When the Dockers were founded in 1994, the club was so short of money and facilities that they bought secondhand lockers from the nearby high school for their new digs at Fremantle Oval.
After paying a $4m upfront licence fee to become the AFL’s 16th club, Fremantle didn’t have much cash left in the kitty. The newly minted franchise also had no capital base and was bankrolled by a meagre $200,000 loan with heavy interest. If you pitched that business plan to the Shark Tank panel today, you’d be dragged off stage with a giant vaudeville hook.
It’s unlikely that gun ball-winner Andrew Brayshaw knows much about the Dockers’ bleak Dickensian days or the quirky locker folklore as he spends his days at the club’s swanky $110m facility in Cockburn, south of Perth. But the 26-year-old appears to have a prophetic sense of how momentous a Dockers flag would mean to the players.
A few years ago, the vice-captain penned a letter to his teammates and pinned it inside their lockers. The note was short but poignant: “The first 22 men to win a premiership at Fremantle will be immortals.”
“I mean what I said – I do feel like if we can win it, we will be immortals,” Brayshaw said after their stunning win over the Swans in the preliminary final. “Now we’ve just got to play with that same freedom, that same courage that we have the last two weeks.”
If the Dockers claim victory in the grand final against the Lions, there is a strong argument it would achieve a form of sporting greatness in Western Australia. It would be a striking accomplishment given the club have endured heartbreak, near misses, relentless criticism and the burden of being a laughingstock of the competition for a large chunk of its 32-year history.
Yes, West Coast have earned a place in our national sporting lore as the first club outside Victoria to win a premiership, in 1992. But unlike the Eagles, who were handed a state-of-origin team by the then VFL, Fremantle have had to build from scratch. The inaugural Dockers did not receive West Coast’s juicy draft concessions or have their access to the state’s biggest sporting venue at the time, Subiaco Oval.
The Dockers’ first home was at the dilapidated Fremantle Oval, built the same year Banjo Paterson gave his first public performance of Waltzing Matilda in 1895. The AFL were reluctant to give the club the same concessions as the Eagles or a bounty of draft picks, because West Coast had quickly transformed into a powerhouse, winning two premierships before the Dockers had even run out for their first game.
Fremantle’s first chair, Ross Kelly, said in 1995 the club’s recruiting conditions were set up for the Dockers to win “zero to one game” in their first season. The club had to wait until 2003 to play their first finals.
But Fremantle have only themselves to blame for some of their earlier trading decisions. The club passed on future two-time Norm Smith medallists Andrew McLeod, instead snaffling injury-prone forward Chris Groom from the Crows, a move widely regarded as one of the worst trading blunders in the AFL’s history.
The Dockers were viewed as chumps at the bargaining table because players never saw Fremantle as a destination club, but more as a place to retire. However, recent recruiting has been shrewd, elite and meticulous, particularly snaffling Luke Jackson, Shai Bolton and Jordan Clark.
The Dockers have also become masters at snapping up a bargain, with six of the players who played in last Friday’s preliminary final joining the club via the rookie draft, delisted free agency, or the supplemental selection period.
If the club were going to win that elusive flag, they needed to bolster their youthful list with players who have experienced September action. Jackson and Bolton have tasted premiership glory and been outstanding in Fremantle’s 2026 finals campaign. The dynamic duo is the key to Fremantle winning their first flag.
Under Justin Longmuir, the Dockers are a more dynamic attacking side with three of the most damaging power forwards in the AFL and a host of fleet-footed goal sneaks. That’s the weaponry and hardware Fremantle will need to beat a Brisbane side dripping with match-winners. If they do it, immortality awaits.
