TIM GINEVER stepped out of his car on reaching Football Park on grand final day in 1994 knowing there was more than a premiership on the line for the Port Adelaide Football Club.

"For nine months," remembers Ginever, then a first-time league captain at Port Adelaide, "every story about the Port Adelaide Football Club was virtually about getting the AFL licence.

"There was a lot on this grand final ... a lot."

As Ginever put foot to ground in the undercover car park next to the changerooms at West Lakes, his nerves and his emotions - as he recalled last week - were overwhelming. He was "on one knee" feeling the pressure like never before, despite his deep experiences of grand final day across his previous seven SANFL seasons.

And then he was swung from one state of expectation to another ....

"Neville Roberts," says Ginever referring to the former Richmond (VFL), West Torrens and Norwood (SANFL) goalsneak, "was there ... going to the rooms for the pre-game set-up on the television coverage. He said, 'Tim, you have nothing to lose ...'"

Before Roberts spoke, Ginever was about to drop to ground on one knee and throw up. Such was the tension on his nerves. 

"Nothing to lose! You want to come to Alberton tonight and tell that to the members!," replied Ginever finding his spine stiffen with his rage.

This would not be the last verbal red flag thrown at Ginever in a grand final that brought the best out of his leadership and his cunning as a footballer. It would become his finest hour in arguably the most significant year of the Port Adelaide Football Club, on and off the field.

ROBERTS had added Port Adelaide "was lucky" to be in the SANFL grand final against raging favourite, minor premier Woodville-West Torrens. It was not a totally ridiculous statement considering Port Adelaide had lost the second semi-final by 73 points to Woodville-West Torrens that had an 18-4 win-loss record during the minor round, four wins more than second-placed Port Adelaide.

But luck rarely features as the key factor in any Port Adelaide appearance in a grand final.

Perhaps Roberts was undervaluing Port Adelaide's nine-game winning streak before the top-five finals series. Even Ginever to this day recognises Woodville-West Torrens had been the best SANFL team until grand final day.

But "nothing to lose" was just too much to swallow for a man who already was so wound up that his stomach had turned upside down on reaching Football Park.

In the plush seats just above Ginever in the SANFL members' section was AFL chief executive Ross Oakley as a guest of Port Adelaide leaders, president Greg Boulton and chief executive Brian Cunningham. Even if - as many sensed - the AFL knew it needed Port Adelaide as its 16th club in the national league, this SANFL grand final had the potential to reaffirm just why Port Adelaide was the right choice, as it was in 1990 when the first move for an AFL licence was sunk in the SA Supreme Court.

Among the 40,598 in the stands and terraces was the Port Adelaide faithful who by their passion were to further convince Oakley of the AFL's need for this well-established supporter base. Ginever knew these true believers just expect to finish a football season in celebration of premiership glory, regardless what the pundits have to say of grand final favouritism that this time was heavily loaded on Woodville-West Torrens.

Nothing to lose ....

FOOTBALL's greatest month - September - began with Port Adelaide paired with Central District in the qualifying final at Football Park. The previous result - at Alberton on July 23 - had ended with a 42-point win for Port Adelaide that was building that defining nine-game winning streak.

That round 19 game began with a 7.2 to 0.0 blitz by Port Adelaide. The qualifying final was all about the finish - in extra time.

"That was one helluva game," says Ginever of the qualifying final. "From seven points down late in the game we somehow get the scores level when the siren goes ... and we have no idea what is to happen next. Extra time or a replay? David Keyes (the team manager) told us we had to play five minutes each way ... we won in the last five minutes (by 13 points).

"That was a hard final. We were exhausted. We went to the second semi-final pretty much spent ... the final margin in that semi-final is false."

A week later Woodville-West Torrens booked its grand final berth with a 73-point win, turning around the 82-point loss from the home-and-away closer at Alberton a fortnight earlier. 

The preliminary final was a non-event despite the anticipation after the drama of the qualifying final. 

"We opened up Central District in the last quarter," says Ginever of the 90-point win sealed with a 10-goal final term.

"We are going to the grand final with three tough finals under our belt. We felt hardened by the finals series ... Woodville-West Torrens is dealing with that question of what happens when you have played just one game in the four weeks before the grand final."

At Oval Avenue, Woodville, the opposition had answered the question by printing back-to-back premiership T-shirts. George Fiacchi had found one and taken it to Football Park.

"George showed it to everyone," says Ginever. "We were not short of motivation."

BY quarter-time of the grand final, Neville Roberts and his co-horts in the television booth at Football Park were further convinced Port Adelaide not only had "nothing to lose" but there also nothing left in the tank to manufacture another remarkable win against the odds.

Woodville-West Torrens led by 22 points (6.2 to 2.4) ... and Port Adelaide appeared as Ginever felt before the match: sick.

"Our start was horrendous," Ginever recalls. "They (Woodville-West Torrens) were kicking goals from everywhere. Everywhere. We were making chances, but ...

"Just 25 minutes in, we are six goals down. I am hoping we can score more than the 1.8 that North Adelaide managed against us in the 1989 grand final. We are in a fair bit of trouble and when we finally get the game rolling in our half, Darryl Borlase says, 'We will win this ...' 

"One of the Eagles players, a young guy, says 'Shut up Borlase!' How bloody disrespectful, I thought. And I said it too ... I am telling this young Eagle if he says it again, I'll belt you!"

If Neville Roberts had stirred Ginever in the car park before the game, the verbal sparring from Glenn Freeborn is the moment that changes the destiny of a grand final ... a premiership ... a year when Port Adelaide was to achieve ultimate triumphs on and off the field.

Freeborn throws back the "Good luck Timmy" barb that becomes the red flag to a bull.

"Ball has gone out of bounds; boundary throw-in and I throw the elbow back and they all come at me," says Ginever. "I smack another one. I have 20 blokes on top of me.

"How am I feeling at this point? Yeah, great ... captain and in this grand final that means everything to Port Adelaide, we are losing badly and I am about to be reported ...

"The umpire says, 'Free kick Tim Ginever'.

"Thank you. 

"I might have taken a 75-metre run-up for a 25-metre kick at goal, but ...

"We have two on the board at the end of the quarter and that North Adelaide lone-goal record in a grand final is off my mind. The margin is less than four goals - we are now in the game. We have hope. The second quarter is full on. The third quarter has momentum swing to us - Stephen Williams is massive in that quarter. We hit the post twice. And the crowd - they are right into this game now. The tsunami is building. We know we have got this."

DARRYL WAKELIN is one of the young guns loaded by senior coach John Cahill during the minor round to inject new enthusiasm to a team that needed a reset after a disappointing 1993 season. Unlike his captain with the weight of a football club on his shoulders, Wakelin arrives at his first SANFL league grand final with that relaxed tone that is well noted throughout his AFL career.

"I am relaxed; I was filled with so much confidence by what we had done before the grand final," Wakelin says. "We did hit the ground that day ready to go. We weren't terrible. We just could not score ...

"Tim put us back in the game by letting out all his frustrations. Big moment that one. We come together at quarter-time feeling it is not as bad as the scoreboard suggested. 

"It became a slugfest after that. Darryl Borlase, David Hutton and Stephen Williams are doing a big amount of the work between the 50-metre arcs. Andrew McLeod is giving us a spark. The balance of this game is changing.

"At three quarter-time we are two goals down - and not showing that hard work on the scoreboard: 6.13! Jack (Cahill) has a pretty interesting call to make at that break. Scott Hodges, does he keep him at full forward? There is a pretty handy option on the half-back line in Mark Tylor. He has kicked a few goals at full forward in his career ..."

Ginever also sensed the same critical call on Cahill's mind.

"Jack is looking at Scott and Mark at that huddle," says Ginever. "He needs to decide who will win us the game. He sticks with Hodges - and he tells him as we leave that huddle, 'Scott, give me something'."

That something is the moment that breaks open the grand final.

"Scott chases down (Woodville-West Torrens full back) Jason Spehr," recalls Wakelin of the book-end moment at the northern end of Football Park, an hour after Ginever had stopped the tide at the southern end.

From the resulting holding-the-ball free kick, Hodges scores the goal that highlights the nine-goal blitz that puts Port Adelaide on the path to a 37-point win ... and the AFL. Hodges finishes with six goals.

"He never gave in," Ginever says of Hodges. "That chase of Spehr ...  chase, tackle, goal. He was not going to miss. He was made to wait for his reward for all his effort that day. But Scott never gave in. Never."

Wakelin claims the Jack Oatey Medal as best-afield.

"I was given the job on Sam Phillipou that day," Wakelin recalls of his critical match-up at centre half-back. "He had had the better of me in recent games. But I took nice marks coming back; a couple of telling ones in the last quarter. They must have caught someone's eye. I had been attacking early in the game. It was a four-quarter effort. 

"A few others could have taken the medal. Stephen Williams and Darryl Borlase were two of our best."

GINEVER delights in taking the Thomas Seymour Hill premiership trophy, the lap of honour at Football Park, the post-match dinner ....

But his true joy was at Alberton.

"I could not wait to get back to the club, to get on that stage and celebrate with our fans," Ginever said. "That was an incredible night ... a night I never wanted to end."

The celebrations went on and on ... 

"We were told we weren't meant to win that premiership; that we were not the best team that year. We were told we should not win it after being behind for so much of the grand final," said Ginever. "But we did win it!"

Later, David Keyes organised a lunch for the 1994 premiership heroes at Swains restaurant at Glen Osmond Road while the Port Adelaide Football Club waited for the SA Football Commission to settle on the winning bid for the AFL licence for entry to the national league in 1997, a year later than originally planned.

"For differing reasons, 15 of us make it to lunch; the usual suspects," recalls Ginever. "And Mark Williams, who is coaching Glenelg and is to be the assistant coach at Port Adelaide in 1997, walks in ...

"He says, 'None of you blokes are playing AFL!'

"He was right. But we wanted to enjoy our lunch ... we didn't need that reality check."

From that SANFL grand final line-up, Stephen Carter and Darren Mead are the only players who make the inaugural Port Adelaide AFL squad. Brett Chalmers found his way home in 1998. Wakelin came back from St Kilda later to be the only player with medals from each of the 1994 SANFL grand final and 2004 AFL grand final won against Brisbane at the MCG.

"I was at the 2004 AFL grand final for Triple M radio," says Ginever, "and the first thing Darryl says to me is, 'How is that for book ends - 1994 and 2004?' I had not realised it was 10 years then. Now it is 30! Thirty years."

PORT ADELAIDE claimed the AFL licence in December 1994. 

Ginever and his premiership team-mates were left to carry Port Adelaide's traditions in the SANFL after a major backflip from the SA Football Commission that had originally demanded the winning bid remove itself from  the State league to re-establish a nine-team competition.

"As a playing group," recalls Wakelin, "we would hear all the talk about the AFL licence. How couldn't you? It was in the media every day. But as a playing group we knew what we had to do. We knew what we could control. We knew there was something significant happening in the background. Our job was to win the premiership. We did that. And now that I reflect on it 30 years later, I am proud of how we finished that year ... if our performance in that 1994 grand final contributed in any way to the AFL wanting Port Adelaide, I am even prouder of what we achieved that day."

The demand at Alberton was to keep winning SANFL premierships - as Ginever and his crew did in 1994, 1995 and 1996 - to make Port Adelaide attractive to would-be AFL recruits. Port Adelaide wanted to enter the big league with grand conviction from its SANFL success stories.

The pressure never subsided, but the spirit of 1994 will never wane either. It defines the Port Adelaide Football Club.