Fully resourced
West Coast’s Gary Clune and Nick Mozley speaks to Chris Egan
For football clubs in the Perth Football League, the issue of investing enough resources into running and maintaining a club is a constant battle. Like the majority of clubs in the Perth Football League, there was a time at the West Coast Amateur Football Club when the heavy lifting of running a club was left to too few.
West Coast Amateur Football Club, stalwart Gary Clune at times was one of those guys that was there to roll up his sleeves and help the club out when there wasn’t many doing it.
“There was half a dozen people that did all the work, the other 100 just played footy,” Clune said.
“I was always looking to help, I had the time and I had the energy so I just did it.”
Those days are long forgotten now at the West Coast Amateur Football Club, as they have grown in recent seasons as a Perth Football League benchmark club, having been led by strong leaders with a focused plan for their present and future. President Nick Mozley has followed the lead set by former club President and league President Sam Birmingham, with a key focus on a strategic plan.
One need only look at the West Coast Amateur Football Club website to see how this club has developed and is embracing the new age to drive its future success. At a strategic level they have a defined mission statement that is backed by strategic goals and outcomes. Significantly, they acknowledge and embrace where they sit in the football landscape of Western Australia and are committed to both serving those coming into community football and developing those going out.
The understanding of their importance as a community club is highlighted with their club policies. These policies go far beyond the standard that you would expect from a football club, with considerations given to key community benchmark standards such as alcohol, smoking, transport and racial discrimination.
By having a clear vision for their club, the West Coast Amateur Football Club have been able to embrace community values, by including their football community. They have embraced NAIDOC Week with an annual home game NAIDOC round fixture, play a significant role in the Perth City to Surf Fun Run and have actively supported other not for profits.
Beyond that, they have also been one of the clubs to significantly invest time and resources into Women’s football. As Mozley explains, it was something that caught the club by surprise, however they were agile enough to pivot on their five year strategic plan to support this key growth area of the game.
“We had a strategic plan in place from 2015 to 2020, but that quickly became out of date as nobody saw the emergence of Women’s footy in 2017 and 2018,” Mozley said.
“A big part was bringing that into our strategy, how many Women’s teams do we want in 2020, how big is it going to grow, we are probably on the fringe of having three women’s teams.”
Gone are those days of just getting by on the efforts of a small few, West Coast Amateur Football Club is a benchmark club at having a clear strategic focus for their club and having an entire club male and female included in, and invested in that vision.