In 2000, the mighty Essendon Bombers produced one of the most memorable campaigns in V/AFL history, losing just once en route to equalling Carlton with 16 premierships.
Spurred on by an agonising loss as unbackable favourites against Carlton in the 1999 preliminary final, master coach Kevin Sheedy, and his assistant, Robert Shaw hatched a plan and charted a course that would see their charges claim the first premiership of the new millennium.
An infamous part of that plan was the steadfast, odd, and almost arrogant decision the team made that they would not sing the song for any victory of the 2000 season, other than the Grand Final.
“We didn't sing the club song for any victory (in 2000). There was one win that was going to do it for us, and that was the Grand Final,” Matthew Lloyd told Fox Footy, in 2021.
Fast forward to 2026, and the club haven't sung the song for almost a year, but for a very different reason.
The Bombers' last victory came in late May, 2025. Brad Scott's men have lost 14 games on the trot, the equal-second-most in the club's 154-year history, per AFL Tables.
The only losing streak longer than the one currently gripping the storied club came in 2016, when a side made up of 'top-up' players lost 17 in a row, in the wake of the sanctions handed to the club after their infamous doping scandal. Players discarded by other clubs, players coming back from retirements and also-rans populated the Bombers' playing list that year, and the club claimed only the fifth wooden spoon in their history because of it.
The average losing margin in that streak was 50 points. The average losing margin in this current streak is 43. This side is marginally more competitive than the most loosely thrown together playing list in AFL history.
Essendon have reached 14 straight losses on two other occasions; once in 1933, again in 2006. In 2006, the cliff had approached, after 'Sheeds' squeezed all the juice he could out of a list that many still argue should have been a dynasty. The most revered figure in Essendon's modern history would call time on his 27-year career helming the Bombers just one season later.
And thus, Brad Scott's men are in danger of claiming the outright second-longest losing streak in club history with a loss to the similarly struggling Power this weekend. A Round 3 loss to the resurgent Kangaroos - a club with whom they shared a storied history - would make it 16. It would require the type of footballing miracle for these Bombers to knock off the high-flying Bulldogs in Round 4, which would see the streak join the 2016 side on 17 consecutive losses.
The Demons would then await them, and Steven King's side, at the time of writing, are an exciting, but an unknown commodity, even if there does exist an internal belief that the Demons are a finals side, as was reported in the wake of their victory over the Saints.
The Bombers could stop all of this forecasting and pessimistic crystal-balling with an inspired performance this weekend.
I just wouldn't bet on it.
