PRESIDENT’S REPORT

On behalf of the Board of Directors, I have great pleasure in presenting my 10th report as President to the members of this great Club. What a rollercoaster we have been on over the last two years. After the magnificent premiership in 2019 the WAFC imposed recruiting and other restrictions designed to drag us back to the field. Did it work? In the COVID impacted eight game season “lightning carnival” of 2020 it was hard to tell, however clearly our players, coaches, staff, board, and supporters all felt badly disrespected after 2019 and that distraction was felt widely through the Club. Bring on 2021, and we again faced similar points and recruiting rules to the other top teams; we entered the year in the race for the premiership along with 2020 premiers South Fremantle, 2020 grand finalists Claremont and annual contender West Perth. It was a great WAFL season, there were a number of upsets, the top-five teams regularly beat each other and to show the evenness of the competition, the eventual premiers lost to bottom team West Coast (even if they had Luke Shuey and number of other useful mates that game) lost some form in the last three rounds being thumped by the 6th placed finisher by 44 points and then just fell over the line in our last game against lowly Peel Thunder to just hold on to the Minor Premiership. From that shaky season finish, Beau and senior group took all before them. The Reserves were magnificent and must take some kudos for making everyone believe again, taking the Club and entire senior group to new competitive heights that drove the group to the 16th Premiership in our 125th anniversary year. COVID did impact the competition, and everyone involved with it – business and the community faced challenges or business boomed. The second season to be disrupted meant plans changed regularity and opportunities had to be grabbed as they presented.

One of those opportunities was grabbed at an all of football meeting in July. The meeting was called to understand the risks with playing a full season and an extended grand final date or to play less games and hold the season’s decider as early as possible. In what was a great outcome, the majority agreed (with us) that the AFL uncertainty provided WA football a unique opportunity to hold the public’s attention over the WAFL finals series. How good was the WA football festival that delivered AFL finals and the AFL Grand final in Perth and then fantastic interest in the lead up to the WAFL grand final and excellent crowd of Mark Lawrence nearly 30,000 that day. Well done to the WAFC, Wayne Martin, Scott Baker and the rest of the team. John Townsend’s article on October 4th “Subiaco Culture A Thing of Beauty” is an excellent commentary on our success and the work we all do the keep driving the Club to success. Well done John for your support of the WAFL, that article has been included in this annual report on page 43 in full and I commend it to you to read. Every year we must improve our Club to stay the benchmark, bringing in coaches, developing players and making sure all our people love being here and that makes Subi better. After a hiccup in 2020, the recovery to play both senior teams in a grand final and to win again is a great reflection on everyone here. We have only won sixteen (16) premierships in our one hundred and twenty-five years of existence, think about that! To win five in the last eight years, seven grand finals in that time just reinforces this era as our most successful in history. Our coaching group led by Beau Wardman have been very impressive again, Chayce Creedy continues to be pivotal developing young players as have several others. I have no doubt that Beau is the right man to continue to drive results at the Lions, well done Beau!

ONGOING SUSTAINABILITY OF THE CLUB

After several years post Subiaco Oval straining our finances, the last two years have been important in reversing that trend and setting us up for a very positive future. Plenty still needs to be done, our plans are to continually look for new opportunities and non–football income streams and my thanks to our team of Peter Capes, Zac Acott and others for making that possible. We still need your help, be ambassadors for the Club, grab a chance to involve others please get the message to your business contacts, get people to join as members and grow the Subiaco family.

CONGRATULATIONS

Nigel Hamilton has been coaching with the Club since 2014 and through his finance industry network has helped our players get jobs and careers. Starting here under Schoey, Nigel was an assistant coach, Chairman of selectors in 2015 and then a League Line coach after that. He is now senior assistant to Beau plus he is also the midfield coach. Nigel has been an important cog in our success story and is a worthy recipient of this year’s Presidents Trophy sponsored by the Strack Family. Well done to Captain Leigh Kitchin and his leadership group for driving our standards all year and leading us into another Grand Final. Congratulations to all the players and to Greg Clark for winning the Grand Final Simpson Medal. Congratulations to everyone involved this year, be very proud to be part of the Subiaco Football Club - we all are. Our Ball Legend for 2021 was Marc Webb and thanks to Webby for being available and getting involved with the Club this year. Marc is from our last successful era before 2010 that left us with so many great memories. Webby joins Ali Pickett and Brad Smith as ball legends. To Wally Edwards and Holman Industries thanks for your support as our principal partner and we are excited at the three-year extension recently announced. Likewise, to Nick Catania and Bendigo North Perth Community Bank our community partners thanks for your support. Our coterie groups - The Golds, thanks Ross Lockhart and Gary and the PP&S committee.

MANAGEMENT

We continue to have some really good people running this Club and welcome Kristian Dicton as Football Manager. Unfortunately, Debbie King is retiring and will be missed, she has done a great job, always been a Club person. I wish her well in retirement caravanning the country with Garry Peach. Our staff set the standard in the WAFL, they are involved in all industry committees and help drive our Club and the competition to improve, well done Peter Capes.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

To my fellow Directors, thank you for your Club commitment and support to me this year, it is a team effort but to Basil Fuller, Dwayne Lamb, Kristi Annear, Nathan O’Connor, Fiona White- Hartig and Vice President Russell Smith well done. Thanks everyone for your involvement in the Lions and we aim to continue to provide a community Club where we all feel at home, are engaged and most importantly are very proud to support! Thanks to my wife Debbie, I wish all our members and supporters a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.