The Fremantle Football Club, nicknamed the Dockers, is a professional Australian rules football club competing in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The team was founded in 1994 to represent the port city of Fremantle, a stronghold of football in Western Australia. The Dockers were the second team from the state to be admitted to the competition, following the West Coast Eagles in 1987. Both Fremantle and the West Coast Eagles are owned by the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC), with a board of directors operating Fremantle on the commission's behalf.
Despite having participated in and won several finals matches, Fremantle is one of only three active AFL clubs not to have won a premiership (the others being Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney), though it did claim a minor premiership in 2015 and reach the 2013 Grand Final, losing to Hawthorn.[2][3] High-profile players who forged careers at Fremantle include All-Australian Matthew Pavlich, Hall of Fame inductee Peter Bell, and dual Brownlow Medal winner Nat Fyfe, who captains the club under head coach Justin Longmuir. Originally based at Fremantle Oval, the club's training and administrative facilities are now located nearby at Cockburn ARC in Cockburn Central, whilst its home ground is the 60,000-capacity Perth Stadium in Burswood.
Fremantle has also fielded a women's team in the AFL Women's league since the competition's inception in 2017. They are coached by Trent Cooper and captained by Hayley Miller. Their most successful season was the 2020 season, in which the team was undefeated, but was ultimately cancelled without a premiership awarded due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]
The port city of Fremantle, Western Australia has a rich footballing history, hosting the state's first organised game of Australian rules in 1881.[5] Fremantle's first teams, the Fremantle Football Club, the Union/Fremantle Football Club and East Fremantle Football Club, dominated the early years of the West Australian Football League (WAFL), winning 24 of the first 34 premierships.[6] Since 1897, Fremantle Oval has been the main venue for Australian rules football matches in the city. Until the opening of Perth Stadium in 2018, the record attendance for an Australian rules football game in Western Australia stood at 52,781 for the 1979 WANFL Grand Final between East Fremantle and South Fremantle at Subiaco Oval.
Champion footballers who forged careers playing for Fremantle-based clubs include, among other Australian Football Hall of Fame inductees, Steve Marsh, Jack Sheedy, John Todd, George Doig, William Truscott and Bernie Naylor.
Negotiations between East Fremantle and South Fremantle to enter into the VFL as a merged club began in 1987. However, due to an exclusive rights clause granted to the West Coast Eagles this would be impossible until the end of the 1992 season. Further applications were made by the clubs to join but their model was out of favour with the West Australian Football Commission.[7]