WHERE
The Doug Hawkins wing.
DIMENSIONS
The box is about six metres wide and two metres deep. Its point of interest is its elevation; it sits on four steel pylons about eight metres above the oval. The base of the box butts onto the roof of the E.J. Smith Stand.
THE RISE
Coaches would leave the oval and pass through a tiny gate before hopping over the wooden bench that runs along the fence. They would then enter a chute, which is a path defined by two steel rails about an arm's length apart. After walking up seven steps, the coaches would enter a small wire enclosure and begin their climb. The ladder has 19 rungs and a cage that prevented anyone toppling back into the crowd. At the top of the ladder is a small landing, about a metre wide, which leads into the box.
ORIGINS
In 1976, his first season as Footscray coach, Billy Goggin became frustrated by the coach's box at the back of the John Gent Stand and asked if there was any chance of a box on the outer wing. He imagined something that was just high enough to give a view over the play. "I thought it was going to be fairly unobtrusive," Goggin said this week. Almost overnight, the local council built the box on stilts. Goggin burst into laughter when recalling his reaction. "I had no input," he said.
CRYSTAL CLEAR
Most fans came to link the box with Mick Malthouse, who tomorrow will lead Collingwood in his 500th league game as a coach. Malthouse's coaching career began with Footscray in 1984. Former Bulldogs champion Doug Hawkins said Malthouse had no trouble being heard from the elevated box. "I could hear him crystal clear," Hawkins said. In round 14, 1984, against Fitzroy, a blustery wind kept blowing the ball across to the outer wing during the opening quarter, enabling Hawkins to pick up a swag of possessions. At the end of the quarter, Malthouse told Hawkins to stay on the outer wing. Before the third and fourth quarters, and several seasons thereafter, he repeated the instruction. The wing was eventually named after Hawkins.
WHEELS OFF
In the aftermath of the aborted merger with Fitzroy in 1989, Terry Wheeler thought it would be prudent to begin his Bulldogs coaching career from the hub of the club, the John Gent Stand, instead of the elevated box. "It was a conscious decision to be back with our own," said Wheeler, who admitted relief at avoiding the elevated box's problem of facing into the sun. Of the opposition coaches who were then forced into the box, Robert Walls reportedly became agitated by home supporters, while Kevin Sheedy leapt up the ladder four rungs at a time. Allan Jeans was more proppy.
HIGH TIMES
Outer fans got up close and personal with coaches at the Whitten (then Western) Oval.
In 1994, Scharlaine Cairns and a dozen fellow supporters surprised Footscray general manager Dennis Galimberti when they took him up on his joking suggestion that the elevated box should be hired out. Cairns organised for the dozen to chip in $25 each a game while Peter Smith, a Maribyrnong electrician, got a rope and hauled a bar fridge into the smallest of the box's three rooms, which became the designated kitchen. Smith, Cairns and Cairns' mother Olive, who was then in her early 60s, would sit in the front row of the middle room. Most others stood behind them, although one supporter, Brian Beet, compiled match statistics from his position at the window of the kitchen.
Another Footscray supporter, a graphic artist, organised banners such as "Libba the human clamp" and "Jose is hot Chile", which were hung from the box before every game. During the supporters' first game in the box, against Richmond in 1994, their loud encouragement prompted Steve Wallis to reel around, wondering where all the noise was coming from. And during a later match, Danny Southern responded to the disgust emanating from the box about an umpiring decision that went against the Bulldogs by looking up and nodding in agreement.
FINAL WORD
"There's a hole in the wall where the coach sat. It's about fist-sized. Mick Malthouse did it. Well, that's what we said."
- Superbox supporter Scharlaine Cairns
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