Peter Gordon hopes Melbourne and St Kilda can become the AFL’s next Cinderella stories

WESTERN Bulldogs president Peter Gordon hopes Melbourne and St Kilda can become the AFL’s next Cinderella stories.

Peter Gordon, Tom Boyd, Liam Picken and Joel Hamling with the premiership cup. Picture: David Caird

WESTERN Bulldogs president Peter Gordon hopes Melbourne and St Kilda can become the AFL’s next Cinderella stories.

Elated after watching long-suffering supporters celebrate the Bulldogs’ landmark victory over Sydney, Gordon believes the AFL’s competitive balance policy will continue to level the playing field — and provide hope to battling clubs.

Predicting the ‘Dogs win “is gonna change everything”, Gordon said the breakthrough win disproved theories only the presence of rich and powerful clubs in the finals guarantees success.

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“There’s been this mantra that you need the top, most heavily-supported clubs in the competition to really make it (finals series) work,” he said.

“But in some senses, the Bulldogs have really made it work and turned that theory on its head in the course of this week.

Liam Picken and Peter Gordon celebrate with the premiership cup. Picture: Mark Stewart

“And that’s one of the principles of competitive balance (financial equalisation) that we’ve really tried to achieve as an industry over the last three or four years.

“I really hope as president of the Dogs that we win the next six.

“But I also hope on a realistic basis that the people who follow the Demons for decades and the Saints and the Giants and those clubs who haven’t had a look in the Grand Final, have their day in the sun as we have this week.

“Every football fan is entitled to do it and competitive balance is designed to achieve it.

“So thanks to the AFL from a competitive balance recipient club for giving us that opportunity and those other clubs.”

Praising Luke Beveridge as the “the coach the club always wanted to have”, Gordon said the faith of generations of Bulldogs supporters had been vindicated.

“Fifty-five years of never quite believing the day would come and today this day has come,” Gordon said.

Peter Gordon hopes other small clubs can enjoy premiership success. Picture: David Caird

“And the joy, the unadulterated joy, not just for Bulldogs’ fans that might have believed their turn would never come, this day is gonna change everything.

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“For me and the hundreds of thousands of Bulldogs’ faithful who’ve stuck with us through years and years of never seeing that day come, this is a dream come true.

“This is one of the big days in life and one of those day that most of us will never forget, one of the happiest days of our lives for all Bulldog fans.

“It feels bloody fantastic.”