TWELVE men applied to be the senior coach of the Port Adelaide Football Club in 1950. The man ultimately chosen - Foster Neil Williams - not only redefined Port Adelaide, he also changed the destiny of Australian football.
As fervent as Williams was in club football, his passion - and vision - for a national game was underlined by his unwavering commitment as a player, coach, selector and master of the South Australian State team across five decades.
This weekend, on Saturday, Port Adelaide will honour Australia's defence forces - in which Williams served during World War II - by hosting West Coast at Adelaide Oval in the club's traditional Anzac Round tribute.
It will be the club's 600th game in AFL company.
The date - April 22 - also marks the start of the grand Williams' dynasty at Alberton. A nice coincidence ...
Just as Port Adelaide's AFL story began with a hefty defeat (79 points to Collingwood at the MCG in 1997), so did Williams' start - a 74-point loss to eventual grand finalist Glenelg at Alberton Oval on April 22, 1950.
But one game does not define any football club.
In 447 matches in two stints at Port Adelaide - the first as playing captain-coach from 1950-1958 and the second as coach from 1962-1973 - Williams left a legacy that is measured at Alberton by:
NINE premierships (1951, the first five of the "Six In A Row" dynasty from 1954-1958 and then 1962, 1963 and 1965)
SIXTEEN grand finals
PRELIMINARY finals in all but two of his 21 seasons as coach (with a fifth placing at the end in 1973 and sixth in 1969)
FINALS in every SANFL season except 1969
AND the end note from this unprecedented success in South Australian football is how Williams' new foundation at Alberton delivered the Port Adelaide Football Club to the AFL - as the only non-Victorian club taken from a suburban competition to the national stage.
Bob McLean, the Port Adelaide premiership ruckman who became an administrative giant in a solid partnership with Williams, at first regarded the signing of the premiership rover from West Adelaide as a gamble. His management committee had preferred South Adelaide star Jim Deane, but he could not guarantee a clearance to be a playing coach. Remarkably, West Adelaide had decided a fortnight before Port Adelaide made its call to start its revival with an "outsider" that it would not stand in the way of Williams' move to Alberton.
Just two years later, the West Adelaide Football Club's patron Steve Hamra was reaching into his own pockets to lure (unsuccessfully) Williams back. To this day the pain inflicted by one of its sons at Port Adelaide during the heated battles with West Adelaide during the 1950s and 1960s still lingers.
For all that is known so well of Williams' indelible mark at the Port Adelaide Football Club - along with the dynasty that unfolded with his wife Von and children Jenny, Mark, Anthony and Stephen - there also is his unwavering passion and commitment to the growth of Australia's game, "Australian Rules" as they called it in his time.
Williams never feared putting his Port Adelaide teams against VFL rivals such as the imposing Melbourne or Geelong and Footscray during the 1950s and 1960s.
He followed Port Adelaide legend Bob Quinn's commitment to the South Australian State team, serving 44 times as coach - none more famous nor more powerful for State pride than the drought-breaking win against Victoria at the MCG in 1963.
He carried the vision of a national game, notably putting the theme of a national competition on the agenda at the SANFL's "200 Club" gathering at Unley Oval in 1972.
"I remember," Williams later told of the key note in his speech, "appealing to everyone to not make little plans for South Australian football, but to think big."
A decade earlier Williams had returned to Alberton in 1962 as non-playing coach with "The Creed" that has defined the Port Adelaide Football Club's culture, ambitions and expectations - the "We Exist To Win Premierships" mantra.
In 1972, Williams borrowed a poem about the men and women who went to New York City to build an empire:
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably won't be realised…
"Make big plans; aim high ....
"Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things which would stagger us ..."
Less than two decades later, Williams watched his vision become the blueprint for the Port Adelaide Football Club as a national league entry in an expanding VFL, now the Australian Football League. His son Mark completed the dream with Port Adelaide's breakthrough AFL premiership in 2004.
Williams walked into Alberton Oval on April 22, 1950 to deal with a club at the crossroads. He set it on a path to national status. This should be well noted this weekend when Port Adelaide plays the first national league club based in Perth - a match-up that would have seemed a fantasy in 1950.
Those who follow Williams' steps - and those of his loyal foot soldiers such as Geof Motley - to Adelaide Oval on Saturday afternoon will spend a minute in reflection for the Anzacs and servicemen such as Williams.
Another minute could be devoted to remembering - lest we ever forget - the legacy Williams has at Port Adelaide, in South Australian representative football (where the best player in State games earns the Fos Williams Medal) and in the national game.
Elsewhere, more than a minute should be devoted to dealing with the oversight in recognising Williams' complete contribution to Australian football.
By any review of Williams' legacy in the game - not just at the Port Adelaide Football Club - would note a "particularly significant positive impact on the game of Australian football". This is the definition of a "Legend" in the Australian Football Hall of Fame. But that is another story for another day.
For the record, Port Adelaide's 599 games in AFL premiership seasons are split with 572 in home-and-away matches (304 wins, five draws and 263 losses) and 27 final (13-14).
