AS a lifelong devotee of the 'red, white and blue', Betty Ready can lay claim to a couple of things most other Western Bulldogs supporter can't.
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The 90-year-old Bendigo woman was one of the 80,897 people in the crowd at the MCG when the Bulldogs - then known as Footscray - won their first and only premiership on September 25, 1954.
She can also boast of having danced with the greatest Bulldogs player of them all Ted Whitten.
More on that later.
Betty lives and breathes football and is a Bulldogs though-and-through.
When the Bendigo Advertiser stopped by her Bendigo home this week, she was at the front door taking receipt of a bunch of red, white and blue flowers sent by her daughter Joy Ready and her workmates.
Once inside it was hard not to notice the assortment of Bulldogs paraphernalia strategically scattered through the dining and living rooms and the sound of Fox Footy programs coming from the television.
Betty said her move to Melbourne as a young lady culminated in her finding her two great loves.
She quickly adopted the Bulldogs as her football team after moving in to a house in Barkly Street, Footscray.
Unbeknown to her staying in the bungalow out the back was Max Ready, a former Footscray under 19s footballer, to whom she would become married.
Betty remembers grand final day like it was yesterday.
"I worked til 12 o’clock and our boss was a Bulldogs supporter and he took Max and I to the football," she said.
"We had to stand because we didn't have seats. At half time they came aroujnd to the people who were standing and offered us to sit inside the fence on the ground if we preferred to.
"I was only 22 then and I was young and fresh, I was too excited to sit down."
The couple ended up at the Footscray Town Hall later that night where an estimated 10,000 people had gathered to celebrate.
After 62 years without a flag and only one grand final appearance snce, Betty was adamant the Bulldogs were "well and truly" due to break their hoodoo.
"I'm just disappointed (captain) Robert Murphy is missing out," she said.
"We have a lot of young players, whether they are experienced enough to win the big one or not I don't know, but I hope so.
"They've given us plenty of joy (this year), I look forward to it - I watch every replay two and three times. I have Fox and I love it."
Betty said he favourite modern-day Bulldogs players are pocket-dynamo Caleb Daniel, classy on-baller Marcus Bontempelli and of course skipper Murphy.
But it's hard to go past Doug Hawkins, Peter Box, Doug Hawkins, Brad Johnson and Chris Grant as her all-time favourites.
Betty will watch the grand final at home with her Echuca-based daughter Jeanette Evans.
The day will not be without a tinge of sadness for Betty after Max passed away in July this year.
She said supporting the Bulldogs had been a labor of love and not without its disappointments, including a handful of preliminary final losses and the aborted merger with Fitzrory in 1989.
Betty, who moved to Bendigo in 2000 from Echuca, grew up in the seaside town of Inverloch.
It was here Ted Whitten, his brother Don and sister Edna holidayed with their parents.
"Every Christmas they had dances at the local hall and that's how I came to dance with Ted," she said.