Almanac Books: ‘Premiership Reflections – The League Premierships of the Swan Districts Football Club’ (by Brian Dawson)
West Australian Footy Almanacker Brian Dawson has carved himself an illustrious career at the highest levels in both the football and the academic worlds.
Daws is quite a legend in WA footy. He was the Phys Ed-er (as they were known then) for the Eagles from 1988 to 2000. He was made life member of the Eagles in 2007. Daws was also the Phys Ed-er for Swan Districts when John Todd was coach.
Daws played a handful of WAFL games. I think it was six for Swan Districts and seven for Perth. He played Sunday League footy for a number of years.
Daws coached Swan Districts from 2008 to 2010. As mentioned, they won the premiership in 2010 and, from memory, were in the Grand Final in 2009. He coached East Perth from 2013 to 2015 when East Perth were the Eagles reserves team. I’m pretty certain East Perth made the Grand Final in both 2013 and 2014.
Daws’s was a Professor in Exercise Physiology at UWA in the Human Movement Department (the Department has had many name changes and I’m not sure of its name now). He started his undergrad degree at UWA in either 1977 or 78 and never left. He continued on to do his Masters and PhD at UWA in environmental physiology focusing on heat adaptation. Daws became a member of staff during his postgrad studying time. Frank Pyke, Don’s dad and a world leader in sports science, was one of Daws’s Masters and PhD supervisors. Daws retired from UWA in 2019 and retains Emeritus status.
Daws supervised many PhD, Masters and Honours students to completion. He was prolific in publishing articles in refereed journals. Daws also had very strong ties with WAIS and the AIS particularly in co-supervising PhD students.
Daws was the Chair of the World Congress of Science and Football for a number of years. It is the World leading organisation linking science and football codes. As the name suggests, the Congress included any science discipline and how it applied to any football code. It started off as the World Congress of Science and Soccer but evolved to Football due to international interest in all codes. Daws was the second chair appointed of the Congress which was a recognition of his standing in the scientific community and, in particular, his work related to footy.
One other notable achievement which you won’t find written anywhere is Daws one of three amigos who started the UWA Human Movement Pub Run. The run commenced in 1981 and has continued annually to this day. It will be its 45th running this year. The run commences at 2pm on the first Friday in December and is invite only. The majority of the runners are postgrad students in the department with some invited guest runners. It’s a great day though can be very tough.
Recently Brian published his book about the Swan Districts premierships in Premiership Reflections: The League Premierships of the Swan Districts Football Club which is now for sale. Details for the purchase of the book are below.
The WA branch of the Footy Almanac are having a gathering at the Wembley Hotel, Wednesday, 17 September, from 6 pm to celebrate the book and hear from Brian. All welcome. The book will be available for purchase on the night.
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Congratulations Brian. A reminder to the WA branch of the Footy Almanac, we are having a gathering at the Wembley Hotel Wednesday 17 September from
6 pm to celebrate the book and hear from Brian. All are welcome. The book will be available on the night to purchase.