Fremantle President Chris Sutherland on Crunch Time - Saturday 26th September

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Crunch Time 10 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 9 hours ago

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Who is Chris Sutherland and why is he on Crunch Time before the Grand Final?

Gerard Whateley 0:00

Fremantle's president Chris Sutherland is with us on Crunch

Chris Sutherland 0:03

Time. Chris it's great to have you here. Welcome. Thank you. It's just so exciting and just seeing all the fans here. I I run into people from Perth, neighbours, all sorts of people. Every minute I walk around here. It's fantastic.

Gerard Whateley 0:15

What is your excitement and nerve ratio, would you say?

Chris Sutherland 0:19

Well, uh, all through the week I've been calm and I've been excited, but I did wake up at three o'clock this morning and my nervousness ratio has I think gone past my calmness ratio. Well I hope that's a good thing. Yes.

Gerard Whateley 0:32

Yeah, you wanna feel it at this stage. But the colour of the week is purple. So seeing your people mass for such an occasion has been rather splendid, I must say.

Chris Sutherland 0:42

Yeah, no, I I think we do see ourselves as uh a tribe and we've worked hard to make sure that all our fans and members feel like they really belong to, you know, what I call a real footy club. Like the footy clubs I used to grow up with, you know, where you know, you'd go and listen to the coach in the middle of the oval at three quarter time. I know we can't do that, but we try to connect with all our fans through so many different ways, obviously social media, member nights, etcetera.

Gerard Whateley 1:05

So just share with us your heritage in Footy and and the the Fremantle journey.

Chris Sutherland 1:09

Well well I think my my my journey really starts with like everyone like my father's my father went to Fremontal Boys High, grew up Barracks for East Room Anal.

How does Chris describe his excitement‑and‑nervousness ratio on Grand Final day?

Chris Sutherland 1:18

Uh he made a a state kind of ex-scholars team when he was kind of nineteen or something. So he's a passionate footballer person. Um so I just naturally followed East Room Anal. Um I've always felt an affinity to the area. And then you know throughout my kind of career there's always been connections and you know right now I chair the Fremontal Port Authority as well as obviously chair the Fremontal Dockers. Um so yeah. Yeah, I love I love Fremantle and what it stands for.

Adam Simpson 1:43

Do you think the whole state is behind you now? Like it it's a it's a West it's hard to describe, isn't it? The Western Australian um loyalty, uh even though there's some uh West Coast supporters there. It feels like the whole state is behind you?

Chris Sutherland 1:55

Yeah, I certainly think now uh the whole state is behind.

Adam Simpson 1:58

Most of the state. Most of the state, you know. There's a couple there.

Chris Sutherland 2:00

Um, you know, th there's always a few diehards uh who support different teams but but but there's no doubt in my mind that uh from the text messages I've got I mean I got text messages from mates I went to primary school with sort of saying, you know, well done and I know they break for another team but no, it's the whole state this is really important to the whole state I think today.

Adam Simpson 2:21

Can you can you walk us through the the leadership of the club and how you've developed uh the the stability above the playing group? How did that come about?

Chris Sutherland 2:28

Well I think uh it all starts by having a very clear kind of vision and purpose. Uh I think we're all well aware of that, you know, to fight, inspire and win, make you know, rich the enrich the community and make the Freo family proud and everything goes from there. And we've built an organization, uh we've had a real focus on how we actually develop our people internally. Um and and we've got lots of successful people who who literally started at the club ten or twenty years ago and are now in kinda more senior roles. Um and even if you look at our coaching group for instance, you know, uh Jamie Graham, Joel Corey, uh Jade Rawlings, yeah, all very senior experienced people that uh you know want to be part of something special.

Why does Fremantle see itself as a ‘tribe’ and how does it build fan belonging?

Tom Morris 3:06

What's been the biggest challenge for you as president of Fremantle Football Club?

Chris Sutherland 3:11

I think I think it's always making sure that just recognising there's so m so many distractions out there and so much noise and so you get all this kind of attention on you, particularly as we've been having success during this year. Um you just gotta make sure that you stay you know, stick fat to your plan if you like. There's always improvement opportunities so you don't deny weaknesses, right?