World Footy News

The Sussex Swans were founded by Julian "Rooster" Clark in 1990 as the first BARFL club outside London. From the start the Swans have been a particularly British club, with the majority of players British born and providing many players to the national squad. As a result it would be fair to say the club has struggled for success against the dominant London clubs which have had a greater share of expatriate Aussie players. However this situation has forced the Swans to become more innovative. With a controversial northern winter coming to a close in which regional teams had to decide between staying with the BARFL or joining the new ARUK league, the Swans chartered a different course – expanding their numbers to play in both competitions, as well as greatly expanding their club's junior operations as one of the first British teams with a junior development officer.

This WFN writer played his one and only game of international footy whilst on a business trip in 2001. At the time I was staying near Hyde Park and I found via the internet that the Swans had a "city" training session that evening, I turned up simply for the exercise but was told a large segment of the team were heading off to a festival in Amsterdam the coming weekend and my services would be welcome come Saturday's match against the Bristol Dockers in Bristol. Filling in at full-forward I was relatively impressed by Bristol's full size oval (courtesy of their link with a local Rugby club), the standard of footy, the commitment from both sides, and the post game camaraderie. All this in a game where perhaps we had just half a dozen expats and Bristol had perhaps three. Though I had grown up since infancy in Australia it made me realise Aussie Rules could have quite a future in the land of my birth.

Fast forward to 2006 and the Swans received a congratulations message from the Sydney Swans, who had supported the club with guernseys in the early years, for reaching their 15th birthday. Now to 2007 and the Sussex Swans are evolving in ways that may be of interest to other BARFL clubs and also footy clubs the world over. What were two training venues (Hyde Park in central London and their main venue in Sussex) has evolved into different teams within the one club playing in different competitions. The City Swans was launched by Alex Hill as a second team in 2003 in the London BARFL Conference League with the Sussex Swans continuing to be the only club outside of London to compete in the BARFL Premiership. As of 2005 the club was renamed The Swans, to remove the emphasis from Sussex, and this year will have two London based teams and two Sussex teams, and they also plan to strongly expand junior development. The model of a large club fielding several teams, with more ability to attract sponsors and resources for junior development and social club activity is similar to that of footy clubs in Australia. We know other BARFL clubs are adopting similar strategies but this article focuses on the Swans as an illustration of the evolution of a footy team into a fully fledged football club.

For 2007 the Swans' city teams have been training at Gladstone Park, Willesden, near Wembley in London's west, whilst their regional teams are training in Crawley and Brighton. The Swans have already tasted success with a big pre-season win over the British Bulldogs 17.12 (114) to 2.4 (16). Whilst this may reflect poorly on the national indigenous British side, it reads that many of the Bulldogs were playing for their home club of the Swans in that game.

WFN spoke with James Grivas, Swans recruitment manager, and asked about the Swans development plans and how the Swans as a city and regional based club were dealing with BARFL and ARUK options for the new season:

"The reason we at the Swans are fielding two teams in the BARFL and two in the ARUK is due to our strong existing player base in Sussex. We already had the personnel and resources to field one team in the ARUK league. In order to push the expansion of the game in southern England and to support the development of this new league, we have undertaken the task of setting up a second team within the Southern England ARUK league. We as a club are completely committed to the development of the game in the UK; therefore fielding teams in ARUK will ensure that there is greater exposure of the game to British players (we expect that more than 75% of players based in Sussex will be British). The move to London (of the existing full field teams) was a practical one, given the economics of Crawley and availability of London based players. Therefore, in order to grow as a club, the committee and senior players made the decision that moving into London would be advantageous in allowing us to field consistent and highly competitive teams. This is already clearly evident from our first training session on the weekend (now a few weeks ago), where all players possessed a high level of skill and fitness; further to this players have put their ‘hand up’ to play for the majority of the season, meaning we can consistently field two strong teams".

"Off the field we have seen further benefits. InLondon Magazine has come on board as our naming sponsor for the premiership (1st) team, Top Deck will remain our naming sponsor for conference (2nd) team and Novo Nordisk will sponsor both Sussex Teams – combined with strong discussions with other companies. We have also embarked on a 'Recruitment Sponsorship Arrangement', through working closely with recruitment agencies; we are able to give further assistance in helping individuals with employment in the UK."

In breaking news, Grivas reports that the Swans have negotiated a deal with Royal Parks (the body that oversees some of London's main parklands) to use Regents Park (pictured left) as a training and match day venue. Grivas states: "Regents Park (Zone 1) would make us the best situated and accessible club in the competition. We have been in discussions with Royal Parks for the last two to three months working on this deal. It is fantastic news for the club. As part of the deal, we will be running 3 one-day junior development clinics during the course of the summer, plus potentially more if school interest continues the way it is going. The number of schools has increased to 30+ and we are expecting hundreds of students to participate in this. Right at this point I am attempting to lure sponsors on board, if we can gain a major sponsor on the junior side, we can increase junior development considerably more. The aim is to get into the 1000's next year and run an Auskick style program. But as they say, one stage at a time".

Just this past week the Swans have been contacted by the Westminster Academy to help deliver an alternative sports program at Regents Park for year 7s and 8s through until July. This is in addition to the recent clinic set-up by Glen Ocsko (Junior Development Co-ordinator of the Swans) in Tower Hamlets that was run by Brian Clarke of ARUK. Surveys showed that the majority of the students enjoyed Australian Rules Football and would like to participate more regularly, demonstrating the need for a junior competition.

The Swans website's junior development page gives more information about how they are working with the existing footy programs of ARUK and also planning to field their own junior team and setting up innovative pathways such as the "Swans Academy". In a recent press release The Swans say "The Swans are the very first ARF (Australian Rules Football) club in the country to establish a Junior Development officer and adopt a full Junior Development Plan, aiming to become the first club to produce truly 'home-grown' players", with hopes to feed into the Dragonslayers, as one young Swan has already done.

So to summarise what has been a very busy off-season for The Swans, they plan to run two full-size teams in the BARFL’s London competitions, two 9-a-side teams in ARUK’s Southern League, and will run junior development both with ARUK and also independently, as well as having involvement in other sports such as Touch Rugby (known as Touch Football in Australia). The club is certainly looking to the future, and if everything goes to plan, they just might become the biggest British Australian Football club. And one final optimistic prediction from their press release: "The Swans believe that ARF could become one of the top participation sports in the country within the next five to ten years". If all clubs in the UK grow as fast as the Swans are planning that could just come true.