The Bulldogs will celebrate 30 years as a club during Saturday’s clash against ladder leaders Barnawartha.

Ironically, the Tigers were the first team Thurgoona faced when they debuted in the Tallangatta league in 1988.

Consecutive premierships in the past two seasons have seen the Bulldogs establish themselves as the team to beat, but it wasn’t always sunshine and rainbows.

Thurgoona has had some very challenging times in its history, including three years without a win between 2001 and 2004.

Bulldogs’ president Steve Michelini is very proud of where the club is today.

“The last 10 to 15 years, it has been slowly transforming into a professional club, with people like Tony Way who was there for most of those years as president,” Michelini said.

“It’s people like that who slowly started getting good-name players out there to play footy.

“In the early days, no-one wanted to go out there and you couldn’t drag anyone half-decent out there.

“All of a sudden you get a good coach and people want to follow those players and coaches.

“In 2009 and 2010 they started making finals, got beaten in a grand final and then of course 2016 was the breaking of the drought.”

Thurgoona’s senior and reserves side will wind back the clock against the Tigers on Saturday when they run out in replicas of the club’s original jumper, which will be auctioned off after the game.

Now in his second year as president, Michelini understands the demands of thriving a football club.

“At the end of the day, football nearly takes a back seat, you’ve got to worry about player points and managing your players, it’s incredible what you go through,” he said.

“You could spend anywhere between 20 to 30 hours a week down there.

“Now with our women’s football, we’ve got two teams running and that’s standalone games on Sunday because we can’t play them both on Saturday night because of our lights.

“The senior boys have finally got a couple back from injury, our 17s are travelling along well, our 14s have won a few games and our reserves are unbeaten.

“It’s a very exciting time.

“The worst thing about that is once we get our senior players back, some of those guys are going to have to go back to the reserves, which will be hard because they’ve won all those games without the senior players.”

Thurgoona are hoping the worst of the injury concerns are beyond them.

With no interleague fixture this season, all Tallangatta league clubs will have a bye next weekend, which will further aid Thurgoona’s recovering list.

After the Bulldogs’ win against Rutherglen last week, the Tigers are the only undefeated team, while both Thurgoona and Barnawartha have had just one loss in A grade netball.