans are overwhelmingly sympathetic. It’s entirely possible Benji will go into Monday night with tens of thousands of new allies.
Among many other time-poorly-spent pursuits, I also moderate a fan forum for Bulldogs fans. The impression I’ve been getting over the last few days is there’ll NOT be 10,000 extra Boos than normal compared to any other Tigers contest when they run on.
I’m not aware of any plans for any chants to stir him up.
The vast majority of the Bulldogs Army have been through all this with our own ilk in recent years. We know the papers’ dirty tricks and formulas for sales.
Day #1 = Announce a scandal
Day #2 = Advertise an exclusive with an eyewitness.
Day #3 = Obtain in store footage.
Day #4 = Extended interview grabs from peripheral club folk.
Day #5 = Obtain exclusive interview with Benji: “We hear from him 1st hand!”
Day #6 = More interview grabs from more peripheral sources. Gallop. CEO of club. Womens rights advocates. Max Markson.
Day #7 = Recycle the highest clicked pages from the web into a timeline for print across eight pages in the extended Sport liftout.
$1.50 times 20,000 Tigers fans, times seven days, equals “HELLO BANK BALANCE!”
So, as a REAL insider to all things Bulldogs, the kind who waves flags, chants and you ALL hate seeing happy … I’m here to tell you this much: we don’t give two hoots about Benji’s charges.
We expect nothing less than a focused Tigers side, with a focused Benji at the helm of his troops.
And we’ll be ripping into the Tigers like it was any other round. Our fans have been there, done that, and got the tea-towel with wrong spelling town-names on it.
Somehow, I think the Tigers fans will appreciate it.
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