A Marcus Bontempelli goal after just 16 seconds proved a deflating experience for the Dockers fans. Credit:Getty Images "It grew from there. I spotted a dozen over that time." Stephen Laffy, who's here today, was one of them. He took his pre-teen daughter Jessica — who defected from her allegiance to Collingwood to Fremantle because she wanted to be different — to a match at Princes Park. The Dockers came from behind to beat the Bulldogs. Afterward, Hambling pitched joining the Victorian Cheer Squad to father and daughter: Get a club jumper, Hard Yakka overalls, club flag and club photo for $5. "I got four memberships," Laffy says. "It was too good a bargain." It's fair to say Hambling, who is from Geelong, is somewhat of a miracle worker. That's about what it took to convert a family of staunch Geelong Cats fans to switch allegiance to Fremantle. But through her daughter Faye's childhood devotion to Stephen O'Reilly, who the Dockers recruited from Geelong, Hambling pulled it off.

Gil Griffin working with the Victorian Cheer Squad. Credit:Dianne Waddingham "When my daughter said she was gonna barrack for this club, I thought, 'They're gonna need some support,'" says Hambling, who headed up the group until the 2007 season. "I approached the club and we started it." Hambling's son soon converted, as a generation later, so did her three grandchildren. For several years, Hambling and the group's original members travelled to all the club's matches outside WA, carrying homemade banners with them. Before this match, Hayley Macdivitt, the group's current leader, invited me to be part of the banner crew, to help unpack the banner from a purple canvas bag in the race, then carry it out to the ground, unroll it, attach the ropes to the handles and help unfurl it so the boys could run through it. Cheer squads are unheard of in professional sports in America, where I'm from, so what better way to experience it than through this immersion? I'd already made friends with the Freo Cheer Squad at Domain Stadium last year and sat with them in a victory over Collingwood, so I thought this would be fun.

First, Macdivitt gave me a paper "ground access" wristband to wear, which identifies Banner Team members to security staff. Next, cheer squad member and friend Allison Seaton handed me a purple Dockers jacket to wear, to match the others. Then, at 12:25 p.m., about 55 minutes before opening bounce, I get my first directive. "Banner people, let's go!" Macdivitt roars, with a smile, suddenly leading a purple-clad horde down some stairs and into the race. After I nervously ask member Rory Bond, a Perth-born, friendly, 17-year-old, how I could help the operation — fearing I'd be the uninitiated American to mess something up — he tells me to relax and that he'll literally show me the ropes, which have hooks and plastic triangular attachments that look like smaller versions of waterski handles. Moments later, there I am, marching out on the huge, green expanse, looking up into the cavernous stadium. I grab the banner handle Rory assigns me to man, pulling it as I stretch out the rope. Then I spot Dockers strength and conditioning coach Jason Weber closely walking past me. He smiles, recognising me from meeting at one of the club's training sessions last year at Fremantle Oval — seriously, how many other African-American footy enthusiasts could he possibly have met in the last year? — and gives me a timely heads up. "The boys are about to run out!" he shouts.

Gulp! I look over at the race and sure enough, there's new captain David Mundy about to lead the troops. "Hey!" I yell as loud as I can, in my foreign accent, which must sound strange to everyone else out here, "the boys are about to come out!" As the strains of the club of the club anthem sound and the tugging sensation of the other handlers pulling the ropes taut, the banner holds — white bordered, with rectangular patches of purple crepe paper taped together and capital white letters, arranged in three rows, spelling out, "NEW SEASON NEW CAPTAIN HERE WE GO!" Photos from the Fremantle Dockers Victorian Cheer Squad against the Western Bulldogs. Credit:Gil Griffin Macdivitt, who moved to Victoria from WA 15 years ago, told me earlier that members discuss ideas for the messages on the banner for a particular match and then she submits the winning idea to the club's media department for approval. Once the club officially signs off, 20 Victorian Cheer Squad members gather the Wednesday night before away matches at the North Melbourne Community Centre to make the banner.

Sometimes banners don't get the club's OK, even if hard work on it has been done. Laffy did a caricature of Danyle Pearce ahead of his playing in a milestone match. Macdivitt says the club rejected it, saying that it wasn't a true likeness, so it was quickly covered up. But after the match, when Macdivitt showed it to Pearce, she says, "he loved it." For her part, Hambling says she's most proud of the banner she and the group made several seasons ago, honouring the occasion of Fremantle's setting a record by having the highest number of Indigenous players on any VFL/AFL side to play in a match, with a message in the Noongar language, blessed by tribal elders, whose meaning in English was "Together, we are strong." It's a phrase that also has meaning among this group, which started small. Members have braved hostile Adelaide Crows fans at old AAMI Stadium, who Macdivitt said years ago booed, threw drinks and coins at and spat upon members, forcing them to get a security escort to the nearby Lakes Hotel after a match. Last year at Metricon Stadium in Gold Coast they endured an annoying, steady drizzle in a lacklustre match, which Freo barely won, kicking a miserable 6.17 (53). And then there's today. In the second quarter, Chris Mayne causes some of the other members and me to pick up the purple and white floggers from behind our seats and swing them over the railing like sledgehammers, in celebration, by appearing to have converted a set-shot for the Dockers' first major score of the match. After Matthew Pavlich and Hayden Ballantyne sprayed first-quarter set-shots, Mayne's goal would be much needed. But no. Instead, after a lengthy score review and replays, it's ruled that Mayne's attempt scraped the post on the way through. Later in the term, despite Michael Walters getting Freo on the board, things look bleak.

Gil Griffin awaits a chance to cheer against the Bulldogs, Credit:Gil Griffin But Dockers' fans are known for their eternal optimism. After 21 years and still no flags, having it in abundant qualities helps maintain their sanity. So even late in the third term, with the scoreboard showing a tally of 9.9 (63) for the Bulldogs and 2.7 (19) for the Purple Haze, a characteristically hopeful murmur escaped the lips of one of the Victorian Cheer Squad members: "If we can just kick three or four goals in a row and put pressure on them..." Three indeed materialised — just not nearly in time. The pressure never came. Through it all though, not one member got up and abandoned ship.

Some apologise to me at three-quarter time, saying it's a shame I came from so far away to see such a debacle. I chuckle and smile, thinking back to the pitiful New York Mets baseball teams I've supported over the years, at away venues and despite their poor showings, doing then what I'm doing now, with these Freo fans today — staying until the bitter end. "Other teams' fans are notorious for leaving," Seaton observes. She was born in WA, works in the air traffic control industry and never fails to make me laugh with her gallows humor when Fremantle are struggling the most. "This is what I love about Freo fans," she says. "We're still here." Follow WAtoday on Twitter