Fitness coach Darren Burgess, centre, leads Port Adelaide players through their paces. Picture: Campbell Brodie Source: The Advertiser
Fitness coach Darren Burgess, right, leads the Port Adelaide squad in the scorching heat at Grange. Picture: Campbell Brodie. Source: The Advertiser
THERE'S no point in dancing around the obvious question as you sit down with Port Adelaide's returning fitness coach Darren Burgess at the club's Alberton headquarters.
Why would somebody turn his back on English Premier League club Liverpool, one of the world's biggest sport franchises, to return to Australian football with Port Adelaide?
That is no slight on Port, which is struggling financially, but Australian football is a domestic code and doesn't rate anywhere near the EPL.
An example: In Burgess's time at Liverpool, the club spent $10.4 million on a teenager who had never played a game at the highest level.
That is more than the salary cap for Port Adelaide.
Burgess, whose resume also includes time with the Socceroos during a World Cup campaign, has fielded the questions of his career move before and could not be more comfortable with his choice.
He was not sacked by Liverpool, where it was reasonably assumed he was on bigger coin than at Alberton.
Much of it had to do with his children - Harry, 23 months, and Millie, seven months - and the lifestyle choice can be appreciated.
They were both born over there, but Burgess didn't want them to miss out on growing up in Australia.
"We had a great life over there but it comes a time when you say ... to come back to Port Adelaide was too good an opportunity.
"It was all really amicable but I've done it," Burgess said.
"Nothing to me could ever beat going to the World Cup with the Socceroos, being a patriotic Australian soccer fan, but this is a new challenge. Maybe the biggest challenge I've ever had.
"But there's no doubt the climate plays into it. People underestimate that. Australian soccer players who go over to play in Europe - people don't appreciate how hard it actually is.
"Very few Australians have got to that real top echelon and in the north of England ... we had five days over 25C in my two and a half years there.
"So you have to make decisions for your family, the kids growing up here.
"I'm proud they were born in Liverpool because it's a great city and they'll always know where they came from but I want them to grow up as Aussies in the sun.
The timing was right and the opportunity to come back was too good to refuse, really
"I'm an Aussie so this is my home. I've been away travelling for the best part of seven years.
"First with the national team and then obviously spending two and a half years with Liverpool.
"And the opportunity to come back to Adelaide was only going to happen this year. The timing was right from that point of view and the opportunity to come back to Port was too good to refuse, really."
There was also a sense of obligation when he first started fielding phone calls from chief executive Keith Thomas.
Burgess left the club in a hasty, but amicable, fashion when his talent was recognised from the outside and he felt he owed the club.
Taking his profession and ambitions aside, he is also a Port man.
"The timing was right and the opportunity to come back was too good to refuse, really," Burgess said.
"It's my team. It's who I go for and it's where I started, more or less, full-time (fitness) work.
"The project that Keith sold to me was a good one, my family and I loved Adelaide. We obviously lived here previously.
"There's no doubt working in the (English) Premier League was my dream, that's why I started studying.
"And then, working for a club like Liverpool, takes it to another level because it's such a big club.
"But you have to understand that over there you play so many games that your ability to really get your teeth into a pre-season, to really periodise loads and get your hands dirty is limited because they play so many games.
"You do a hell of a lot of travelling and, with two young kids, it takes it's toll.
Does the fact that Burgess turned his back on Liverpool and the EPL, one of the biggest games on the planet, mean he has also turned his back on ambition?
Burgess argues to the contrary, saying there is no bigger challenge than what is before him today.
"It depends on how you define it," Burgess said.
"If your ambition is to work in an environment where players and the atmosphere are more glamorous and more worldly recognised - yep, stepped away from that.
"If you want to work in an environment where the work itself is more rewarding, I would say that I've stepped up by coming back to Port. It depends on how you define it.
"And in my work with the Socceroos, the three years I was there, I'd say I'd spent six months travelling and seeing every major soccer team on the planet.
"I went through five different NFL clubs, probably eight or nine NBA clubs, four or five US colleges, South American soccer clubs ... I got to see all of that.
"And if I got to choose anywhere to work, from a professional point of view, it would be in Australia, in the AFL. That's what motivates me. To be able to see a team grow.
"And other than the two expansion teams, this is the best team to go to for that sort of project.
"And there's a sense of owing something, because I left the club. There's no hiding from that (even though it was) in a good moment. So in a sense, I want to come back and finish that off."
