Western Bulldogs president David Smorgon hit out at the AFL club's former members who had not renewed their support in 2008, saying the club had moved on without them.

Smorgon said the club's membership was approaching 26,000, but was still short of the record tally of 28,725 posted in 2007, despite the best efforts of the Bulldogs to encourage all fans to sign up again.

He acknowledged some people in Melbourne's west could not afford to purchase football memberships, but made it clear he had little regard for those who had the money but had not renewed their membership.

"To the other people who are still upset about the performance last year, to the people who say we've got too many night games, too many day games, 'I don't like the way the coach is lining up the team', well, we've left you behind," he said before Saturday night's game against West Coast at Telstra Dome.

"We as a club cannot kowtow, we are not going to drop our pants to our ankles and plead with these people to sign up memberships.

"They'll be here tonight, some of these people will be here tonight and they'll be talking about how 'we won the game', I hope, and how 'we did this' and 'we did that'.

"But they're not 'we' because they haven't parted with their dollar.

"But we as a club are bigger than that and we've left them behind."

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