Rolling stone kicks new goals

IT’S little wonder Graham Moss is well known around Perth, given the long list of positions he’s held throughout his career.

He’s been a top Aussie Rules footballer at Claremont and Essendon, real estate agent, engineer, head of WA Sports Centre Trust, and general manager of the West Coast Eagles; and he’s currently the chief executive of Tourism Council WA.

While there are clear synergies between his football career, which included a Brownlow medal in 1976, his role at the Eagles and his 18-year stretch at WASCT, Mr Moss’s move to the Tourism Council in 2008 could be viewed as coming out of left field.

“When I first started, I had no tourism background. I would learn about tourism and tourism issues as I went along,” he candidly admits.

The role has led Mr Moss to exploring parts of WA he hadn’t seen before, like the Kimberley, while further developing his appreciation for his long-loved South West region.

Mr Moss says that, towards the end of his days at WASCT (which grew to manage Challenge Stadium, the Midvale Speed Dome, Kwinana Motorplex and Arena Joondalup during his tenure), he identified the need to let someone else take over the role in order to generate fresh ideas at a time when it was taking on responsibility for Perry Lakes and Perth Arena.

When WASCT chairman Ian Laurance informed him of the Tourism Council position, Mr Moss says he was attracted by the chance to become ‘the voice of tourism in WA’, as the job description called for.

“My key responsibility in taking on the role was to ensure the ongoing financial stability of the council. It was a marginal financial operation when I came on board. It was relying on some funds from Tourism WA but without those funds it wasn’t financially self sustaining,” he says.

In the two years Mr Moss has been in the role, the council has developed its membership base through accreditation from 650 to more than 1,000, and it is now financially sustainable.

Mr Moss is well versed in leadership, albeit in different capacities; his role as inaugural Eagles GM followed his time as player and coach of the Claremont Football Club from 1979-1983.

There’s no doubting his passion for WA; he even had a clause in his Essendon contract that allowed him to return to WA whenever he liked. He played 82 games over four seasons at the Bombers before coming home to captain-coach Claremont in WA.

“I knew I wanted to return to WA at some stage to finish my playing career,” Mr Moss said.

“The opportunity presented itself to come back to Perth and start playing and coaching Claremont, who were also in the sort of doldrums at the time, so I grabbed it.

“Perth is home. We had just had our son, he was born in 1975, so he was one and a bit when I won the Brownlow. I always considered myself a Perth boy.”

Mr Moss says his success at Claremont, where the team gradually climbed the ladder to finally win the flag in 1981, is among the highlights of his football career.

But the combined role of coach and player was challenging.

“It wasn’t a good mix. You were able to set examples on the field so it had positives from that point of view, but to be able to get a thorough appreciation of the game while you’re out on the field worrying about your own game was pretty hard,” he says.

“When I retired as a player, I continued coaching for a couple of years. I found coaching much more rewarding ... sitting on the sidelines, analysing it and then being able to communicate with the players.”

The game has changed since his days on the field, when the team trained three times a week and work outside of football was the norm.

Mr Moss says football has evolved in the same way as other sports around the world – it is now a genuine career choice backed up by high salaries – vastly different to his days of earning a small income each season.

And where players are now traded like valuable shares on a stock market, Mr Moss’ decision to move to Essendon had more to do with the club’s ability to offer him the best opportunity in his profession.

“One of the main reasons I went to Essendon was because I am a civil engineer by profession, I had just graduated and I was looking for a job and Essendon wound up securing me a job in civil aviation as an airport engineer,” Mr Moss says.

“In those days your career was much more important than football. If I look back now, the money we earned from football was a bonus. Football was fun, you did it because you loved doing it, but no-one played for money, they played for the love of the game.

“I am sure players these days love their sport, but it is now a profession; it is just evolution.”

For Mr Moss, however, the focus has changed – he’s more likely to be found watching a game of local football, preferably Claremont, than an AFL match.

Meanwhile, he continues to work towards his new goal – ensuring local, state and federal governments recognise the value tourism has to the economy and wellbeing of WA and the nation.