Supporters
The Bulldogs Army is the core support group for the Bulldogs, with the section they sit within known as 'The Kennel'. To be sitting in this section, supporters must become a member of the club itself and register any large flags and/or banners which are brought to the game. At all away games the Bulldogs Army locates themselves in the general admission section. The main aim of the Bulldogs Army is to show support and passion for the Bulldogs.
As the region's traditional local representatives, the Bulldogs predominantly draw on a support base in and around the suburbs of Canterbury and Bankstown in south-western Sydney, although in recent years club administration and home matches have relocated to Sydney Olympic Park. The Bulldogs are the most supported NRL club in regional NSW - over 25% of Bulldog fans are located in regional NSW, over 25% are located outside of NSW and over 10% are located in QLD The club has one of the highest average attendances in the league: over the 2010 season, it was one of only two clubs to record an average home crowd of more than 20,000.
The multicultural demographics of the suburbs in the club's support base, such as Lakemba, means the club has a large number of supporters from a range of non-Anglo ethnicities. In recent years the club has become particularly identified in the media with the Lebanese and the Greek community, particularly with the club's former star goalkicker Hazem El Masri, being of a Lebanese Nationality, who Migrated from Lebanon as a young kid. The Greek community has a huge history of Greeks playing for the club dating back to the 1970s with club legend George Peponis, who Migrated from Greece as a very young child who captained the Bulldogs and Australia. El Masri retired at the end of the 2009 season.
Notable supporters of the club include; Don Burke, Doug Walters, Harry Kewell, James Magnussen, Elka Graham, Bill Woods, Tony Roche Ian Thorpe, Joe Hansen (guitarist for Grinspoon), John Hatzistergos, Ma'a Nonu, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, and Peter Lonard.
Read more about this topic: Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)