BOB QUINN would unhitch the small boat on the Birkenhead side of the Port River, row to the nearby docks and then warm-up for training with the run to Alberton Oval. He lived the ritual passage of so many fathers and sons of the LeFevre Peninsula, either as players or fans of their local football club.
A century later, the path to the Port Adelaide Football Club is much broader and far reaching - and through a lottery by the national drafts in the AFL and AFLW.
The unexpected fortune of destiny for those who grow up away from Port Adelaide's traditional heartlands - with the chance to stand before a storied locker at Alberton marked by legendary names - is not as new as the club's rise from suburbia to the national stage in 1997.
John Abley during the 1950s, when he left Hawthorn, hopped off the Overland train at the Adelaide Railway Station to be directed to Alberton where he became a national Hall of Fame defender as a premiership hero at Port Adelaide.
Tim Evans during the 1970s moved from Penguin in Tasmania and Geelong in the VFL to become Port Adelaide's first century goalkicker - a 10-time leading goalkicker at Alberton and still the club's most prolific goalscorer (1019 in 232 games).
And there is Milan Faletic ...
His arrival at Alberton midway through the 1978 SANFL season was as unscripted as his journey in Australian football, after his ritual passage (by European heritage) to soccer was cut off at school.
Faletic had two premiership medals by the end of the 1980 season - and was Port Adelaide's best-and-fairest champion in the 1979 premiership-winning campaign - while rejecting VFL club Carlton that had offered another fork in his ever-changing road in football ... and life.
Faletic's reason for rejecting Carlton in 1980 echoes louder in 2023 to give greater context to why Port Adelaide became the only non-Victorian club taken from a State league for national expansion.
"Port Adelaide," said Faletic, "is the best club in Australia. And it has the best administrators.
"At the end of 1978, I thought I should have gone to Victoria ... but I doubt I would have been as content as I am with Port Adelaide."
Today, Faletic - now aged 70 - is in Victoria, having lived in Melbourne for the past 20 years after setting up a cleaning business from afar in Adelaide. His unexpected connection to Port Adelaide - in 78 SANFL league games from 1978-1980 and in 1983 - is unbroken.
"I am there whenever the team is in Melbourne, I want to be there ... dragging my Geelong-mad partner with me," Faletic said. "I want to support.
"I don't mind watching the game today," added Faletic, speaking against the grain of those 1970s footballers who struggle with the "modern game".
"And I keep touch with the club. There is always a premiership reunion. I walked into Adelaide Oval for a premiership reunion last year ... to be greeted by blokes who were from five or six premiership teams. That's what defines Port Adelaide, isn't it? Premierships."
Such success - the SANFL flags Faletic collected in 1979 and 1980, those that followed from 1988-1994 - were part of the irresistible case the AFL embraced to endorse Port Adelaide's promotion to the expanding national competition ...
"Success and supporters. A big supporter base, the biggest in South Australia," notes Faletic.
"I was there in 1990," says Faletic when those "best administrators at the best club in Australia" saw the opportunity to play in the game's best competition.
"I was not surprised by the move at all. I knew the board members; I understood what they were doing. I could see why Port Adelaide would be a good fit in a national competition.
"I feel Port Adelaide has done remarkably well in the AFL. Everyone knows Port Adelaide expects to win premierships. They have more than held their own in the AFL."
An Adelaide boy from the inner western suburbs who grew up with the round ball of world football and never dreamed of playing for Port Adelaide is today as much of the fabric and culture of the Port Adelaide Football Club as Quinn was by his family passage to Alberton by a row boat.
Living in Brompton, Faletic had never followed Australian football before he reached St Michael's school.
"They had no soccer team," recalls Faletic. "I had to play football there. I wanted to stay with soccer at a club, but you could not do both - it was school football first and no club sport. I stopped playing soccer."
Residentialły tied to West Torrens by the SANFL recruiting boundaries, Faletic made his league football debut in 1971. After reaching his 150th milestone at Thebarton, the path to Port Adelaide opened from a fall-out with West Torrens coach, the legendary Neil Kerley.
"I had a verbal contract with 'Kerls' and he did not honour it," Faletic recalled. "It was not about money. You did not get a lot of money with footy in those days. But I had my back up. I'd been pushed around long enough."
Even when Kerley mellowed in his stance, it was too late. Faletic went back to soccer.
"From blue and gold at West Torrens to blue and gold at USC Lion in State league soccer," said Faletic. "And then came the call from Sandy Virgo, who had been secretary at West Torrens and was assistant secretary to Bob McLean at Port Adelaide.
"Sandy said, 'Come to Port Adelaide'.
"I thought, 'Why not'. And by the time 'Kerls' reacted, it was too late. I had found where I wanted to be.
"It could have been Carlton. But I saw Port Adelaide as the club I wanted to be at - it had a good team, a winning team that always wanted to be successful. It had a winning culture. It expected to win. I had come from West Torrens where we were trying to win, hoping we would win.
"At Port Adelaide it was about winning. It is not arrogance. It is confidence.
"And there were some pretty good players - stars of the game - who were all about winning premierships. Russell Ebert, Peter Woite, Bruce Light, Mark Williams, Bruce Abernethy, Greg Philips and the list goes on.
"I would run out onto the ground with those players never feeling any angst, never any anxiety and never any sense we would be in trouble. It was always a pleasure to play in a team filled with team-mates who wanted to keep winning.
"And we would want to win by large margins, as we did in 1980. In some ways, those were a 'weird' few years at Port Adelaide when you come from a club that did not have the same attitude.
"We would have some teams hang with us until half-time. After the break, we would make sure we ran away with a big win. (Coach) Jack Cahill must have thought at times, as long as we turn up to train hard during the week and play hard on Saturday, everything would be fine. It often was."
Faletic did accept the lure of the VFL in 1981, joining St Kilda for two seasons and 24 league games before finishing his league career at Port Adelaide in 1983.
"I was off the rails; I needed a change," said Faletic. "St Kilda offered me that opportunity. I went at 28; I was too old. But it was not just about the footy. I don't regret it. I played on every ground in the VFL ... and from my start against Footscray at the Western Oval, the experiences stay with you for the rest of your life.
"I was spat on by Collingwood supporters at Victoria Park. I had cold showers after games with Essendon at Windy Hill. And at South Melbourne there were just two showers for 20 blokes.
"But I also was playing against some of the game's greatest players."
Faletic today sits back in Melbourne noting: "Now it registers with me just what that phone call from Sandy Virgo asking me to come to Port Adelaide gave me.
"Those two premierships mean everything. That 1979 season - with the flag and best-and-fairest - is my stand-out year."
For a century, young men from the LeFevre Peninsula found their way to Alberton on training nights or Saturday afternoons for league games with that dream to be a Port Adelaide player.
Today, young men and women fill out draft forms across the nation with destiny - as it did for Faletic - giving them the chance to be part of history. The Port Adelaide Football Club's heritage is no longer confined to a postcodes 5013-5018.
