LFC Foundation visit Bulldogs

The five-man Foundation team - led by Forbes Duff - have been putting on football clinics all week for youngsters in the community but this morning they swapped the pitch for the boardroom to deliver a presentation on their award-winning men's health community programme for the staff and sponsors of the AFL team, Western Bulldogs.

Despite playing different types of football, the two clubs have formed something of a bond over the last 12 months and today's presentation at the Bulldogs' training ground focused on sharing some of the best practices in terms of work with males in the community.

The Bulldogs have a have a reputation for being the community club of the AFL and they see Liverpool as a like-minded club equally famous for their fan engagement programmes.

"We were really lucky last year as we played an exhibition game at the Oval against another AFL team and as part of our visit we wanted to come and visit Liverpool FC to see if we could get as much learning about how you guys do things in both the community and also the digital media space," explains Nick Truelson, Chief Commercial Officer of the Western Bulldogs. "Our visit coincided with the Newcastle game in November and a handful of us were lucky enough to visit Anfield and experience what a match day is really like for you guys.

"Seeing the fans sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' was probably one of the biggest highlights of my life from a fan point of view and I can't wait to see almost 100,000 fans singing it at the MCG on Wednesday night. I'm an LFC fan but our visit to Liverpool was about a lot more than just me realising a dream.

"We were well aware that the men's health programme run by the LFC Foundation team was a big success and as we share very similar demographics, we thought there was a great opportunity for us to do something similar and strike up an alliance. Then, as soon as we heard you were coming over for the game, I was straight on the phone to see if we could arrange something and here we are today. We just feel very lucky to host your Foundation and media team today at our training ground."

The Bulldogs intend to launch Health West - a new community imitative based on the LFC Foundation's men's health programme - in 2014 and today was all about hearing what works and what doesn't from an LFC perspective.

"With so many people moving into this area, including newly arrived immigrants, our community programmes are so important," continues Truelson. "There are a lot of men's health issues in the western region of Melbourne and this gives us a great chance to deliver a similar programme to what Liverpool has done. It also provides us with another opportunity to continue to live up to our reputation as the community club of the AFL.

"It was really enlightening to hear Forbes speak. We know as well as Liverpool that men are not particularly great at asking for help. We've got a couple of hundred thousand fans in Melbourne's west and more than 50% of them are men. We also have particularly high obesity levels in some of the council areas in our region - sometimes as much as 15% higher than the national average - and that tells us that a men's health programme is very much needed here - just like it is in Liverpool.

"Our captain Matthew Boyd [pictured above] really wanted to meet the LFC foundation team because he was so impressed by the work that he's heard Liverpool do. Matthew is like the Steven Gerrard of the Western Bulldogs - the heart and soul of this club - and he does a lot in our community just like Steven and the Liverpool players do and it was great to hear that Lucas Leiva is actually on the board of your Foundation. I think that says everything about how important this community work is for both clubs."