INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL FESTIVAL SET TO LIGHT UP HBF ARENA

NOT only will West Perth host the league-leading Subiaco on Saturday but it's the annual International Football Festival with a massive occasion planned at HBF Arena on what continues to be one the biggest games of the WAFL season.

To recognize and mark our intent to promote football through our new communities, the West Perth Football Club's league team will play in a special one-off Jumper in 2015 showcasing our International Community.

After the successes of previous years; 2012 the British Flag Jumper, the 2013 World Football and our 2014 World Jumper, the club has recognized the need to embrace the concept moving forward.

With the International Round Jumper sponsored by the WA Football Commission, the Falcons District and West Perth Football Club were keen to see a unique design to celebrate our 2015 International Football Festival.

In 2015, thanks to inspiration from more than 150 local primary school students and a “design a jumper competition” we think we have achieved this.

The winner of the 2015 Design a Jumper Competition is a combination of Year 5 Carramar Primary School Student Evie House and Year 1 East Wanneroo Primary School Student Lucas Denning.

In a first for the WAFL, this weekend the West Perth Football Club will don a jumper with sleeves for the battle with Subiaco. The jumper closely replicates what our community is more likely to associate with Soccer or Rugby football codes.

The West Perth Football Club has a strong history of migrant members and players with many players being the sons of Italian Migrants. In the late 40's early 50's when many Italians and migrants from neighbouring European Countries came over to Australia they basically turned much of the West Perth zone into one big market garden. They would all work the gardens till noon on Saturdays before heading to Leederville to watch the footy.

West Perth named its Garlic Munchers Team of - the – Century in 2008, which paid tribute to its Mainland European tradition that stemmed from its time at Leederville Oval. The club named its team to honour the great ethnic players who have represented the club.

The Garlic Munchers Team is unique because it represents a period in the club's history when its supporter base was made up of mainly ethnic populations surrounding its old home of Leederville Oval. The team that was chosen is the best Garlic Munchers side of all time.

Former West Perth President Colin Rockman said "There will never ever be another Garlic Munchers side of all time because the movement of West Perth Football Club from the Leederville days to Joondalup has changed the dynamics of what now makes up our side."

Our Future:
Migrants are not new to football in WA, but with the rates of those coming to Australia increasing, West Perth Football Club and its local district are putting programs in place to cater for them and to plan for the future. Some of the playing and coaching legends from football’s rich past were sons of migrant parents.

The move of the Falcons to the new frontier in 1994 was never going to be easy however no body predicted at the time the culture change it would bring to the West Perth Football Club nor the extensive work or investment the West Perth District (the community arm) would need to commit to grow and develop local football.

The desire to capture the heart and get the passion for football running through the veins of its saturated migrant population led the Falcons Football District to employ a full time Emerging Markets Development Officer - tasked with growing the game within our new populations. In 2014 we took our innovative “International Jumper” concept to local schools in a bid to get a design that had meaning to the local community. Nine schools participated with over 130 creative entries.

While the heritage of its migrants may have changed from Italian to mostly British since shifting its home base from Leederville to Joondalup, the Falcons are still dedicated to delving into the psyche of each and every culture within its zone and making football a key element of that.

WA Football Commission’s Community Development Manager Andrew Ridley indicated that 67 percent of the Falcons’ district population was defined as multicultural, but over 45 percent of those people personally migrated here (i.e.: were not born in Australia). Many of those are English people brought up on soccer.

"We use schools to expose local children to football. This is critical with many of our local children having recently migrated to Perth’s northern suburbs," Ridley said ahead of the Falcons’ International Football Festival on June 27.

"Kids come across from the UK and from Africa and they are entrenched in their culture of football (soccer and/or rugby) so we want to introduce them to our version of football – Australia’s Game, give them a taste for it and then link them up to their local football club."

"The results have been good over the past three years with school and community football participation rates up more than 20 percent. We have encouraging situations at clubs like the Brighton Seahawks and Quinn's Bulls, which are both in the English heartland, where now the parents are becoming actively involved as coaches and volunteers and that’s what we want to see.

"We won’t know for another five to ten years how many colts, reserves or league players our programs produce from the migrant population, but we know this is a long-term commitment."

Butler Falcons
The first Australian female all-multicultural Australian Rules Football program.

Falcons District Multicultural Schools Program
Includes:
- Eddystone Primary School Intensive Language Centre
- Multicultural Gala Day
- Targeted school programs through Butler, Quinn's and Clarkson communities
Demonstrated history of success through community partnerships
Includes:
- The Edmund Rice Centre
- The Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre
- The City of Wanneroo
- The City of Joondalup
- The Department of Sport and Recreation
- The West Coast Eagles