SCHOLARS at Cambridge define a club as "people with the same purpose or interest". As one former English Premier League club owner - Massimo Cellino at Leeds - came to learn: "The only asset of this football club is its fans." Its people ... its community.
Through Port Adelaide's "Golden Era" of the premiership-rich 1950s and 1960s, captain Geof Motley found his motivation to win again and again in the faith of one group: Port Adelaide supporters. "Their loyalty was never in question," Motley noted. "As players, we knew we had only those faithful Port Adelaide people in our corner - and we could not let them down."
For the past three decades the soul of the Port Adelaide Football Club is seen every Monday morning at Alberton Oval behind a big broom and a shovel. They are Dad's Army, a dozen or so unsung heroes serving their club in an era when (as Sig. Cellino would challenge) the worth of a football club is measured by figures on a balance sheet.
Dad's Army - a devoted group that gained its name from the 1970s British television sitcom about the Home Guard volunteers during World War II - came to be in 1989 to save the Port Adelaide Football Club's balance sheet from heavy hits.
"The council was charging quite a bit to clean up the oval after games," recalls Bob O'Malley, a veteran in Dad's Army.
True to the script written for banker cum Captain George Mainwaring, club chairman Barry Wilson gathered half a dozen like-minded men - including former league player Kevin Doyle - to become Port Adelaide's first conscripts to Dad's Army.
"They saved the club a lot of money cleaning up the oval; they made the club a bit of money for the junior programs recycling the cans and bottles left around the oval," says O'Malley. From the start, the oval clean-up took a six-figure sum off the club's annual expenses. It also underwrote the needs of many aspiring league footballers in the now-lost junior squads.
"We stay active (in retirement) ...," adds O'Malley of the purpose these volunteers have found in a new phase of their lives.
The roster now includes virtually every maintenance task at Alberton Oval, from answering alarm bells in the middle of the night to tending the rose gardens that have become Bob Gregory's portfolio as it was for Private Charles Godfrey when not on parade at Walmington-on-Sea in that other Dad's Army.
By lunch time on Monday, they are firing up the barbecue. They will take to the interchange bench for their meal and draw a crowd. The "old soul" of the Port Adelaide Football Club meets the "new heart".
"(Senior coach) Ken Hinkley and the boys will join us for a snag - a dim sim for Kenny, but only if we win," O'Malley said. The "bubble" of a professional AFL unit gets some real air.
Port Adelaide's rise from the SANFL to the AFL in 1997 put more and more duties on the Dad's Army agenda while Alberton Oval drew more fans for special events, AFL training sessions and now AFLW.
"We needed," says O'Malley, "some order to Dad's Army. So, (then chief executive) Brian Cunningham pulled out an A4 piece of paper, titled it 'Dad's Army' and wrote some rules. The first - no-one leaves Dad's Army unless you are in a coffin."
From the original arsenal of brooms and shovels in Dad's Army kit, the crew is now carrying hammers, drills, screwdrivers and spanners to take on any task at Alberton.
"We all have a job to do; we work together as a team and there is never a question of demarcation," O'Malley said. "Barry Wilson has ruled with an iron fist (true to the Mainwaring image).
"We can't wait to get here on a Monday morning," adds O'Malley, who now also serves in Port Adelaide's training staff alongside long-time boot studder Alf Trebilcock. "I am grateful I can do both (Dad's Army and be on the training staff). But some Fridays I will miss Dad's Army (at Alberton Oval) to help at training (at Adelaide Oval) - and I feel guilty. It's weird.
"When (the) COVID (pandemic) locked all of us out of Alberton Oval, we all felt terrible.
"None of us consider this a job. It is an honour and privilege to be involved with this club. We are not paid for what we do, but we are richer for being part of a club - and for having our club within the club. This is real camaraderie - mates looking after mates.
"This club treats us with respect. We know they value what we do."
Former Port Adelaide defender Martin Leslie underlined this in late July when he took a detour in his journey to the airport to stop at Alberton Oval to see Dad's Army cleaning the changerooms.
"Martin wanted to step back to the past; and it's still here today. I think he enjoyed knowing we are still part of Port Adelaide," O'Malley said.
As in football, there are success stories - and defeats for Dad's Army.
"We cleaned up on a Sunday after a family day, collected $700 in recyclables and left them to be taken to the recycling centre on Monday," O'Malley recalls. "Overnight, someone cut through the fence, broke into our shed and pinched the lot ... heartbreaking it was."
Every soldier in this volunteers brigade has a story - a tale that is the rich fabric of the Port Adelaide Football Club's community.
O'Malley is true to that long-standing Port Adelaide heritage of son following father to the heartland at Alberton. Soon to celebrate his 75th birthday, O'Malley found his passage to Alberton Oval through his father's backyard shed in Adelaide's western suburbs.
"Dad would be working on his motorbike in his shed with the radio on every Saturday," recalls O'Malley. "I was five, maybe six. I asked, 'What are you listening to?' He said, 'Football. I will take you one day'.
"From Findon, we took the tram along Grange Road and then rode our bikes to Alberton Oval. It was the 1950s, the start of the six-in-a-row (from 1954-1959). I was mystified by it all.
"Along the fence at Alberton Oval were the war widows. You would have 3000 kids jump that fence to chase one football at half-time. And when the game re-started, we would jump the fence again to get a biscuit or scone and cup of tea from those ladies.
"It wasn't long before I was riding a bike on my own to Alberton Oval."
From growing up on the Alberton mounds with the unmistakable humour of club presenter Barry Curtin and his brothers serving as extra entertainment, O'Malley found his path in football as part of what he calls the "Pooraka mafia" that included Dwayne Russell's tribe. He was successful as a coach at Pooraka while working in the printing game at The News on North Terrace and at Messenger Press at Port Adelaide until his knees no longer forgave him while crouching inside grumbling press machines.
Now O'Malley and his wife Di (better known as 'Midge') live alongside Alberton Oval and are fixtures at the ground where Di is in the club laundry.
"We only go home to eat," says O'Malley.
There is no doubting this statement considering they can be both found at Alberton after midnight on match days.
"We never feel we are doing enough - and that is the same for everyone in Dad's Army," O'Malley said. "This is not work. This is not a job. I love it. I am part of a strong team within a team. I am going to do this for as long as I can.
"I tell you it is a privilege to be among these blokes. The loyalty we form at this club makes me teary. Be it the players of the past or those of today, when they join us in our shed or ask us to join them in their rooms you know we are a football club."
It is the soul of the Port Adelaide Football Club.
"We feel the respect of the players," says O'Malley. "We don't crowd their space. We will sometimes - when it is right - give them some fatherly advice. They don't just sit back though. They will pitch in to when we are busy - they show they appreciate what we are doing for them."
Port Adelaide's mantra of "existing to win premierships" is based on pride in a club of singular "purpose and interest". Within this club there is a little but powerful community at Alberton Oval - a group of dedicated volunteers known as Dad's Army - that fills the club with pride for their devotion and loyalty.
They seek no glory, but add to the essence of a club at Port Adelaide. This is Port Adelaide as imagined in 1870. A club - of people.
