Port Adelaide premiership captain and long-serving administrator Brian Cunningham has dedicated his AFL Life Membership to all of those who worked to secure the club’s place in the national competition and to those who believed in its destiny.
AFL chief executive officer Andrew Demetriou announced that the AFL Commission had determined to award Life Membership to Cunningham, former South Melbourne All-Australian and league commissioner Graeme John and veteran journalist Mike Sheehan.
Cunningham - who steered Port Adelaide from the SANFL into the AFL after a long and successful playing career - was nominated for Life Membership by the club.
“I was amazed when Andrew Demetriou rang to say the AFL had approved my nomination for Life Membership, and honoured and surprised to learn that I had even been nominated,” Cunningham said.
The man Port Adelaide fans call “Bucky” played 256 games as a rover and forward for the Magpies between 1971 and 1983. He played in his first premiership in 1977 before captaining another three flag-winning teams in 1979, 1980 and 1981. He also played six games for South Australia.
But his acknowledgement by the AFL honours his pivotal administrative role in taking Port Adelaide from record-breaking SANFL side to a place on the sport’s highest stage, culminating with a national premiership just eight years later.
Serving as general manager of Port Adelaide from 1992, Cunningham helped the club recover from its failed bid to join the AFL three years earlier. Working with a dedicated team, he oversaw an era of continued success at State league level before the birth of the Power in 1997.
“Life Membership is a huge honour and reflects the enormous amount of work that was done when we got into the AFL not just by me, but by the management and board under (then president) Greg Boulton,” Cunningham said.
“I’d like to thank all of those people. I certainly didn’t do it by myself. It was a swag of people working together as a team.
“We were all carried along on a wave of excitement at the opportunity. We were all working far and a way in excess of what would be reasonable hours to make sure we were successful.”
Cunningham says the 2004 AFL premiership established the club’s respect at national level.
“Getting into the AFL was just the start of the exercise,” he said. “We had to develop respect once we were in.
“When 2004 came around we knew we had got there and were very successful.”
Port Adelaide remains the only club-based team to be admitted into the AFL from outside of Victoria.
“That gave us a unique challenge to take our club and its members on a journey to agree to a higher goal and we did that, and it was a great ride,” Cunningham said.
“The believers of the club were good enough to rise to the challenge and be respected in the best competition in Australia.”
A Life Member of the Port Adelaide Football Club since 1980, a member of the SA Football Hall of Fame since 2005 and now a Life Member of the AFL, Cunningham chooses to share his individual honours.
“When I look at the marvellous things I’ve experienced in football it’s certainly not just about me,” he said.
“I really enjoy the relationships, the camaraderie and the teamwork that many people have created at the football club.
“I am lucky to be the recipient of individual awards that should be shared with other people who have helped. You never do everything by yourself.”
Port Adelaide president Brett Duncanson extended the club’s congratulations.
“It is recognition by the AFL of Brian’s contribution not just to our club and to football in South Australia, but to the great Australian game at the national level,” Duncanson said.
“The Port Adelaide Football Club thanks Brian for everything that he has done for the club, for what he continues to do and for the credit that he still brings to us.”
Cunningham stood down as Port Adelaide CEO following the 2004 premiership, before taking up a career as a senior public servant in the SA Government. He now works as a private business consultant, but continues to assist the club in a number of roles.
