The Bunbury Football Club moved to Payne Park in 1973. The Bulldogs, formerly Railways, are an old club having been formed in the early 1900s.

Three current AFL players: Neville Jetta (Melbourne), Lewis Jetta (West Coast) and Connor Blakely started out with Bunbury while Keith Narkle (Swan Districts) and 1982 Sandover Medal winner Phil Narkle (Swan Districts, St Kilda, West Coast) are former Bulldogs.

Former Bunbury junior Jason Norrish achieved quite a bit in his footy career including a Doig Medal at the Dockers in 1998, a premiership with Claremont in 1991 and 148 AFL games with Fremantle and Melbourne. However there was one footy ambition that eluded him – being the scoreboard attendant at Payne Park.

I always wanted to do the scoreboard but it was a really plum job. When my dad was captain-coach of Bunbury and I was playing juniors I used to go over to the scoreboard and just wish that I was the guy up there doing it. I never did it… but just looked at those guys in awe thinking, ‘they do the scoreboard’. We had those scoreboard attendants up on a pedestal. At half time they’d get down for a break and we’d get up and play with the numbers and stuff – but that was as close as I ever got.

Bunbury won the South West Football League premiership in 2017 and won their way into the 2018 second semi with a qualifying final victory on the weekend. The photos here were taken during the reserves qualifying final between South Bunbury and the Eaton Boomers. Former Docker and Saint Brett Peake has been kicking plenty of goals for the Bulldogs in recent weeks including 12 in the final qualifying round taking him to 61 for the season and the SWFL leading goal scorer award. He was pictured on the cover of the the very impressive SWFL Football Budget.