The Western Bulldogs are simply "west" of Melbourne, not of the rest of Australia... they're over a thousand miles east of the "West Coast Eagles". The "Western" Bulldogs are only nineteen seasons old, having been formed in 1996 out of the remnants of the Footscray and Fitzroy teams, which date back to the 1920's; officially, their records are inherited from Footscray, and their minor league team is still there.
Western is what most would call an "afterthought" team - ask a footy fan to name the eighteen teams in the league, and only a diehard Doggie fan would think to remember them in the first five names coming from their mouths. But every once in awhile they make noise - champions in 1954 (as Footscray), top four team in 2008-2010 - and they're rarely bad enough to be a laughing stock (in their nineteen years of existence, Western has only one "wooden spoon" for last place, back in '03).
With superstar teenager Tom Boyd coming on board, plus stud rookie Marcus Bontempelli and a host of up and coming talent, Western might be a force to reckon with in the near future. We say "might be" because we've thought this before, with nothing to show in the end.
Their American counterpart: the Sacramento Kings
The Kings had one glory period in their thirty year history in California's capitol city: right about 2001-2 (pictured above), when they were the best team in the NBA and got knocked out of the playoffs in a seven-game Western Conference Finals series that many think was one of the five best playoff series in history, replete with possible ref cheating, massive comebacks, overtimes, drama on and off the court, and of course some of the most spectacular basketball you'll ever see. Otherwise, the Kings loll about in the bottom third of the league, usually earning themselves about the #6 or #7 draft choice, who'll play for them for a couple of years before injuring himself and leaving the game or leaving via free agency or trade to a team that actually knows how to use him.
The Kings have a long and travelled history, leaving Rochester for Cincinnati for Kansas City for Omaha (sort of) for Sacramento for Seattle good, they hope. (Western hasn't travelled that much, but footy clubs don't.) The only other thing that was really significant about the purple jersey of the Sacramento Kings was the way Marisa Miller sort of wore it in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue one year (and that's not ever quite accurate, since there's no fabric involved; it's body paint.)
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