To be a die-hard Dockers tragic is to endure a life of constant hope and eternal optimism – alongside a penchant for an elevated heart rate.
And, boy, have us Freo fans done the hard yards. From years spent dwelling near the bottom of the ladder to the heartbreak of nearly getting there in 2013 and coming close again in 2015, but falling oh so short.
But thirty-two years after our club’s first season, this year has been the most successful in our history, and Freo are now just one game away from that glittering, long-awaited prize – our first AFL premiership.
For those of us awake to the worsening climate emergency, there’s an added dimension to the standard pain Dockers fans carry. Since 2010, fossil fuel giant Woodside Energy has been the major sponsor of our beloved club.
The deal began in the midst of Woodside’s attempt to develop a massive new gas processing facility at James Price Point, just north of Broome in WA’s Kimberley region. After a long, hard-fought battle led by Traditional Owners, the community defeated the fossil fuel giant and their plans to develop the massive Browse gas field onshore at one of the country’s most stunning and pristine locations.
The partnership with Freo provided Woodside with the perfect greenwashing opportunity to reinvent their public image. Who could question their environmental and climate destruction when they were so closely aligned with something so many people loved?
But as climate breakdown has become more evident, and Woodside is, once again, feverishly lobbying to develop the Browse gas field as well as the wider Burrup Hub climate bomb, fans began to openly question the fossil fuel giant’s association with our beloved team.
In 2022, I was part of a group of die-hard supporters, members and even former staff who started to speak out against fossil fuel giant Woodside’s sponsorship of the Dockers.
This included former WA Labor Premier and inaugural Dockers number one ticket holder Dr Carmen Lawrence, 26-year club veteran and former team medical doctor Dr. Ken Withers, award-winning WA author Tim Winton, and Kuruma Marthudunera Traditional Custodian Josie Alec.
And we had our supporters inside the club too.
Our movement slowly grew and, in 2023, more than 8,000 fans, members and supporters signed a petition demanding that the Woodside partnership end.
But Woodside knew that this greenwashing deal was invaluable. They were not going to lay down quietly. The gas corporation sent sent their then-CEO Meg O’Neill to the club to personally lobby those with concerns. Woodside offered more money and promised that they would start investing in renewables.
The resource industry-stacked board of the Fremantle Club told themselves that the noise would subside. They convinced each other this was just a few troublemakers. And to their utter shame, they chose to continue the partnership with Woodside.
