It won’t be just the Bulldogs’ 1995 premiership-winning team reuniting this weekend — the cheerleaders will also come together 30 years later to dust off their pompoms and perform.
The Dogs are going all-out for their anniversary celebrations. Players will enjoy a special dinner on Saturday night with the 2025 squad and will then be presented on-field before Sunday’s blockbuster clash with the Manly Sea Eagles at Allianz Stadium.
Meanwhile, cheerleaders have travelled from far and wide — even New York — for this once in a lifetime opportunity to reminisce what one said was “the best years of my life.”
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The concept has been months in the making.
When current choreographer Ashleigh Andrews got the green light from the club in January she enlisted the 1995 choreographer, Claire Scott and between the pair they’ve pulled together a routine that will feature both the ‘95 and ‘25 squads.
“Claire’s amazing — she actually remembers all of her choreography from 30 years ago,” Andrews told foxsports.com.au.
“We got her to come into one of our training sessions first and we had a lot of fun learning all of the 1995 choreography. It was quite intricate, it’s so different to what we do now.
“We combined past and present choreography to make the routine and from there we’ve had all the ladies come in and join us.”
There’s been three official rehearsals for Sunday’s performance, including one in costume on-field at Belmore Sports Ground earlier this week.
“We’ve done a replica of the 1995 costume to add that nostalgia to the performance,” Andrews said.
“They were a bit tricky to replicate because materials that were available 30 years ago are not available now. But the Sapphires will be wearing the replica costumes on game day to honour the ’95 ladies. They’re excited to wear them and showcase them.
“It was such a significant chapter in the club’s history and the cheerleaders were a part of that.
“Cheerleaders have been around for 61 years in the NRL believe it or not and they are such big role models in the community — there’s so much more than what you see on Instagram.
“It also shows that cheerleading is a part of Australian sports history and it should be showcased and should be honoured.”
The 1995 ladies have stayed in touch over the last 30 years witnessing weddings, babies, divorces, illnesses and everything in between and the glue that’s kept them together is Scott, who was just 19-years old when she became the coach and choreographer of the Bulldogs’ cheer squad in 1993.
The Bulldogs didn’t have cheerleaders at the time — they had gotten rid of them years earlier.
So Scott, who lived locally, put together a proposal on her typewriter and submitted it to the marketing manager at the time, 270-gamer and former Kangaroo Ian Schubert.
“I basically harassed them for six months. But they did not have a major sponsor because it was at the end of the recession and so he kept saying ‘I can’t give you an answer until we get a major sponsor’,” Scott recalled to foxsports.com.au.
“At 9:05 of the morning they announced Hyundai as the sponsor, I was on the phone to Ian… he said though that Hyundai didn’t want to sponsor the cheerleaders.”
Scott took matters into her own hands and set out to find a cheerleading sponsor herself. She got the Canterbury-Bankstown Torch to agree to run a story to help find a sponsor but Schubert intervened.
“He realised this girl is not going away so he went very quiet and said ‘just give me an hour.’ He rang back to share that Cenovus, the sleeve sponsor, is interested in sponsoring a cheerleading squad,” she said.
The final green light, however, had to come from the late, great Peter Moore. So Scott met with the CEO as well as Lynne Anderson, who had since taken over as the marketing manager and got the answer she had been looking for.
“Peter Moore had a tooth extracted that morning so his mouth was numb and he mumbled a little bit anyway. He was really lovely but I couldn’t understand half of what he was saying,” Scott laughed.
“The final thing I heard him say was something about no fraternising with the players and I said ‘no Mr Moore I don’t want that either.’ He had this big smile and said ‘OK we have a deal’.
“I was a 19-year-old girl, they really took a chance on me thankfully. Lynne and Helen Brownie (Cenovus’ Marketing Manager) were both lovely to work with and also really good mentors as well.
“Lynne was a real trailblazer — at the time there weren’t a lot of women working in rugby league and she was instrumental in changing up game day entertainment.
“Having that squad at such a young age and working with her and Helen really just taught me so many life lessons, business management lessons and people management lessons.”
The cheerleaders were paid between $30 and $45 for their game day commitments, which including cheering for the under 21s, reserve grade and first grade teams.
Scott believes the Bulldogs were actually the first club to pay their cheerleaders — it was something she pushed for in her proposal.
“At the time that was not terrible money. The girls ranged from 16-years old to 20-years old and if they were working at McDonalds or Kmart they would’ve had to work eight hours to earn that money,” she said.
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Scott, who is now working as a corporate learning and development manager, recalled the 1995 Grand Final as an “amazing” experience.
“That era of rugby league was a really great time to be involved,” she said.
“The ’95 Grand Final was a bit of a surprise package because the year before they sailed through to the grand final and were expected to win but didn’t in quite spectacular fashion.
“So in ’95 we had only just scraped into finals and were not expected to do anything.
“The atmosphere was of course fantastic but I think what I remember the most is the bus ride back.
“When we got on the bus to come back (to the Leagues Club), the crowd in the street was enormous.
“The buses and cars could not get down the street and we could not get back to the front of the club so the driver had to drop us at the back and we went in through a fire exit.
“When we were coming back, people in the street realised it was the cheerleaders on the bus so they started rocking the bus.”
Scott said the post-match celebrations “went for a while” and fellow 1995 squad member Mellisa Tallon backed that up.
“I don’t know if we went home that night,” Tallon told foxsports.com.au.
“I remember the bus not being able to get down Burwood Road and I told the bus driver to open the door and I yelled to the crowd ‘we’ve got to get to the club.’
“It was lunatic soup, that is the best way I can describe it, but beautiful.”
Tallon is not only a diehard Bulldogs fan, but also a season ticketholder and football club member.
“I was a fan before I was a cheerleader and will be forever and ever amen… I’m all in,” she said.
So you can imagine it didn’t take much convincing to get her involved… even if it meant coming from New York.
Yep, she’s has made the trip back to Sydney specifically for Sunday’s performance.
“I’m out of my skin,” said Tallen, who is now a cheerleading coach at a college in New York.
“This was a hell yeah. As soon as they told me I said ‘I’m in just give me the dates.’
“The first time we met the Sapphires, I just went and immersed myself in the middle of them.
“We had to go round and introduce ourselves and no one has forgotten my introduction because I was so excited. It was: ‘Hi, I’m Melissa and this is my first day as a Sapphire’.”
According to the ladies, cheerleaders back in the day took on a bit of a celebrity status. so some Doggies fans might even remember Tallon with her striking red hair and tall physique.
“I had a nickname — ‘Big Red’ — from the fans, from the security guards, from the players,” she laughed.
“I felt like we had the key to the city. You would walk around Bankstown Square and people would stop you and go ‘are you a cheerleader?’”
Tallon knows she’s going to be “horrifyingly nervous” before the performance, which is nothing new given she used to have a bucket ready in the tunnel in case she had a pre-dance vomit!
She’s confident there’ll be no vomiting on Sunday though because it’ll be more about enjoying the moment with her “sisters” rather than the perfect high kick.
“Even though we’ve branched out and gone different places, we’re still family,” Tallen said.
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She’s stayed very close with one former squad member in particular, Belinda Proctor, who has the “fondest memories” of her time as a cheerleader.
“I was so grateful for the opportunity because I was a very shy, introverted kind of person. But I had grown up in a Bulldogs family, my brother still to this day eats, sleeps, breathes Bulldogs,” she told foxsports.com.au.
“For me in particular, while I was trying to get out of my shell and have a bit of confidence, Mel was always there for me.
“To this day, I still feel that gratitude for what she did for me back then. And Claire never let me give into my insecurities. We all helped each other, we were always there for each other and protected our own.”
Life has taken Proctor on quite a journey since 1995. She spent 20 years as a paralegal secretary but now dedicates her time to caring for her three children, two of which have autism.
The opportunity to pick up the original pompoms again and perform in front of 30,000-plus fans will give her the escape she’s been craving — even if it’s just for three minutes.
“Physically and mentally my focus is on that so I don’t so have a lot that I do for me… this is what I need,” Proctor said.
“No matter what, even after all these years, those were the best years of my life.
“Before this came up I remember saying ‘if I could pick a time in my life that I could re-live that’s what I would do.’ Then this came up!”
Sadly the Super League war spelled the end of this Bulldogs squad, but the ladies’ stuck true to their bond and all moved over to the Eels.
From there they also got the opportunity to perform at basketball games, national swimming championships and even the 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony with the Tap Dogs.
But make no mistake, it’s moments like the 1995 Grand Final at the Sydney Football Stadium that they hold closest to their heart.
