Few rounds on the AFL calendar have greater significance to Australia's story. Not many moments tell more of "Australia's Game" appreciating the true significance of sacrifice than that silent minute before the first bounce.
Anzac Round emotionally opens the soul of the Port Adelaide Football Club.
Port Adelaide hosts St Kilda at Adelaide Oval on Friday night, continuing the club's long-standing on-field tribute at either Football Park or Adelaide Oval (a tradition only stopped by a worldwide pandemic in 2020).
The eagerness to build its annual fixture requests to AFL House around hosting an Anzac Round game predates the Port Adelaide Football Club's community-minded commitment to support Australia's current and past defence servicemen and women.
There is the indelible memory of Anzac Day matches at Adelaide Oval during Port Adelaide's SANFL "Golden Era" during the 1950s and 1960s. The joy of football and the Anzac spirit combined with coach Fos Williams - a war veteran himself - crowding the small changerooms with medal-draped servicemen who had continued their annual march along King William Street to Adelaide Oval.
And there is the tragic note of the Port Adelaide footballers lost at war, starting with "The Invicibles" of the unbeaten, all-conquering 1914 team that was not only champions of South Australian football but nationally.
That first world conflict had 50 Port Adelaide players and officials enlist for duty. Seven did not return: William Boon, Edward Callanan, Albert Chaplin, Edward Cox, Archibald Gosling, Douglas Walsh and Joseph Watson.
We shall remember them ...
Another of "The Invicibles" - Lance-Corporal William Roy Sharpe Drummond - earned the highest accolade for his bravery on the Western Front at the French town of Hamel which was ultimately recognised with the Military Medal.
Port Adelaide's part in supporting and honouring servicemen and women and honouring the war veterans of many campaigns is now 110 years in the making.
In 1915, while Australians held their breaths with every despatch from Gallipoli and Flanders, the merit of football games continuing during war was as divisive as Prime Minister Billy Hughes' commitment to conscription.
The Port Adelaide Football Club - as repeated in another battle in 1990 - took the unpopular but visionary stand to keep playing, a theme endorsed during World War II to ensure life remained as "normal" as possible to help the national psyche in a difficult period.
The SANFL shut down after the 1915 premiership season.
The Port Adelaide Football Club played on, establishing the South Australian Patriotic Association. As in 1990, it put Port Adelaide's off-field leaders - such as Fred Ward, chairman of the new league - in difficult positions constantly needing to justify their stance and work to keep football on the weekend calendar.
Detailing a meeting of the Port Adelaide players and officials from early 1916, Ward detailed how "it was decided to form a club for the ordinary reasons of health and pleasure ... and to try to form a patriotic association for the benefit of the Wounded Soldiers' Fund".
The league was organised with the commitment to have "no payment to officials or players, expenses should be reduced to a minimum and that the whole of the profits should go to the Wounded Soldiers' Fund".
Ward expected £5000 - "a considerable amount" - to be raised, even if many South Australians were short of money during war times.
Ward took issue with any critic who described playing football during war times as a sign of lacking "patriotism" - and for the SANFL quickly giving up on an opportunity to use its league competition to raise money for war funds.
"It is exceedingly regrettable," Ward wrote, "that some of the league officials make assertions that there was something more than patriotism behind (the move to form the patriotic league) ... and those connected with it are not real leaders of football".
It was very different during World War II. The morale of the nation needed the game to continue.
Port Adelaide's commitment to supporting those in uniform - by doing what it does best, putting on football games - is as long as the Anzac story itself.
This week marks the most symbolic round on the AFL calendar - one the Port Adelaide Football Club recognises every year by its want to host a game at Adelaide Oval.
And the commitment to those who have served and continue to serve goes well beyond that football match during the Anzac round.
Lest We Forget.
