AT lunch on Friday, December 9, 1994 the menu of tasks to undertake at the AFL-bound Port Adelaide Football Club before chief executive Brian Cunningham was long. Lunch was short.

Staff, senior coach, players, legal documents, bartering for recruiting concessions from the AFL, building plans at Alberton, repositioning an SANFL team ... The to-do list was very long.

A new nickname - by necessity as the younger Collingwood Football Club commanded the exclusive rights to the "magpie" motif and the black-and-white livery that came with it - was far from a top priority. It would take six months after earning an AFL licence  - and a trip to the USA in June 1995 - before Port Adelaide turned its attention to new colours and a new nickname.

Yet, by the start of Port Adelaide's AFL on-field journey in February 1997, the conversion from Magpies at Alberton to Power had become beyond all anyone had imagined in the board room.

Port Adelaide was increasingly known as "Port Power". The nickname had become more powerful than the club's proper name.

"As directors," recalls inaugural president Greg Boulton, "we were getting black markers and removing the 'Port' on the logo on our ties so it just read 'Power'.

"We always thought we would be called 'Port Adelaide'. We were to be always the Port Adelaide Football Club, not 'Port Power'. Easy to see that in hindsight, but at the time we could not have been expecting a new nickname would run away from us as it did."

In hindsight, says Cunningham, "to become seen and to be called 'Port Power' was as far away from our intention as it could be ... and if we had let it continue, it would have become the worst decision from our start."

"We always made sure that the scoreboards and official league fixture acknowledged us as 'Port Adelaide' but that 'Port Power' just took on a life of its own," adds Cunningham.

After starting its football story in 1870 with the blue-and-white hoops that were ubiquitous among the working class on the colonial docks of Port Adelaide, the addition of teal blue and silver for the beginning of the AFL journey was straight from the NBA basketball ranks in Orlando, Florida.

"PMS2935C - Magic blue; we (Cunningham and fellow club director Phil Hoffman) saw it everywhere when we were in the USA and the Orlando Magic qualified for its first NBA finals," recalls Cunningham. "The town was so alive. I felt we had to try something like Orlando had found - with its colours and an inanimate nickname such as 'Magic'."

Black, white, silver and teal blue. Colours sorted.

The nickname was more obvious than first imagined as many expected Port Adelaide to adopt 'Pirates' to embrace its seaside base (even if the shores of the LeFevre peninsula never had seen a pirate ship).

"No animal, no bird," says Boulton of the first rule written on Port Adelaide's work papers. "And it was not going to be 'Pirates' while the board - with the marketing expertise we had with Robert Hoey - decided we would have an inanimate nickname that was decidedly different and forward thinking."

While seeking to "move forward" with the need to capture a new, young generation of supporters, "Power" was staring at Port Adelaide from its past.

"Look at those old banners that draped the fence at Adelaide Oval - you will see 'POWERFUL' written on them," says Cunningham. "Look at the cheer squad banner we ran through at the start of the 1979 SANFL grand final (Cunningham's first flag as captain) ... there is 'POWER' at the top of that banner.

"We associate 'Power' with strong performances ... it was the perfect fit for what Port Adelaide had been, why it was going to the AFL and what we wanted to stand for in the AFL."

And there was the alternative view ...

"Yes," says Boulton. "We knew we would get that - what if the power goes out. There was that negative ... but we always look at winning at Port Adelaide."

Colours and nickname were revealed at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on August 31, 1995 ... and, even with the overlooking of pirates, the "Port Power" concept went beyond all expectations forcing the club to reinforce again and again it was "Port Adelaide" by name and "Power" by nickname.

"We wanted something novel," says Boulton. "And we had it get away from  us. Easy in hindsight to say we should have seen that one."