Where are they now – Adam Lange

Adam Lange could lay claims to have been the best WAFL player for a lot of the start of this century and played a key role in Swan Districts building to the 2010 premiership, and now he’d love nothing more than to see his sons in a black-and-white jumper.

Lange started his football journey at Subiaco who ironically to this day he actively roots against before a season in the SANFL with Sturt that was the only senior grand final of his career that led to his AFL opportunity.

He would go on to spend four years with North Melbourne but once he arrived at Swan Districts in 2003, he would put together a brilliant seven years of football and build a lifelong bond where it will always be the Swans that feels most like a football home for him.

In recent years Lange and his family that includes wife Kym and their four children have moved to Melbourne, but a return to Perth is on the cards and he is hoping that leads to some opportunities at Swan Districts especially immediately in the colts for Kobi.

“It’s certainly the club that I spent the longest part of my football career at and I wouldn’t go to any other home games when I’m back in Perth than Swans games unless my kids were pushing me to go somewhere else,” Lange said.

“It would always be where Swans are playing this weekend and I actively keep looking to see how they are going every week, and at the same time look to see how Subi are going and hope they are somewhere close to the bottom which finally happened this year.

“Swans are still my favourite club and I have been lucky enough to be involved with some past player’s things at North Melbourne too but that feels like I’m more of a supporter than anything.

“Whereas at Swans it feels a bit deeper so being able to back there to go into the changerooms when I’m there is always enjoyable, and I’m pretty sure there will be father-son opportunities there for my boys if they want to go down that path.

“I’ll be keen to have a look at that what might look like. Our 16-year-old has found it a bit challenging to get much recognition over here in Victoria so we will look to see if there’s a way to gently introduce Kobi into things there at Steel Blue to get involved in the colts program.

“He’ll be the right age for that when we move back. So it would be nice to see our boys in black-and-white if we can make it happen.”

Life as of 2025

After Lange retired from Swan Districts in 2009, he took on an assistant coaching role at Claremont for a couple of years and was in the box opposite for the remarkable 2010 premiership triumph for the black-and-whites.

He then became a premiership assistant coach the next year, but since then his involvement in football at a senior level has diminished and it’s been a focus on his career landscape architect firm Plan E and on his family.

He and his family moved to Melbourne six years ago to start up the Melbourne branch of Plan E after they were already well established in Perth, but a return home to WA is on the cards at some point in 2026.

“Life’s busy and basically I have been running our Melbourne studio that I moved over here to set up at the beginning of 2019 although I was FIFO’ing the year before that,” Lange said.

“Our four boys keep us busy with three of them in school and one has just started at uni. One has a year and-a-half to go and the other two will be at high school next year.

“So that’s busy and there’s the potential to move back to Perth once the 16-year-old finishes school at the end of next year is very much there, and I’d say it’s more likely than not to happen. It’s a busy life at the moment but everyone’s going well which is pleasing.”

Career outside of football

Initially Lange had a dream to design golf courses when he began life as an architect, but now that passion has turned to a focus on landscapes and creating some exciting commercial development in the green fields space which has included a lot of wetlands, parks, playgrounds and streetscapes.

He enjoys the chance to deliver sustainable landscape spaces in communities and to have now done that in both Perth and Melbourne is something he’s glad to have built a career around.

“I worked at Plan E in Perth for about seven years before we had an opportunity to do some work in Melbourne and that was through Satterley Property Group, and Nigel Satterley is a pretty big figure in WA and has had involvement at the West Coast Eagles,” Lange said.

“From that we were able to get some other opportunities and I FIFO’d through 2018 to see if we could gather enough interest in Melbourne to make it viable, and we were able to do that.

“So we moved over at the beginning of 2019 and I started out as a one man band, but we’ve grown really significantly and have a team of 10 and we’re very busy.

“So it’s been successful from a business sense and we are delivering some really nice work on the ground so it’s been very beneficial from the business side of things.”

Looking back on playing days

Now that Lange does have the benefit of hindsight to look back on his time on football that started at Hale School before his senior journey began at Subiaco before a season with Sturt in the SANFL where he played in the grand final loss to Port Adelaide.

Even though he was at North Melbourne when they won the 1999 AFL premiership and the captain of Swan Districts for the 2008 grand final, that 1998 decider would be the only one of his career but he crammed a lot into his playing journey even without that ultimate success.

He is a rare player who played in each of the WAFL, SANFL, VFL and AFL, and an even rarer player in that when he was at the peak of his powers with Swan Districts he could legitimately play every position on the ground.

He proved himself equally effective as a key position player or a big-bodied midfielder and there was a period through 2004-06 where there is every chance he was the best player in the WAFL competition.

He won Swan Medals as fairest and best with Swan Districts in 2004 and 2006, and remained a standout player right up until retiring at the end of 2009 despite the heartbreak of a broken leg in 2007 and then the broken collarbone to start the finals series in 2008.

Looking back now and while football might have never got better than playing at school, he enjoyed the entire ride.

“I had a lot of fun along the way and there were some challenging periods of time too, but I’m very grateful for the whole experience that I can look back on,” Lange said.

“Then to have a couple of years coaching at the back end was almost the perfect way to segway out of senior football involvement and focus on work, family and then junior footy a little bit later on.

“I think the most I ever enjoyed my footy was playing school footy going back to those Hale School sides of ’94, ’95 and ’96. Then I was given some really good opportunities to play in a number of different environments including the SANFL.

“We played in a grand final in 1998 and that was one of the misses of my career. We were beaten by nine points by Port Adelaide and after that I didn’t get an opportunity to play in another grand final so that was disappointing.

“North Melbourne was a great experience but I think deep down from quite early in the piece I knew I wasn’t going to be good enough to have an extended career at that level.

“Because of that went I went to uni full-time while I was in Melbourne and that set me up for life and also being at North gave me an understanding of what it meant to be successful even though I knew I wouldn’t be at AFL level for a long period of time.”

Creating a legacy with Swan Districts

In terms of his senior football career, Lange enjoyed that one season in the SANFL with Sturt that led to his opportunity at North Melbourne where he did have a great time for four years but could never quite cement a spot in the AFL team.

But it was when he got to Swan Districts that he created a long-lasting legacy over the course of 125 matches where he kicked 136 goals and won those two Swan Medals, was captain and played for Western Australia on three occasions.

It wasn’t always a smooth ride, but Lange does take pride in what he achieved as a player especially in that seven-year stretch at Swan Districts.

“I think that SANFL-WAFL-VFL level was my level and the last seven years of my career at Swans were quite varied,” Lange said.

“I started out under Steve Turner and being part of the club that was improving was exciting with some of those older guys like Shane Beros, Joel Cornelius and then after three or four years we had a change from Chris Lewis to Brian Dawson.

“Those last few years I had at Swans were almost as enjoyable of a time as I had when I was playing school footy.

“We had someone like Tim Geappen come across who still is a very good friend of mine, and there was also Brett Robinson, Wayde Twomey, Llane Spaanderman and Andrew Krakouer joined even though he was unavailable at the time.

“Then there were young guys coming through like Josh Roberts, Wes Lammie and that period was a lot of fun despite having to push through some injuries and getting a little bit older, and missing out on the grand final in 2008.

“At the same time, watching that win in the preliminary final against West Perth at Joondalup is one I’ll never forget to qualify despite the mixed emotions from not being out there.”

Crucial role in building Swans back up

When Lange first joined Swan Districts in 2003 the club was just battling to survive, but with Steve Turner as coach and him as a star player, they began to turn things around and returned to finals in 2004 and then built on that with three brilliant years with Brian Dawson as coach from 2008-10.

Lange was a key part of building up Swans for that successful period as the star player and the captain for a lot of those years, but modesty does stop him from taking too much credit for the part he played.

“I suppose there’s an element of pride but there were so many people that contributed through that period as well,” Lange said.

“For a period of time there I was playing reasonable football, but the most pride I had was in the last couple of years when perhaps I wasn’t playing at the previous level still but I was able to work pretty well with the guys coming through in the group.

“Daws has to take most of the credit as the coach, but I think once he took over we built something special and I took the most pride in my time from working with some of the guys who came across from interstate and some young guys coming through.

“There’s a small sense of pride in the part I might have played in that, but I’m also very grateful with what the club did for me and the opportunity they gave me to captain the club.

“That’s something I will forever cherish but it was helping bring in some guys that helped them win the 2010 premiership that I take most pride in.”

Marvelling at games record holder

Lange was captain at Swan Districts when Tony Notte started his career and played in that 2008 grand final he unfortunately had to miss thanks to the broken collarbone.

He then remembers how he looked at Notte from the perspective of the Claremont coaches’ box in 2010 and could see him struggling, but he has nothing but the greatest of respect for the career he went on to have before retiring during the 2025 WAFL season.

Notte went on to become the games record holder with Swan Districts finishing up with 323 games and Lange loved every bit of following his journey over the past 15 years even if he has largely been doing so from afar.

“I look back at my time with Tony and he was such a unique footballer and possibly the best moving big guy I’ve ever seen with his ability to turn and move,” Lange said.

“Then there is an element of surprise he made it as far as he did because there was a time there in that year they won the premiership that he was so deeply out of form that being in the Claremont coaches’ box, we took the position of playing a half-back flanker on him rather than treat him as a key position player.

“I’m sure that would have hurt Tony to miss that premiership, but he was out of form and deeply lacking confidence at the time. So for him to turn it around and have such a tremendous career basically playing more as a centre half-back was fantastic to see because he’s such an athletic guy.

“Being given that opportunity to play down back and improve defensively certainly helped him for the balance of his career, but to be honest I didn’t see it coming from Tony from my time playing with him early in his career. But he should be congratulated for what he achieved.”

Great respect for former captains

Then there are two other teammates that Lange thinks fondly back to playing alongside and seeing Tallan Ames turn himself into one of the league’s standout defenders and captains in a 263-game career is something he enjoyed given where he was starting from when Lange arrived in 2003.

Then there was Josh Roberts who took over as captain from Lange and made himself a hero for life captaining the 2010 premiership team, and Lange holds him in the highest esteem.

“It’s very similar to Tallan Ames who found his feet in that back-line and went on to be a captain, and a larger than life character which I’m sure he still is,” Lange said.

“Then there’s a guy like Josh Roberts who I think took a while to develop as a leaders and he was a reluctant captain initially. But then did a fantastic job becoming a premiership captain and I still contend he’s the hardest man I’ve ever played football with.

“Having been at North and playing with guys like Glenn Archer, Anthony Stevens and Jason McCartney, I still think that he had those guys covered for sheer stupidity and courage when it came to attacking the ball both at ground level and in the air.”