Peter Gordon says Western Bulldogs did celebrate premiership but are not suffering hangover

WESTERN Bulldogs president Peter Gordon doesn’t like the term “premiership hangover”, saying everyone involved in 2016 deserved to be proud of the achievement.

Bulldogs president with the premiership cup. Picture: David Caird

PETER Gordon interrupts the question and cuts to the chase.

“Let’s grapple with the elephant in the discussion because the other word that gets bandied around is premiership hangover,” Gordon says.

The Western Bulldogs president admits to being “overly defensive”, but he’s sticking up for his club — something he’s been doing since the late 1980s.

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The Dogs are 6-5 ahead of the critical clash against Melbourne. They were 8-3 at the same stage last year, but in this incredibly even season they sit only one game outside the top four.

Gordon knows the jungle drums are beating because they’ve given him a headache. The current tune is that the Dogs are drinking their own bath water, “living in the past” according to Terry Wallace and generally not switched on.

The man in charge of the kennel has had enough.

Jake Stringer, Luke Dahlhaus and Tom Liberatore with the cup. Picture: Alex Coppel

“Premiership hangover denotes being drunk and recovering from being drunk. It denotes partying too hard and it’s a thoroughly pejorative term,” Gordon tells the Sunday Herald Sun.

“I don’t believe that description is at all appropriate to anyone at the Western Bulldogs. I want to make that clear.

“There’s some very valid distinctions to be made. This was an achievement that was decades in the making and had a profound effect on the lives of everyone involved in it.

“The unfortunate part of it is the inference that, because we feel that way about it, our approach to footy has changed and is associated with something that sounds so cheap and tawdry like a premiership hangover.

“It’s time that I articulated this.”

Eight months after the final siren ended the Dogs’ 62-year premiership drought and confirmed one of football’s greatest fairytales, Gordon unashamedly confesses to a feeling of satisfaction.

Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon and coach Luke Beveridge in Ballarat. Picture: Jason Edwards

It’s because no one rode every kick, mark and handball like Gordon. On the edge of his seat at the best of times, last year’s pulsating finals series pushed him to the brink.

He had taken to listening to the Boston Symphony Orchestra during games to settle his nerves, paced car parks and hid away in player races.

“I did suffer from severe anxiety during games. It’s an odd thing to confess, but it’s true,” Gordon says.

“For me, as president of the club since 1989 (David Smorgon held the presidency between 1996 and 2012), the club has always had its future on the chopping block. Too many clubs in Melbourne, too small and in 2015 we were bottom of a relevancy ladder that was published by Andrew Demetriou’s company, Bastion.

“When I first took over no one wanted us in the competition. We have faced decades of questions over our place in a national competition.

“Every loss that we had was not just a loss for a member, but an event in which I knew that as an advocate of the club I would need to justify to the competition. Every game had an extra stake in it.

The premiership-winning Western Bulldogs after the 2016 Grand Final.

“But I don’t feel that any more. I don’t feel like the club’s future — its very existence — rides on its on-field credibility anymore.

“I’ve actually focused on trying to sit back, enjoy a game and not be as anxious as I’ve been. But I’m just not prepared to be ashamed of it and I’m not prepared to put up with the inference that that means we don’t care about it enough anymore.

“I don’t want anyone at our club, whether it’s supporters or members or staff, to feel like they’re obliged to downplay what 2016 meant for them and something they’re entitled to be proud of.

“The simple fact is we did party, we enjoyed it and we celebrated it. That should not be used to infer that we never stopped doing it. We did and everyone who has a job to do is doing it.

“I don’t want to give the impression that every spare moment we get we relive moments of 2016. We don’t, we’ve settled back into the season and we’re trying to manage the very best we can.

“Our players have turned up every time and done their best and our results reflect a position which is not too different to where we were last year in the face of an extraordinarily even competition.”