Spalding's Succession Plan

The Perth Football Club Football Department would like to announce that 2020 will be Earl Spalding’s last year as Senior Coach.

As part of the Perth Football Club 2019 Senior Coaching Review, Earl identified the need to develop a Succession Plan. In working with the Football Department and the Board, this plan was endorsed as it ensures stability for the future of our coaching.

Club President Bob Shields commented “The Board promptly endorsed Earls proposal, but not before we ensured he will stay involved at the Club. In 2021 Earl will be in a Coach Mentor role for all PFC Teams right down to Juniors”.

In 2020, Garry Moss will be joining the Club as an Assistant Coach and will be taking over as Senior Coach in 2021.

Garry has previously Coached at the Perth Football Club as a Forwards Coach, and since then been awarded Colts Coach of the Year 2019, and was also assistant coach for both the victorious  WA 18s and also the WA Senior State Team in 2019. 

Hear from Earl Spalding

As part of our Coaching Review I identified a bit of a “dad’s army feel” so I took it upon myself to identify one of the best young coaches going around. As you all probably know by now, Garry Moss has agreed to come on board as an assistant coach for 2020 and as part of those discussions we advanced it to a succession plan and we’ve put an end date to that. Garry will take over the reins as of 2021 as the Senior Coach of the Perth Footy Club.

One of the main reasons I’ve made this decision was to try and get the best coach available for the Perth Football Club. Having worked with Garry two years ago as our Forwards Coach I certainly know the ability he’s got. Colts Coach of the Year 2019 he tells me, and also State Assistant at State 18s and Senior Level. He’s got a fantastic resume already and I thought it was important that we continue to develop our coaches but also have that hunger and desire for our coaching panel.

The most important part of my role in 2021 will be giving Garry the support he needs in his first year as Senior Coach. It will be a bit of a mentoring role, but also sitting with him in the box and helping him out through whatever he needs from me. As soon as he thinks the training wheels are ready to come off, I’ll just be drifting backwards.

Hear from Garry Moss

Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years is just around building relationships with players and making sure that they’re really comfortable coming to you with issues and even just knowing what makes them tick. I think that is one of the most important things so you can really build relationships that are solid and then that allows you to implement the game plan.

Really excited to be back. The 12 months that I spent here were really, really good and the passion that everyone around the place has for the footy club is remarkable and I think watching my last game here was the game we beat East Perth, to see the supporters stick around for so long afterwards you just see how invested they are in the footy club and how much they want success.