Given that’s it’s a matter of public record it’s not hard to find.
www.parliament.wa.gov.au/Parliament/comm...file/pac200824.3.pdf
Here’s an unedited section of the transcript. Do you also want a link to the video STD?
The CHAIR: You are in a unique position in the sense that you are a president of a junior football club but you are also a board member of the Perth Football Club, which obviously is the feeder— you are in the Perth zone, are you not?
Mr BURROWS: Yes.
Public Accounts Monday, 24 August 2020 — Session Three Page 6
The CHAIR: You talked about the change over time. Can you just elaborate a bit more on that relationship and how you see that chain between the West Australian Football League, your club, Perth, and your club, or junior clubs?
Mr BURROWS: It is quite simple. Just talking to a couple of the guys, we have been quite successful with guys who have been on the full journey and are now back at Perth. If you talk to any of the boys who have come through the juniors, have gone to a WAFL club and then ultimately been good enough to go further, they will tell you that 10 years ago, it was quite simple. You knew and you had that relationship. If you came through that development program quite early at 14 —
Mr D.C. NALDER: Yes, the under 16s through to colts.
Mr BURROWS: You would probably be aware of that. Whereas now because there is no direct interaction at junior level—I am talking from a South Perth perspective here—with Perth, which I am trying to address, I can tell you most of our juniors at our club would not see the WAFL as part of the pathway because of that. They are just out of the way. The only people they ever see outside of our club is occasionally someone from the football commission and generally it is someone there just observing for compliance matters.
Where it really came home for me—I have just been doing a little bit of research on a few historical matters at the club—I look back at our 2008 yearbook, and having the privilege of actually being involved in putting that book together, it reminded me, we list in there all the boys that we knew. I remember writing the list back then. It also showed in there the couple of visits through the year that we had from the Perth guys who came down to do some coaching clinics and some other coaching stuff.
I could not tell you in the last six years how many times we have had anyone from Perth down to our club. I could count on one hand and have spare fingers. I think if you ask most community clubs, they would tell you the same.
Mr D.C. NALDER: Go back in the 80s, as a player at the time, we were always being sent out to schools and things to do, run clinics.
Mrs L.M. O’MALLEY: I know with East Fremantle, the women have come down but that is because I literally got on to them and asked them directly to come down and mentor the girls. You are exactly right.Mr BURROWS:
You look at the parents and that down at the junior club, particularly kids in the back end of youth football who are getting ready to maybe take that next step to see if they are good enough, they go, “Perth? Never seen them; who are they?” Equally, people at Perth are going, “Oh, shit, who’s out there?”
People at Perth ask me, “Who goes and watches PSA football?” Well, I do but I would be about the only person. Is there any relationship? There is none.The CHAIR: We talked about the relationship between you and the WAFL club. How long have you been a board member at Perth?
Mr BURROWS: I came on last year.
I can’t comprehend how a WAFL club is not following PSA football or has not been seen at a Junior club, that has proven to be a very good contributor of talent, for so long
