HISTORICALLY, Port Adelaide has recognised in its Hall of Fame premiership eras - the record-setting "Six in a Row" group of Fos Williams and Geof Motley from the 1950s and the group that from 1962-1965 made the Port Adelaide Football Club the most-successful in South Australian league football.
Most appropriately, this year in an anniversary occasion there was the honouring of the men who - after much anguish from 2001-2003 - achieved the breakthrough AFL premiership in 2004.
Brian Cunningham lived through the so-called "Golden Era" of the 1950s and 1960s following his father to the terraces at Alberton Oval to later find his football heroes became his team-mates and much later his soldiers in the Port Adelaide army that rose from suburbia to the national league. As a fan, a player, a premiership captain and then the club's chief executive, Cunningham can look at seven decades of the Port Adelaide Football Club's story and make assessments few could (or should) challenge.
Cunningham will list the 2004 AFL premiership as the most significant achievement in the Port Adelaide Football Club's long list of major accomplishments since 1870. And there are some big ones to put in the field of contenders, both on and off the field.
Cunningham at the weekend told the 2004 premiership heroes - and all those who supported them in the front office and change rooms, to again prove that clubs rather than just teams or players win flags - as much at the weekend when they regathered to celebrate their triumph at the MCG on September 25, 2004.
When a club stands - and exists - for premierships, picking one flag from 41 major trophies assembled at Alberton from SANFL, AFL and Champions of Australia titles is loaded with the prospect of protest or at least long-running arguments.
The "Invincibles" of 1914 - unbeaten in the SANFL, triumphant against the best of the rest in the State league and Champions of Australia as well - could approach the podium to make their case. They defined Port Adelaide from the start of the 20th century. They challenged others to match them. They left a legacy that created the club's traditions.
But even Invincibles captain Jack Londrigan would most probably tip his cap to Matthew Primus and Warren Tredrea to acknowledge the legacy of the 2004 premiership side still carries greater power for the image of the Port Adelaide Football Club.
Port Adelaide is now much more than Alberton and South Australian football.
On winning that battle from 1990-1994 to secure an AFL licence, Port Adelaide left a suburban competition - the only non-Victorian club to earn such promotion - with the inevitable backhander: "Welcome to the Big League" .. you are no longer in that small pond in Adelaide.
For much of Port Adelaide's story since 1870, it was competing against seven rivals in the SANFL and ultimately nine. In the AFL, it began with 15 opponents and now is 17 and soon 18.
Within seven years - after starting 1997 with predictions of claiming the wooden spoon in a winless season - Port Adelaide had three minor premierships and the AFL flag (a record not matched by the club that preceded Port Adelaide to the national stage in 1995, Fremantle).
Port Adelaide took its reputation built on premiership success in the SANFL and in 2004 proved the values and traditions of the Port Adelaide Football a Club could rise to the top of the most-demanding and controlled competition in Australian football.
It is a significant legacy that allowed coach Mark Williams and his 2004 crew to take their bow in the Port Adelaide Football Club Hall of Fame earlier this year. They proved the merit of Port Adelaide's wish to stand alone in the challenge to play and succeed in the AFL rather than be part of a conglomerate - or "composite" as the buzz word was in the early 1990s.
But, as Matthew Primus noted during the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, they do not want to stand alone in the roll call of Port Adelaide AFL premiership teams.
In 2004, Primus led a group that refused to concede after being knocked down in three consecutive finals campaigns that began with promise from commanding home-and-away campaigns.
This legacy might well be the defining note of the group Connor Rozee will take to the finals campaign starting on Thursday night with a qualifying final against Geelong at Adelaide Oval. Sounds familiar that ....
