Football is never far from the topic of discussion at the Kilburn household. Darryl Kilburn played sixty three games for Claremont, his father Arthur represented Perth, while Jan Kilburn's Dad, Doug Soutar, was a centurion at the Tigers who lined up with the Western Australian side at the 1950 Brisbane Carnival. Their son Ty has his name on the Claremont Football Club's Honour Board as a leading goalkicker.    Darryl Kilburn made his debut for Claremont in 1966, after playing his junior football with Nedlands Cobbers, winning two fairest and best awards, and Swanbourne Tigers, where he came under the coaching of former Claremont defender, Mike Elphick.  Starting in a back pocket, he soon made the position his own with sterling efforts on Reg Hampson(Subiaco) and Barry Cable(Perth). “The little master”, Cable some years later paid tribute to Kilburn as a tough opponent in a television interview.   Kilburn became known as “woofer” after a Ted Collingwood article in The Sunday Times painted him as possessing a “terrior-like doggedness.” “In those days I was in the printing industry, and a bloke there drew a caricature of myself as a dog on hind legs with a dog biscuit and a can of pal,”he laughed. “It ended up in The Sunday Times as a cartoon entitled “woofer.”  The nickname stuck.  A close checking, accurate kicking, hard at the ball backman from the old school, Kilburn was a resolute defender for the Tigers throughout a lean period of the club's history, in a backline that was consistently under pressure. His efforts went without State recognition largely because of the presence of East Perth's “Dobbie” Graham and later Allan “Chubby” Stiles from East Perth.  Kilburn never strayed from the back pocket in his seven years at the club, playing under three coaches in 1964 premiership mentor Jimmy Conway, Dennis Marshall, and Verdon Howell.  In the early Seventies he was hampered by back injuries, which eventually curtailed his career at the age of twenty five. Following Claremont's five point loss to East Perth in the 1972 grand final, Kilburn announced his retirement.  Darryl had sailing in his blood, his father Arthur having been a prominent member and tireless worker at Mounts Bay  Sailing Club, with his name in perpetuation there at Kilburn Hall, and so he had a ready made life after football. He is also a keen golfer, along with several other Claremont team mates, at Cottesloe Golf Club, as is Jan.    His football affiliations are still with the Tigers, where he is a club sponsor and fund raiser, while he and Jan are members of Fremantle Football Club.   Darryl returned the compliment to Cable, saying he was his toughest opponent in an era in which minding resting rovers wasn't the ideal way to spend a Saturday afternoon, and regarded Marshall as best he'd played with.  Darryl Kilburn is now busily engaged in cleaning our suburbs with “Graffiti Busters.” If the graffiti sticks to the walls as close as Darryl Kilburn did to his opponents it would certainly be a job getting it off.