Players wanted Down Under

My name is Bill Byrne. I am originally from Dublin but now I live in Perth, Western Australia.

I am in my 50’s now but in my younger days I played for Ballyfermot United and later for Cherry Orchid. A long time ago, but my enthusiasm has never waivered and I continued to play at a decent level when I came to Australia in 1980, right up to the mid ninties. Since then I have been coaching.

Nowadays I am the Senior Coach at Ballajura AFC an amateur club from the northern suburbs of Perth. We play in the Football West Amateur Division 1 on Sunday afternoons.

The club has many Irish origins… The president is also a Dub and many of the players and officials are either Irish by birth or have mams/dads from Ireland. We have lads from Galway, Donegal, Roscommon and Dublin in the squad – in fact we are full of Brendans Liams, Ciarans Damiens etc. A founding member, John McNamara hails from Limerick and is a Local Councillor and businessman.

In short we have a great Irish “feel” to us.

Over the past couple of seasons I have had Irish lads who are “backpacking” or on a 12 month working holiday in Australia come down to the club and enjoy the experience. One such lad, Paul Friel who has played for Fanad Utd and Finn Harps in Donegal and Bangor City in the Welsh Premier League has only recently left us to return home and he has promised he will be back.

We love having talented and experienced Irish/Scottish/English lads down at the club – especially as players, because they bring something special to the club and it is rubbing off on the local lads who come through the ranks into the senior side  (we also have about 300 junior players from age 6 yrs and up).

I am aiming to have Ballajura AFC as THE Irish team in Perth’s northern suburbs and I am hoping to establish a line of communication with the AFL and its member clubs so that any footballers who are coming to Perth during our season  (April to October) will contact me or the club with their details before they arrive so that we can discuss football opportunities with them.

Obviously I am very keen to attract quality players, who would play in our Adult senior teams (we have two) but we also have an Adult Social team which mainly plays for fun.

On another note I am also happy to help any prospective travelers out with some local knowledge, positive advice on where to stay, what to expect when they arrive in Perth.

I believe this initiative would be good for Ballajura AFC and also good for the lads traveling as they would continue their football in a familiar, friendly and still fiercely competitive football club in a highly competitive league. In fact they would feel “at home” with us.

Would you see this suggestion as one which your league would be happy to pass on to your clubs and your players?

I am sending this from my work but I can be contacted anytime on  bill.byrne@hotmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you with your comments.

 

Best regards,

Bill