Today’s WATN focusses on a Port Adelaide star who is a father of five and now helps Aboriginal people find employment at some of the biggest civil and mining firms in the world.

Peter Burgoyne is a dual Premiership player with Port Adelaide, having won the 1998 SANFL flag and going on to be an important member of the historic 2004 AFL Premiership win.

The silky midfielder played 240 AFL games for the club, debuting in its first game in 1997 against Collingwood and finishing up at the end of the 2009 season.

A member of the Indigenous Team of the Century, Burgoyne is softly spoken and rarely offers interviews about his football, preferring to stay out of the limelight and focus on his family and his work.

The now 40-year-old grew up in the Northern Territory but moved to South Australia in the early 90s and was hot property with SANFL teams before being convinced to play for Port Adelaide – the club his father, also named Peter Burgoyne, played for.

“I came down from Darwin when I was in high school and played in the schoolboy’s side,” Burgoyne recalled.

“I was about to sign with West Adelaide but the great Bob Clayton got me to come and have a chat with Port Adelaide because my dad played there in the 1970s.

“He basically said ‘you can’t play for West Adelaide, your dad is a past player at Port Adelaide’ and that pretty much sealed it.

“Back then I didn’t know much about the VFL but I knew about South Australian footy and it was my dream to play for the Magpies like my dad.”

And while Port Adelaide was making moves to get into the AFL and wanted Burgoyne in its inaugural squad, there was no guarantee the talented youngster was going to stay around.

He had an opportunity to enter the 1996 draft and was spoke to every club with Collingwood particularly interested.

But he said if it wasn’t Port Adelaide, he instead wanted to play for Essendon.

“As I got older I was playing in Adelaide and my friend Michael Long got picked up by the Essendon Footy Club and that was when I started following the VFL and decided I wanted to play for the Bombers,” Burgoyne said.

“That was my dream but when Port Adelaide was going to go into the AFL it changed.

“Myself, Warren Tredrea, Tom Carr and Paul Evans were able to go into the draft in 1996 and we had all been picked in the under 18 All-Australian side but Port wasn’t coming into the AFL until 1997.

“If we wanted to play in the AFL we had to wait a year but if anything, we were going to get more experience staying in South Australia and playing a season of league footy against men and that was how I saw it in terms of my development.

“After making the All-Australian side I had spoken to pretty much every club and when I informed them I wasn’t going into the draft I had clubs telling me they would get lawyers to draw up contracts saying they would take me with their first pick in the draft to try and get me to go into the draft.

“My dream changed from playing for the Bombers to play for Port, which was my first love so I had decided that was the path I would go down.”

The Indigenous Team of the Century

A flag with family

The Burgoyne family connection continued in 2000 when Peter’s younger brother Shaun was picked up by the club.

Peter said he knew how lucky he was to get a chance to play with his brother and he felt even luckier that they got to play in a winning AFL Grand Final together – the club’s first in 2004.

“Shaun is a bit younger than me and you don’t really get to play with your brother all that often and it really is the luck of the draw in the draft,” he said.

“Port took him with pick 12, their first pick, in the 2000 draft and it was unbelievable, especially when we also traded for Byron Pickett to get him back in 2002.

“I grew up with Byron, he was one of my best friends and is still one of my best friends today.

“It was so good to play with my brother and one of my best friends and when we won the Grand Final, you can see that just as the siren went I looked for Shaun and Byron straight away and it was like us three hugging.

“It was such an awesome moment that I will never forget.”

Mentally spent into retirement

Burgoyne’s AFL career came to an end at the close of the 2009 season.

Still only 31 years of age, he could have played on but felt the club was heading in a new direction.

“I was getting older but more than anything, mentally I was shot,” he recalled.

“I decided to retire half way through the year but was talked out of it until I did retire at the end of 2009.

“Most players when they retire think they could play another two or three years and I genuinely think I could have but mentally I was spent and when you’re gone mentally it’s pretty hard to keep going, even when it’s something that you love.”

While he had started to lose his passion and love for the game he grew up playing, he was convinced by a friend to play one season in the Long Plains Football league with “the Tigers” of the United Football Club.

This time he didn’t feel physically up to it and had realised he was missing out on spending time with his growing family.

Burgoyne walks off the field after his last game in 2009

Children first

He now has five children with his youngest daughter Amari born just three months ago.

Sons Trent, 16, Jase, 14 and Rome, 11 are involved with Port Adelaide’s Father/Son Academy and are all talented players that could continue the Burgoyne name at the club.

He also has another daughter Milani, 7 and describes his children as his life.

“Because I played league footy for about 16 years or so including the SANFL and that was all I knew,” Burgoyne said.

“Every second week I was away and I missed out on a lot of things with my kids so when I did retire, I decided that I wanted to be there for my kids to take them to footy and pick them up from school, all those things.

“My kids are my life and I’d do anything for them.”

Now employed as the Indigenous Strategy Manager for South Australia and the Northern Territory for recruitment and HR agency Chandler Macleod, Burgoyne is tasked with helping pair big mining and civil companies with indigenous job seekers, a job he says is rewarding.

He also acts as an indigenous advisor between Chandler Macleod and clients such as Fortescue Metals, BHP, ASC and Newmont Mining, and he reminds us that indigenous people looking to gain employment should get in touch.

Always a Port boy at heart

Nearly ten years after his retirement, Burgoyne admitted having lost much of his passion for the game but said it was starting to come back.

“I’ve been to a handful of games since I retired and when I do come it is to see my kids play at halftime or for a special occasion,” he said.

“Most of the time when Port plays I’m watching my kids play footy or doing things with them.

“But I always keep an eye on what Port Adelaide is doing because I’ll always be a Port Adelaide boy at heart.

“People always used to say you either love Port or you hate them, and I love them.”

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