{xtypo_dropcap}W{/xtypo_dropcap}hen the Daily News ceased publication in 1990 it was the end of an era not only for staff but thousands of devoted readers.

The paper was well served by some of the media’s most respected writers and personalities of the day, such as Kirwan Ward, Paul Rigby, Bill Bailey, and Arthur Lovekin, while sportswriters Robbie Burns and Doc Paddick were household names.

One of Perth’s foremost football writers in the years following his retirement from football, Burns’s time in the WAFL as a player with Subiaco was no less notable.

A pacy left footer with silky skills, Robbie was one of the league competition’s best wingmen/half forwards in the mid sixties, and was a State Squad member in 1966. Hailing from Cunderdin, he attended Guildford Grammar School, where he was the school’s open sprint champion and a member of Guildford’s  last  football team to win an Alcock Cup. He won a fairest and best award at Guildford Grammar, under the coaching of Gerry Newson, who Burns said shaped his football career.

“Gerry was thirty odd years ahead of his time,” he said. “In days of relatively static football, his coaching philosophy was to get the ball moving on quickly at all times which suited my style  and was a great asset when I  played league football.”

In those days there were no country club boundaries or zones, and Burns was trampled by talent scouts from most of the eight league clubs, including West Perth where his father Charlie had played in the early 1920s.

 “I was approached by Haydn Bunton at Swan Districts and played a couple of practice games at Bassendean in 1963, but I was a bit hesitant to go there,” he said. “They had won two flags in a row, and I thought it may be tough trying to break into the side. On reflection, I should have given it a go, but on the other hand the doors that opened for me  to have a career in journalism almost certainly would not have come about if I had chosen to play at Swans, and not Subiaco.”

“Initially, I would play at Subiaco in the winter and go back to the farm for the other six months of the year.”

Burns debuted in 1963 against West Perth. His immediate opponent was Richie Haddow, who he’d played Alcock Cup football against, and the pair became keen rivals over the following seasons. Robbie soon became a leading player in the competition, and figured prominently in Subiaco’s finals push in 1964. With Keith Slater, one of the last playing coaches in the league, at the helm, the Maroons fronted Claremont in the first semi final. “We were super confident, Austin Robertson was kicking big bags against everybody, particularly Claremont, and there was no thought of defeat unless it rained,” he recalled.

And it rained.

“We’d beaten Claremont three out of three that season, but lost the first semi by twelve points in a low scoring game. It was one of my biggest disappointments because I think we blew the chance to break a four decade premiership drought.”

The advent of former St Kilda and North Melbourne coach Allan Killigrew was the catalyst for Burns’s league football career coming to a premature close. “I had my career in the newspaper world to consider, I wasn’t enamoured by the new coach, who had come to WA as a “hot gospellor” full of rhetoric and I thought little substance. We were getting flogged each week and a number of us just got tired of it. I stopped playing on what I regarded as a point of principle but in fact it was a weak decision and one I deeply regret,” he recalled.

” It meant at the age of 24, after only 72 senior games my career with Subiaco was over,”

He went on to become playing coach of Collegians, taking the club to the finals four years in a row and winning a premiership as well as coaching the State Amateurs in 1971.

But an even more exciting career was in store. 

The newspaper world in the sixties and seventies was different to today, with the rush to get Saturday’s football results out to the waiting hordes in pubs and other venues around town. “We learnt to be very quick,” he said. “The Weekend News green pages match reports had to be completed on the final siren and would be in the club rooms almost before players were out of  the showers. Getting coaches comments was interesting, when you were trying to get something other than an expletive from a fiery coach after a defeat. There were times of volatility, moments of dispute in the rooms, especially from coaches like John Todd, Malcolm Brown, Malcolm Atwell and Ken Armstrong.”

“Despite this I had a close working relationship with most of them, particularly Todd, who gave me the opportunity to do things no other journalist had ever done, such as being his official runner in a match, sitting in the coaches box with him when WA snatched victory over Victoria , acting as the Eagles interchange steward at Victoria Park and being spat on by Collingwood supporters in what was called the “Pig Pen”, an assignment that won a National Journalist’s Award.”

He explained how the time frame of the Daily News put the paper at a disadvantage compared to the West Australian. “Everything happened during the day, in their time. We had to pre-empt and this meant finding a lead story for the back page by 7.30 in the morning to meet our first deadline.”

It was a controversial expo that brought Robbie Burns plenty of criticism but ended in an award for Best Football Story in 1985.        

“Two days after East Fremantle had been narrowly beaten by Subiaco in the 1985 grand final, the club committee met and decided to sack coach Ron Alexander and install assistant Murray Ward in his place,” he said. “I received a phone call early in the morning from an exceptionally good source who told me the board had made the decision to sack Ron. I then rang East President Harry Morgan at 7am, saying: “I understand you’ve sacked Ron.” This was denied, followed by an instruction not to write it. “If you write it you’ll be barred from the club,” was the threat.”

“I wrote it.”

“Furore followed, accompanied by an outcry from outraged Old East fans supporting Ron, and in the face of this East Fremantle were forced to go back on their decision.”

Ron Alexander subsequently took East Fremantle to the 1986 premiership, and was then appointed West Coast inaugural coach. It is extremely unlikely that would have taken place if the expose’ hadn’t happened.

As one of the leading football scribes in town, Burns was often heard on radio and television panel shows in Perth  and Melbourne and has some great memories of the 6PR times with Todd, John K Watts, Gary Carvolth and the players and coaches of the day.

For a number of years in the summer he was chief cricket writer for the Daily, covering Test and Sheffield Shield matches around the country and the 1980 Centenary Test at Lords. After nearly two decades as chief football writer, he became the Daily’s Sports Editor but continued to cover football and other sports until the 108-year-old paper’s closure

“Being a sports writer brought lots of pressure but when sitting in a press box at a VFL grand final or a Test match I never lost sight of the fact I was in a privileged position and it was a great way to earn a living,” he reflected.

Following the demise of the Daily News, Robbie Burns went into media consultancy, working with Public Affairs, the Corporate Sector, State and Local Government, and Mining Companies. For 20 years he has worked as a speech writer for a series of state Premiers and  Sports Ministers, linking into the Department of Sport and Recreation, ironically headed by football great Ron Alexander.

These days his leisure time is spent at North Cottesloe Surf  Club paddling surf skis, playing golf and tennis, or at his farm south of Margaret River, raising cattle and a few horses.  Robbie is married to Sue, who worked with the ABC, and has two boys, Charlie and Letham, neither of whom has carried on the football tradition.    

“They were all tough and there were no easy uncontested kicks to get,” was his appraisal of those he played on during his career. But some who stood out were West Perth half back Colin Hebbard, East Fremantle’s Bert Thornley, East Perth’s Syd Jackson and his old rival Richie Haddow.  “For the best and most effective player I was fortunate enough to play with, there was only one Austin Robertson, as a full forward he had no equal,” he said. “But throw in Brian Sarre, Laurie Kettlewell, Colin Williams, Cam Blakemore, Kevin Merifield, Reg Hampson,Wally Martin, and you have a gifted group of blokes I was lucky enough to share a footy ground with.”

He is also in awe of the standard of football in the AFL. “Players of today are bigger, stronger, faster and more skilled than players of bygone eras, as they should be given they are full time athletes with professionally managed strength, speed, endurance, skills and dietary programs. They are in every sense wonderful athletes and becoming more so by the year.”

“However, I worry about the long term physical damage done to players in today’s high speed, high impact sport. I hate to think how they will walk twenty years after retirement—the price will be high.” 

Robbie Burns’s contribution to football in Western Australia has been immense, both as player and writer. If  the game of football has changed over the last forty years, then so has journalism, and there are  many who recall the sport as it was, and have fond memories of the football writers we enjoyed reading in those days, such as Geoff Christian, Wally Foreman, Ross Elliott, Ken Casellas, and Robbie Burns.